The double gym doors opened to a magnificent blur. The blonde in Jack's arms had turned their school into an impressive artwork of blood, gore and brutality. The only thing that could come close to rivaling the scene was the fact that Jack was leading them through it without so much as flinching.

"Don' look Missy, walk. We gotta go." The sirens were drawing closer and JC's frustration compounded when they passed one of the classrooms they shared. Students were slumped in their desk chairs or laying still on the nearby floor in pools of blood. Jagged shards of glass from the windows strewn about between them, each lined with tell-tale signs that they were murder evidence. Missy didn't listen to Jack. The hysterical crying of the young woman broke out at the sight of their teacher bleeding over her desk from a well places slice across the throat.

~The U-Haul pulled away with her father in it, and Missy stood on the small piece of grass just before her porch and watched it go. It was hot, muggy, but the girl from Southern Texas was used to it by now-- the oppressive heat of the far south. Sticking her hands into the pockets of her dirty jeans, she let out a small sigh. No kid her age wanted to move. Kicking at the dirt between patches of browning grass, she half heartedly examined the street.~

"I didn't do that. I couldn't have done that.." She was muttering to him in that low voice that was mostly shared in the back seat of his Camaro or in her too young for her canopy bed while her parents were at work. "I didn't--"

~Every house was the same, a small cylinder of a building with an equally small front porch. The paint was a sickening pink, and peeling from the humidity. The peaked roofs formed a perfect line, and other than the occasional child playing, or middle aged woman getting the mail, the street was quiet.~

Movement drew her light brown eyes and just down the hall from them, behind an audio visual cart was a boy that she had lunched with just that day. He was feminine and badly dressed-- a geek to her freak-- but a nice kid, from what she could remember. Her eyes locked on his and he cowered, pressing himself against the lockers behind him. His thought screamed in her mind, and the fear in his eyes tore something inside of her.

~Melissa bit her bottom lip and turned her head to examine the house next door. There was a beaten up big wheels leaning against the house. It looked like it hadn't been touched in years, and made her smile, just a little bit. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles decals stuck all over it reminded her of childhood. It was then she saw the pair of beat up doc martins, and her eyes rose so that they were looking straight into the dingy blue of a boy her own age.

"Hey.." She more mumbled than spoke.

"Hey.." Returned the boy's shy reply.~

"Oh, God, JC, I'm a monster, ain't I?" Missy's whisper was shaky and scared, and she clung to her savior.

Some stupid gas station in some stupid town half a day from the border and they were still at it. "We can', JC, we just can'. It'll put our families in danger and clue them off which way we wen'" Missy was filling the tank of the third car they had stolen. Each one was taken from a different sort of place, and the car they had taken before was never left anywhere close.

"I don' care, Missy. Jus' shu' up. Ain' gonna even put an address on i'." Jack paced angrily in front of the car. They were getting used to this drill now. Fill the tank, make a distraction and get the hell out of there. "Shi' don' ya thin' how yer daddy's worryin'? He' prolly all kinds of pissed a' me."

"I reckon they hope we're dead." Said softly as she stared at the car. "An' listen, JC, it'll have a postmark on it. They'll know we went North. An' they'll be righ' behind us." A wild hand gesture out into the distance. "Tha's it, JC, i's ovah. Jus' gotta pretend they're dead or somthan'" She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

The back window of the car cracked, just a little, and she put a hand over it in hopes he wouldn't notice. She used that to look like she was leaning as she was pumping the gas, her eyes dropping to the concrete.

"*** off, Missy. Ah'm done. Ya can' have yer lil' thought's on tha'. They ain' dea'." JC's rebellion was still what everyone saw first, but even that didn't mean he didn't care what their parents thought.

"I'm outta 'ere." He grabbed a cigarette from a crumpled package and started walking the way they had come.

"JC!" She called after him, pulling the nozzle out of the car and hanging it up hurriedly, spilling gas on the pavement. "Wait.. you can't..." Her voice cracked and her knees went weak. She stumbled as she was following him, tripping on the front of the car.

"You can' go. Yer all I got." Tears were already on her face, he rarely made her cry, and almost never for being sad.

He didn't dare turn to look at her. Two options now. One involved abandoning the girl he loved to keep himself taken care of. The other? Seemed like throwing himself on the train track that he tied her to.

"On yer own, Missy. Yer too much fer me..."

It started as the simple cracking of glass. That quiet careful sound you hear as something slowly comes apart. It was coming from the windshield just behind her. The spider crack traveling slowly at first, then faster.

"Melissa..." He looked at her before the window. He knew what was happening, had felt it before. It wasn't clear if it was the warning that made her stumble back, or the words. But at that point? It didn't matter. Her mouth opened, and it looked like she was going to scream. Or cry. Something. But instead there was a shockwave, he could feel it, though she didn't know. The pain and the confusion of abandonment. Her understanding that she was completely alone, that the one person she was sure would never abandon her was doing just that... it caused something to snap. Again.

They weren't that far apart and he took off in a run that wasn't fast enough, but wasn't too slow, either. Which was lucky, because it was just then that the windows of the gas station exploded. Just like at the school, he had known before it happened. They tumbled to the ground, him on top, her face pressed to the pavement.

Missy didn't have the time to figure out how, she could hear metal bending, breaking. It was happening again. There weren't that many people, but there were enough. The clerk was already dead, she didn't have to look to know that. But was JC? He was on top of her, and she could feel the sting of glass in her arms.

"Jack?" She could barely hear her voice over the rush of thoughts in her head. She was trying to find his in the melee, but it was impossible to sort them all out at the moment. Her head was pounding.

She was shielded from most of the flying shards by JC's body. He couldn't focus on the pain now though. His fingers were caught through her hair as he covered her and he whispered soothingly to her ear. "I'm 'ere Melissa... cool i' baby..."

He needed to stop her shaking. Her crying. He needed his Missy back or they were both going to be caught or even dead. JC stroked her blonde hair and kept talking to her. He had to convince her he wasn't leaving now.

"My Yvonne, the sweetest one, me oh my oh.
son of a gun, we'll have good fun on the Bayou.."

And there it was. His mind. She found it when he spoke to her. Focusing in on it, she breathed slowly. He was there... and though she could hear lots of things he was thinking, lots of things she didn't want to, she could see the scene in his head. As he was focusing on it. It was warm and their bodies were pressed together and he was singing.

"Jambalaya, a crawfish pie..." She was mumbling along with him. Little words, they were quiet and the more she focused on them, focused on that moment, things seemed to calm down. The noises were slowing, the car that was next to them, which had been slowly creeping their way stopped moving. "and a filet gumbo..." Just before he kept singing, though, she broke in with a quiet question. This one sent directly to him.

Missy was wrapped tightly in JC's arms. They were going to need to go very soon, but for now, this time was mutual necessity. He buried his face against the back of her neck at her question and pulled his fingers through strands of her hair, rising only enough to whisper back.

"Neva' again', ma cher amio."

Missy sobbed once and turned best she could in his arms so that she could cling back to him. Her head buried in that place between his neck and shoulder. She could smell the blood on him, he was hurt, but right now she just needed the warmth to remind her that he was still there.

"I'm so sorray, JC. I ruined everythin'. I don' deserve ya. I'm so sorray." Missy was attached to him then, her hands getting cut on the glass in his back, but she didn't care. She just couldn't let him go. "I can' control i'. I'm sorray..."