Junk Love.

eleven.

Chemistry between Mel and Carter is electric zapping between them as vividly as the neon signs reflecting Chinese calligraphy onto the asphalt. They wander the streets, encountering a festival along the way.

With bated breath Carter watches Mel sway alongside dragon dancers looking like she could breathe fire herself. The fox-fur coat compliments her grace and poise. A fan of the twenties era, he imagines her as a mystical flapper girl.

She is a collectors vinyl record that should have been dusted off then appreciated by someone far better than himself. The tracks she plays in Carter's heart are lullabies as vexing as a snake flute.

They're both woozy off rum. Unable to walk any further, they stumble across a local park and collapse onto dewy grass. The hue from Chinatown beckons them back with a brilliant, yet almost forbidding, red glow across the horizon. Silently they marvel at the view.

As day wanes into night, light snowfall pricks the ground with edges of white frost. Sheltered beneath a tree, they lean back, Carter against the trunk with Mel spooned against his chest.

They watch the stars. It's the clearest night Mel has witnessed in awhile. How much she's missed this nook of her world, a bittersweet pang, that swells in her stone chest.She's forgotten what peace feels like.

Uninhibited, she sticks her tongue out to catch flakes of snow on the tip. She's cocooned in Carter's spindly arms, warm and safe, where before him she wouldn't have had the nerve to return to Chinatown. The thought alone is too close to her darkest parts. A story for another time. An unhappier one.

"Mel." He whispers her name like a promise.

"Carter." She sighs, content, as she tilts her head against his crisp leather jacket.

"You make me want to be a better man."

She nestles against his chest making those cute chirping noises she's uncanny to herself as she settles. "You're my man."

Across the way is a silhouette. Even the black beanie on his head can't mask the ratty tangles of his unkempt hair. Despite wearing thin clothes, and an overall rugged appearance, he looks at peace beneath the golden glow of the lamps above him. His weathered face is ducked down, concentrated on the guitar he plays.

Mel's heart twists, empathetic. They're the same. She's merely a sheep in wolf's clothing tonight. A gift she's grateful for but not one she can done much longer. Regardless, she relaxes to the man's music while burying her fists into the fur coat clinging on for as long as she'll be allowed to.

There's a sudden tenseness in Carter. She notices how his muscles clench beneath her until his limbs resemble steel cables rather than grapevines. "What is it?"

"We should head back."

"Now?" Mel grits her teeth at her inability to control a wine in her tone.

There's a sense of urgency when he latches onto her hand enough to persuade her to leave this tiny fraction of paradise. He practically yanks her to her feet and, at a rapid pace, they zig-zag back toward the mouth of the red glow. He's quickening the pace after each block until Mel is practically jogging just to keep up.

"Carter, something's wrong." She can understand that much from the instinctual twist in her own stomach but the impending dread is more obvious by his intensity.

Their escape is short lived. The music from the festival is audible in the distance, a sound that beckons them to sanctuary, but drowned out by a higher pitched siren. Strobing red and blue lights skitter off the tarmac when a police cruiser brakes diagonal across the road, cutting them off.

"Sir." When the officer speaks through his radio his voice amplifies into something as chilling and reverberating as the voice of God.

Mel has her hand clasped tightly around Carter's so she can feel when he balks away. It takes all her strength to hold him in place and her knuckles whiten under strained skin.

"Don't run."

He doesn't blatantly ignore the advise but it doesn't refrain him from shouting, "Bullshit man! Let us go."

A flashlight is shone directly at them, beaming a harsh blinding glare. The officer repeats, "Sir, last warning, put your hands over your head and get down on the ground."

The instinct to flee is as natural to Carter as breathing. It wasn't that he never broke the law he just didn't let himself get caught. There's an earthquake in his soul, shattering him to pieces, when he glances at Mel. He can tell she senses it in him from the ravine-like creases wrinkling across her forehead.

"Don't." She pleads as her vibrant eyes fill with tears.

Despite her grip around his hand, he's able to yank free, like she merely has the strength of a toddler behind her.

The policeman has the same sixth-sense. Seconds after Carter breaks into a sprint, he's sent sprawled out on the pavement by a fired gun. If it hadn't been from the writhing of Carter's limbs, indicating a taser instead of a bullet, Mel would have collapsed with him.

With Carter weakened, the officer deems it safe to approach. Electric shocks ebb from Carter's body too gradually for him to fight back. Mel watches, shell shocked, as his arms are roughly handcuffed behind his back.

Undaunted, Carter writhes like a trapped rabbit trying to free itself from a noose. He yells fuck you along with a slew of other expeltitives. There's spit frothing at his mouth like the rabid caged animal he is.

When Carter is jerked back to his feet by the crook of his elbow he shifts his weight towards Mel. She's as petrified, yet also glorious, as a marble statue.

"I love you!" Those are the final words he cries out before he's stuffed in the back of the car.

Due to the violent circumstance, she's unable to reply with a similar sentiment. Now, as the first tears drip down her cheeks, she wonders if she ever will have the privilege to say those words. There's a hauntingly familiar hollowness in Mel at the realization she may never see Carter again after tonight.

Woe the wrecking ball.

☯

FIN.
Part I.