Peppermint And Gunpowder

Chapter Two: The Only Place We Can Call Home

Wind presses on my face, blows through my hair and tangles in my clothes. I close my eyes, with my hand out the car's speeding window, and imagine I'm flying. Imagine I'm flying with the birds and among the clouds, away from the world and in my own reality.

The radio blares, everyone sings.

Na, na, na, na, na, na...

Let's blow an artery.

Na, na, na, na, na, na...

Eat plastic surgery.

Na, na, na, na, na, na...

Keep your apology. Give us more detonation.

The tires kick up dust on the California waste lands, and we see nothing but barren land and a dirt road leading to who knows where.

I don't know where we go, I don't know when we'll get there, but--for the first time in my life--I don't care. I trust the man behind the wheel, the man with the brightly coloured hair and odd features, the man named Poison.

I trust him because he's the first person to trust me in a long time.

Yet something inside still tells me this is a bad idea, that I shouldn't be here, with these people. With these Killjoys. They are out-laws, they are rebels, they are criminals.

They are everything I ever wanted to be.

When BLI first came into play, everyone thought it was going to be okay. That is is how the world was supposed to be; but the world wasn't supposed to be a dictatorship from a man who's name we don't know, who strips us of your identity and takes everything that was once something and turns it to nothing.

That's what they do. They take a person, a unique person, a person with a mind and soul and body and turns them into something else.

They'll cut their hair and change their clothes, and they'll never talk again. Nobody knows the person they once was, for that person is long gone and will probably never come back.

But here I sit now, in the backseat of an old car with the radio blaring and wind in my face and five people around me who really believe me.

Or at least I hope.

And even if they don't, for a little while, I can feel like they do. I can feel alive.

Night comes soon, I don't know how much time has passed since we left the BLI offices. I rest my arm on the window seal and try and close my eyes, everyone else seems to sleep. Well, except Poison, who drives and drives on a road that seems to go nowhere.

Beside me, Jet Star sits. A nice man, with a large nose and frizzy hair. And beside him, Gracie leans her small head against the window and fabric covered seats.

In the front, three sit. Fun Ghoul, Kobra, and Poison sit in a line. Poison drives, Kobra rests his head against Ghoul's shoulder, who leans against the window. Poison just stares out the windshield, hands gripping the steering wheel.

"Hey," I whisper, moving forward, closer to Poison. "Where are we going?"

He looks into the rearview mirror at me and smiles, his bright hair tangling in the wind coming through the open windows. "The only place we can call home."

"Where?" I ask, holding the back of his seat for balance.

"You'll see." He says vaguely, averting his gaze back to the endless dirt road before him. "But try and sleep, that's what everyone else is doing."

"You're not." I state.

"Because I'm driving, I can't sleep if I'm driving." He shakes his head slightly.