Getaway

[17] Loving Dread

Just then, Blu bursts in through the door. His hair brushed out in every direction, his jeans ripped from the waist down. In an instance the girls all turn, sharply.

"Jayla," he lunges towards her, "Can I have your phone?" He is smiling.

Confusion aches in her heart. No one understands.

"Uh-" she stutters as the ship begins to sway. The police are still here. Everything feels sterilized and cold even in the warm glow of the orange light. It's dark. The vanilla and blueberry candle Aspen lit with Blu's lighter he gave her is flickering. It lights up Blu's face again, a brown under-shadow making him look too cute to say no to.

"Yes? Is that a yes?" Blu tickles her, and suddenly the heat of that one flame seems so warm. It seems like things might be okay.

"Yes," she almost giggles, blinking the last bits of salt water out the corners of her sticky mascara eyelashes.

---

The girls are nervous, as they stand, apart side by side, under the air-conditioned room of the airport. Their cases are being passed under the scanner, and they walk through. It beeps on Chris and he has to take out his lip ring. All of them are wearing brightly coloured sunglasses; even though it doesn't match their mood.

"Come on, y'all," hollers Blu, who has had a few to smoke already today. "Back home to California, nothing to be down about," and they all let him hug them.

---

"Today a court case is being held, in which it will be decided whether Raphael, more commonly known as 'Raven McQueen will be sentenced to prison or not. Either way, he will be deported back to the United States and will not be allowed to leave the borders for a further six months..."

Leya sits up in her room, watching the TV off her laptop, eating poptarts out a box. Downstairs, a little before her sound, she can hear the same news from the TV in the living room, and she knows her mum is watching.

---

Back at another hotel, exhausted and jet-lagged the girls all pass out on the bed, sunlight beaming down on their tired faces. Blu is about to join them when he gets a phone call.

"Hello," he walks to the window, and gets out a sugar dusted donut from the paper bag sitting there that reads Dinky Donuts. He begins to chew on it, letting the sugar melt in his mouth. All of a sudden Aspen sits up.

"Oh my goshles, donuts!" At once she kicks herself up off the bed, and grabs a handful and begins nomming them like a cute little cat. Blu laughs at her, and pets her head as she nibbles away at the sweet treat.

"Uhuh, Phoenix, don't mean to be rude, but I can't hear ya here, one sec, dude..." Blu walks away and drops his half bitten donut on the bedside table, and shuts himself inside the shower cubicle.

Continuing his phone conversation, eventually all the girls are awake.

"This is good, good, good," ensures Aspen, her cheery green eyes bringing life back to the scene, as Sapphire and Jayla, two sisters who had grown further apart in this crazy adventure of time, and yet closer together in other ways – start to chew on donuts with her.

Throwing the phone out the gap in the creamy turquoise misted glass, the water is turned on and gushes down. In all of his clothes, fully dressed, Blu is taking a shower. If he wasn't before, now he has gone fully mad. He is grinning wide open, and shaking his head about yelling 'Wahooo!'

"Um, Blu?" Sapphire peeks around at him, and Aspen is giggling kicking her legs about off the bed as if they are in a pool.

"Raven is free!" He jumps out the shower, turning the tap off, and steps onto the floor, looking like a movie star, or someone in a perfume advert for Davidoff, as all the water drips off of his buff and toned body. His white shirt now almost see-through, sticking to him in ridges. His jeans are tight and dark, the fraying rips even more straggly.