k edited, with all of that in mind. cant work out what i like.
Chapter One
Sinking slowly behind me was the shadow of a car, feather-light plumes of dark smoke curling from its crumbled body. within it lay three torn skeletons, technically the bones were still coated in a thick layer of organs, muscle, fat and skin yet somehow they seemed empty. Nothing but the shells of people that had jumped ship years before.
I could still hear the broken sobs of Ashley, her body bent over itself far enough away from the car for her to soak in the warmth of the fireball without feeling the harsh burn flash across her body. After dragging her away from the car repeatedly as she clawed at Jackson’s lifeless body, I had settled her on a small rise in the ground. Her broken arm cradled in the makeshift sling . It took me seventeen minutes to convince her that no amount of tender kisses or muffled promises of goodness would shake the breath into his lungs. I couldn’t risk dragging her diseased blonde body behind me broken and cracked as it was.
Seventeen wasted minutes, help would arrive soon, an ambulance would squeal away from the scene. Ashley’s sobs would shake and quiver as she felt herself being physically distanced from the broken bodies that candy coated her life. Poor girl, I’m glad I wasn’t in that deep.
Ever since cross country as a kid I had run faster bare foot, diving behind a native bush and pulling off my torn trainers was strategic even though I sat a little to long, listening to the sirens hurry closer. They seemed to captive me, singing a lullaby of a world left behind. I closed my eyes and shut away the world, focusing on filling my lungs with the fresh air created by kilometres of towering trees. Somebody swore, slipped and ploughed into my shoulder.
“Fuck it, Carter” I cried, recognising the overpowering smell of musk crowding my lungs and the large hand steadying his shaking body on my shoulder.
Carter had been in the passengers seat, where he always sat. Sitting high and mighty over his charges. I still found it hard to believe that he had survived, the way the car had folded itself around a historic tree.
“ It wasn’t our fault, kid” He soothed. Smoothing down my hair and making patterns in the dirt with his feet. He was agitated, high as a kite and as the police cars slid past us in a tight convey I felt his body tense and watched his eyes glaze over. Sitting beside him on the cold dirt, wriggling my toes made me wish myself into Ashley’s position.
“she’ll be fine” he smiled, as if he could collect my scattered thoughts. “She really knows nothing, just an innocent girl wrapped up with the wrong crowd. That’s what the cops will see and that’s what the world would see but we cant be with her. Its hard but were the bad guys, were the wrong crowd.” He finished as he pulled himself to his feet and spun around, without speaking I took his hand and together we slipped through the green undergrowth of the New Zealand bush away from the crash splashed with fragments of our lives.
We ran together, our fingers laced in a silent ideal of freedom for as far as our feet would carry us. It was deep into the night before either of us spoke. I cant remember who started but soon a constant flow of memories swam between us, warming our bodies and flushing away the desperate screaming of breaks and shattering of glass.
“Christen, did you see her at last weeks party?” I gossiped, I felt like an old biddy, all we needed was a packet of cards and ginger snaps.
Carter nodded, something I hardly saw in the dark. It didn’t matter that we were alone now, that the merry men had slowly withered and died. All that mattered was the sky above us, the grass below us and the potential that we would could make it, if we stuck it out it would all be fine.
Ashley would be admitted to hospital, somewhere both Carter and myself should have been with our gapping wounds and growing purple bruising. Soon she would be a kid again, she was still young and there was still a chance she could return to everyday life without realising what she was missing.
Carter, however, was 19, he knew there was more to life than creamy yellow curtains and polished wood floors. Dragging him back into the real world would do more harm than good. he hadn’t been home in 7 years, his parents were trying to have him considered dead by the New Zealand government, funny considering that’s where he should be now. I could imagine him, suspended between heaven and hell. Heaven for bringing so much light into our lives, hell for turning it out as he pleased.
I wouldn’t go back, home wasn’t the same place it had been. It was empty now, pointless. With these kids, these kids that showed me what life was really like I felt alive again.
“You know what? You’re a crazy fucker . I didn’t think I was ganna catch up with you” Carter finally snorted, his fingers stroking my own. I didn’t think he would either, it had always been said. If this went down, if anything went down we all went solo. We cleaned the slate and forgot about any of the other faces that we knew better than our own.
“ Why did you come after me? What about splitting up?” I asked, turning my face towards his. He leaned close to me, our noses touching and electric sparks running through them.
“Fuck the rules” he laughed planting a heavy kiss on my lips, I felt it melt across me. The taste of his lips, cheap beer, weed and tobacco swirl through my mouth. The very same taste had dripped into my life and drew me into his imaginary world of peter-pan style teenager scum bags, our perception fogged by the marijuana poking at the corners of our mind and the adrenalin rush charging through our systems as we lived for each other, and nothing more.
“what are we going to do?” I finally asked, my voice shredding the paper-thin security that had folded around us. Carter shrugged, stretching out on the moist dirt. I couldn’t remember the last time it had rained, my mind wandering my memory banks, falling upon two giggling girls splashing in puddles, matching Barbie gumboots and damp brown hair in two curly pony tails, dancing and spinning in the afternoon wind.
“we are going to sleep, and in the morning find some food cause I’m fucken hungry.” He smiled casually, pulling his blue baseball cap over his eyes and resting his head on a small tuft of grass. I flattened my body against his and pulled his hand across my side.
“maybe we can order room service” I laughed. There was no reply. I had never felt so alone.
Within our group I would be seen as a goddess, the golden haired sweetheart hanging off Carters arm. Within the real world I would be seen as nothing but a punk. A stupid little rich girl that had used a “gang” as a cry for help from daddies little princes. Maybe we were considered a gang, and maybe we had wrapped a stolen car around a tree. But without the thrill of a mugging, or home invasion I was just another rich girl.
Most people in this situation would have run away after tonight. After the leader had been tragically killed and you were on the run from the police. Knowing that your face would be sprayed over televisions nation wide. Video footage of you smiling as the revolver cradled in your arms spat lead, knocking down everything in its path. But once your in this, your in it for life. And that, is exactly why I didn’t leave Carters side.
