"--hands up like a rollercoaster. This love is taking over. Take us higher, here we go. Oh, oh, oh. Welcome to the show!"
Long gloved arms shot up in the air to sway and wriggle to the beat of the music. The young blonde didn't consider for one second how she looked as she let the music free her. The lyrics belted off her tongue and her head rocked side to side, sending loose, feathery platinum strands of hair fluttering about when they didn't stick to the clammy skin of her neck and cheeks.
Joan had needed a break from all things Pilot and squad related so she had high-tailed it out of work come Friday on the first rail going anywhere that was outside of Margad. She hadn't even packed a bag, just threw on some fun clothes and bolted. Between the arguments with Jonesy, the exhausting drills, the antics with Ellis, the worrying and fawning over Mattie's new kittens, and the countless restless nights of late, Joan was more than ready to run and treat herself to some personal pampering of some sort or another.
Four corndogs, a giant soft pretzel, a triple scoop ice cream, and an extra large cone of candied almonds later, Joan had felt sated enough in the hunger department to bounce her way off to the clubs where hours later she was still dancing and singing her ass off. All around her people were getting lost in the music, feeding the empath full of a feel-good high. This was exactly what she needed. No more anxiety and negativity constantly pelted at her, although to be fair Jonesy was trying to be better at that. No more jumping to take care of others. No more being hit on by dumbasses who thought boasting about the size of their dick was the way to win a woman's heart. Alright, maybe there were those two jerks at the bar earlier but they had been easy enough to blow off.
But, the point was she could let her hair down and just melt into the crowd and the beat. She danced for hours until her head was spinning and a fine sheen of sweat coated her skin. She crooned song lyrics until her tongue felt heavy and her throat felt like fire. Joan let herself be free so that she felt like she was flying. It was good to forget obligations and responsibilities for a little while.
So hours later when she was exhausted to the bone, it was a good weariness too, she was ready to call it a night. It was the kind of tiredness that promised a long, dreamless sleep and a slow, lazy re-emergence into the land of the living much, much later. As a chronic sufferer of nightmares and worse, she was hardly about to pass that up. The only question that remained now was whether she should trundle her ass home on the rail again where morning meant facing reality again or if she should rent herself a room for the night and risk the disorientating horror of sleep paralysis in a new environment.
She lit up a cigarette, taking a heavy drag of it before coughing and stubbing it back out. It wasn't what she wanted. Joan flicked the whole thing into a disposal bin as she meandered past it.
"Now ain't that a waste. Kids these days just don't know how to smoke," a smooth voice growled at her from a nearby bench.
The Pilot rolled her eyes and set her jaw, choosing to ignore the man and walk onwards than waste her breath on him. The man stood up to follow her, making Joan stand up straighter, her hands slipping into her coat pockets to grip her com and blindly unlock it. She caught sight of him from the corner of her eye and felt a chill run up her spine. He was huge. Even as a highly trained Pilot, Joan could see she was outmatched for weight and height should things dissolve into a physical alteration. If it meant anything, she really wasn't in the mood for one either.
"I said you wasted the cigarette, kid. If you're not going to smoke them, then don't buy them. I could teach you if you wanted though. Could teach you all kinds of things," he purred, falling into step right beside her. "Got nothing to say for yourself, princess? Come on now I'm only teasing you. Surely a pretty girl like you knows how to have fun, yeah? Maybe? Smile for me princess. I bet you're real pretty when you smile."
At the first lit intersection she found, Joan took a sharp right and tried to peel away from the stranger into an oncoming crowd. Not even his gasp of surprise stopped her as she quickened her pace to catch up with a gaggle of girls ahead of her. If she could keep to safety in numbers then maybe she wouldn't have to beat the living shit out the creep at the cost of her own health.
A bruising grip suddenly yanked her back and spun her around to face her attacker. "Jo?" he asked, earning a fierce glare as she swung to strike him. The hand in her pocket clutching her com, pressed nine and then dial moments before he caught her punch and trapped her arms firmly against her sides. It was not that long ago that young Pilots like her had suddenly gone missing in a case that had affected several domes across the country. Was that what this was? Or was it a "simple" case of assault and worse?
Joan didn't want to wait to find out. She could only hope and pray that the person on the other line wouldn't think she was up to her usual mischief and would recognise the potential trouble of her calling and not answering. She rocked back onto her heels and dropped her weight like a rock, forcing her captor to become unbalanced and crouch over her. Joan did not stop there as she then used her free legs to her advantage to kick and twist about violently while screaming and shouting at the top of her lungs. She was not going to be prey. She was not going to be a victim. She was not going to be some man's toy tonight.
She was yanked up onto her feet again and squeezed tight into a bear hug, her arms trapped between them and his arms crushing her head and waist to his body. That low voice was calm and smooth as he fought to speak over her and be heard. But Joan didn't want to hear him. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to be touched. She didn't want to listen to this monster that acted like he knew her.
"Joanna listen to me! Jo! It's me. You didn't forget me, did you Lil Sting?"
Lil Sting.
That name made her freeze suddenly, her breath frozen within her breast as she turned wide, brown eyes up to meet his doe-eyed gaze. "What did you just call me?" she barked hoarsely.
"Lil Sting," he repeated, loosening his grip and smiling. "It's me, dad. You didn't forget your old man, did you?"
Joan felt sick as she ripped herself from his embrace and stumbled backwards. "I hardly recognised you though," he continued. "You look just like your mom. You've really grown up. How you doin' kid?"
Her nostrils flared as he just stood there smiling toothily with open arms. Joan though felt nothing but rage for the man before her. This was the disgusting piece of trash that had sired her? This was the degrading filth that had moments earlier hunted her like a predator? This man who sure as shit did not look dead like Nonna Anna had said and did not look drugged out of his mind as she had suspected was her father? This was the infamous no-show dad, Joseph Bartholomew Tucker?
The Scorpion shook her head from side to side first slowly and then faster and faster until her blonde ponytail was whipping from side to side and beating her cheeks. She back-pedaled away until her shoulder clipped a lamppost and then she turned and bolted. Joan ran and ran unsure if she was being followed or not but unwilling to chance it. She couldn't do it. She couldn't stay and see him and everything he represented from her past. He may not have been the one to harm her but he had good as doomed her to a life of nightmares and suffering.
By the time she made it to the rail station, she was shaking with adrenaline and completely out of breath. Her lungs were screaming and seizing for air even as she moved to lean up against a tiled wall. Gasping for air she plunged her hand into her coat and rummaged around until she was able to drag out com, still on with an answered call.
"Jonesy?" she asked, voice shaky and ragged. "I'm okay. Can you meet me at the Margad station in a couple hours? I'm coming home on the next rail from Haviah and I don't want to go home alone."
So much for a peaceful birthday weekend alone.
