Peppermint And Gunpowder

Chapter Thirty-Nine: I Want To Be Like You

"Mercury, are you going to fight with us?" Poison asks over his shoulder while fiddling with his holster and adding extra weapons to only use in emergencies--dagars, a regular pistol, what looks scarily close to a grenade.

"I don't know... am I a good enough shot to?" I watch his movements and the glimmer of the dagar moves as he does.

"At this point it doesn't matter if you're a good shot. Can you fire a gun?" He asks, but answers his own question without giving me a chance to respond. "I've seen you shoot, you're good enough. We need all the people we can get."

"Then I will." I pause. "But who's going to watch Gracie?"

He stops. He bites his lip and scrunches up his face.

"I don't know." He sighs.

"I can stay back with her, I don't have to fight--" He cuts me off.

"No, I want you to fight with us." He turns to me. "I will figure something out."

"What about Tommy?" I finish fixing the bed sheets--I don't see the point of straightening them out when we're just going to mess them up again when it's time to sleep, or even if it's not. They always get messed up anyway. "He could watch her while we fight. You know he would protect her, there isn't no way that Tommy would let anything happen to her, she's like his baby."

"Tommy is a good idea..." He nods his head along with his words. "You're right, I'll talk to Tommy as soon as I can, maybe you and I can go down there later today."

Before I can agree, Ghoul walks with Kobra trailing behind him and says, "Hey, Poison, there's someone at the door."

"Can't you answer it?" Poison gives them a weird look but Ghoul just rolls his eyes.

"Dude, you're going to want to go see who's there, and what she has to say." Kobra nods his head encouragingly at Ghoul's words. Poison and I share a confused look before he walks between Ghoul and Kobra towards the door.

"Why can't you just tell me who's--" Poison's jaw drops when he opens the door and he blinks rapidly. He manages to breathe out heavily, "Bandit?"

"I want to fight with you." Bandit says, brushing a strand of strawberry blonde hair out of her face. She seems to have more freckles than I remember, instead of a dot here and there, it looks like paint splattered across her face. She looks more like Helena now than ever.

"What do you mean?" Poison steps away from the door and gestures for her to come inside and she gives a tight lipped smile.

"You know what I mean. I know about the attack, do you think you can just waltz into the BLI lobby and attack a bunch of Dracs? Not a chance. You need as many people rallying behind you as you can get." Her voice is different than I remember. When I first met her, she sounded like a little girl, but now she sounds like a woman who's seen too much danger.

I don't know what happened to her after the death of her mother, but something changed her.

"Bee, are you sure?" Kobra reaches his hand out to touch her arm lightly.

Bandit turns around, takes a deep breath, and says: "Yes, I am sure. I want to fight."

Poison smiles softly and says, "Does this mean you'll be a Killjoy now?"

She purses her lips together and appears to be in deep thought. She shakes her head, her strawberry blonde falling into a cage around her face.

"After my Mama died, I didn't know what to do. I'd been expecting it for a while, I knew it could have been any day, but the way she died... I expected it to be her battery or something natural, not a fire. I told myself that when she passed, I would become a Killjoy and fight alongside you guys, but then it happened and I didn't know what to do. It felt so wrong to do what she'd told me for years not to do. She never wanted me to be a Killjoy, but I did." She pauses, eyes opening and closing slowly and she gives a moment of silence for her mother before speaking again. "But I know what I want to do now."

"And that is...?" Ghoul raises an eyebrow and dodges a punch from Kobra, who had an angry look on his face.

She laughs softly before saying, "I want to be like you."

Poison reaches over and slings his arm across her shoulders and hugs her, cheering loudly.

Kobra and I share a confused look while Ghoul throws his arms up and cheers alongside Poison.

Soon all confusion vanished in a whirl of cheers and laughter and at one point Kobra hoisted Bandit atop his shoulders and danced her about the room.

Gracie laughed loudly, a quality she's obviously gotten from years with the boys, and tugged at Ghoul's jacket until he did the same with her and she cheered just as loud as before, except this time was sitting on Ghoul's shoulders.

From the height of Kobra's shoulders, I catch a glance of a necklace tucked inside Bandit's shirt--a rosary that dangles down past her bust and bounces off her purple shirt

Her jeans have holes in the knees and her shoes are scuffed. Her hands look calloused and her skin is tan. She looks like a real Killjoy, and is just as loud as one too.

Bandit is a desert born and it shows through her actions and loud voice, and her shadow will live on past her and will someday be filled with stories of her life.

Maybe she won't be a famous fighter and maybe she won't go down in history as a Killjoy, but here, she will always be a true Killjoy, with or without the title itself.