Save yourself, I'll hold them back.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As the door swung shut and a cloud of dust particles flew up into the stuffy air from where the door had scraped the floor, Nimrod and I turned to look at each other simultaneously.

In the silence of the tiny room all of the emotions and thoughts of the past few hours were starting to bubble to the surface, and I could tell by the way Nim was staring at me that she could feel it too. The thoughts of everything we had lost and where the hell we were and all the people we'd met and EVERYTHING were free to roam around my still pounding head and were beginning to hurt.

Looking at my best friend I could just see the emotional turmoil churning behind her pained eyes, all the hurt, all the pain, all the pani-

'Wanna try on our new clothes?!'

Nim grabbed the bundle of items from the dirty ground and flashed me a winning smile.

Maybe not TOO emotionally

destroyed then.

Filtering through the pile Sparkle had given me I started to strip my soaking clothes off and pull on the battered and bright ones that I had been assigned, as Nimrod did the same.

I found a once long-sleeved denim shirt with a music note on the front that was now bleached by the sun and ripped into a sort of crop-top, I tied this up to keep it in place and then pulled on a turquoise leather waistcoat with a purple 'L' on the back. I managed to turn a pair of battered and ripped beyond repair skinny jeans into some too short- shorts, and then I used a scrap of turquoise material covered in music notation as a bandana in my hair, to keep it from falling out of it's scraped back bun. Pulling on a pair of knee high purple boots and lacing them up, I found a holster inside, and decide to put it on despite the fact that I had neither got nor knew how to operate a gun. Fixing this to my thigh I spotted the final part of my outfit, the purple mask that got stuck in Sparkle's hair when she tripped earlier on. I fitted it over my eyes, trying to adjust to my new line of vision, as I did so catching a glance of Nim.

She was wearing tough knee high boots like mine but hers were blue and had dark purple laces. She had on ripped fishnets, a purple flared mini skirt, and a blue crop top with a black mesh long sleeved top over it, topping it off with a cropped purple leather jacket with a blue 'N' on the sleeve, a black bandana around her neck and an electric blue mask.

'Stop staring eejit, I know I'm attractive but I'm getting dressed, it's freaking weird'

I threw a spare bandana from the floor at her face in reply to her comment as she laughed at me, and she then threw it along with her old clothes into a pile in the corner, where I chucked mine too.

'Right we need to see a girl about a gun'

Nim stated with a hand on her hip, strutting up to the door and flinging it open, me close behind, mirroring her confident stance.

Blinking at the bright morning sun beating down into the desert I began to make out figures outside of the hut.

I spotted the 4 men from before Jet, Fun, Party and Kobra over by a battered looking car with a spider design, and the shorter one waved at me with a grin. Smiling back at him I turned past the car, spotting Sparkle lying on the desert floor sunbathing whilst chatting to a group of people around her, 3 girls and a guy, all basking in the morning rays.

I gestured for Nim to follow and started strutting towards them. When I was positioned directly behind Sparkle I lost some of my confidence and considered turning around, but without opening her eyes she smiled and spoke in her lilted accent, soft yet powerful at the Same time, saying