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There were no real rules to soulmate marks. They could be anywhere on your body, but superstition said that it foretold a troubled relationship if you couldn’t see it yourself without a mirror. They could be any color; the shade of a freckle on your skin, or as white as paper, or as black as ink. Different colors definitely meant something, but there was no consistency in what that was. Pink could mean a more platonic relationship or it could indicate that the soulmates would meet young. Black could indicate a steady strong relationship or one cut short by tragedy. People who’d met their soulmates and known them for years insisted that everything about your mark has a meaning that you’d never be able to guess but that you’d be absolutely sure of once it became apparent. People who hadn’t met their soulmates yet tended to think that was bullshit. Even the absence of a mark could mean several things. Maybe your soulmate was going to change their name and you’d get your mark when whoever it was you were destined to meet chose their true name. And then there were the rare cases where soulmates only got their marks the moment they met, usually in cases of chance meetings where the individuals never would have spoken again if not for the sight of the names simultaneously scrawling across their skin. Or maybe you just didn’t have a soulmate, there was no guarantee everyone would. But a mark was always a name. You could get any combination of initials and the full words, the middle name could be present or not, it could be a nickname or a legal name, it could even be multiple names, which usually but not necessarily meant it was multiple people. There were no real rules to soulmate marks, but Amanda’s managed to break them all anyway.
Her parents were worried after she got her mark. It wasn’t even a word. It’s color was so striking, so odd. Was it even a soulmate mark? Could the nerve disease that ran in the family have affected her mark somehow? Did this mean she was definitely going to get the disease? They hurled these questions and more at doctors and specialists who poured through files going back five generations but were unable to give the Brotzman family any answers. Pararibulitis was such a rare disease that it didn’t really have any known rules either.
“Maybe it means I won’t get the disease.” A young Amanda said to her brother as they listened to their parents’ scared and harsh words from the next room. “Maybe if whatever causes it did this to me it won’t do whatever causes the attacks.”
“Maybe.” Todd replied with the air of wisdom one only gets when speaking to a younger sibling. “But maybe it’s just a regular soulmate mark.” Amanda gave him a look of obvious disbelief so he went on, “Listen, you’re so weird that anyone who’s your soulmate has gotta be some kind of weirdo freak too.”
“Jerk!” She punched him in the arm and they both dissolved into a fit of laughter and half-meant insults. For years whenever she thought about her mark she’d remember that conversation and smile and secretly hope that maybe Todd had been right. She didn’t worry about it too much though, whatever the mark on the back of her right hand meant it was just a part of her, and she had never been one to let strange looks make her self conscious.
In fact, most of the strange looks she got in public were not in reference to her mark at all but rather due to the fact that she had embraced the punk rock aesthetic at a surprisingly young age. At first she had just been trying to copy her big brother but over time she took to the punk lifestyle much more than he ever had.
“You were always too much of a rebel for anything about you to be normal.” Todd told her one night when she was a teenager after he noticed her tracing the electric blue lines of her mark with her fingers. She was wearing all black, heavy makeup, and looked like she was ready to use her combat-boots to step on any establishment that tried to get in her way. Todd had snuck her into a shitty bar so she could listen to his band play and she had spent the night dancing to the music and reveling in the thrill of being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.
“Are you sure it’s not that I’m too much of a freaky weirdo?” She replied with a snarky grin.
“That too.” And he ruffled her hair.
But when she got the disease everything changed.
Her parents hadn’t been really worried about her for years, they were too busy being worried about Todd, but now both of their kids were sick and that broke them. Financially as well as emotionally. Amanda almost started to think of her strange mark as a sign that she had been doomed from the start. But she pushed those thoughts out of her mind. There was no reason to think it had anything to do with the disease. Todd had a normal mark and he had gotten sick. It was pale like a scar and cursive like a signature with only the initials definitively legible, it had shown up on the small of his back when he was seventeen and Amanda had teased him by calling it a tramp stamp.
And Todd had gotten better after he got sick. For the first time in recorded history someone had recovered from pararibulitis. And if it was possible that meant there was a chance she would get better too. As a way of enforcing hope for the future she started to convince herself that it was a normal mark, that she had a soulmate somewhere, and so she started to wonder about who was out there in the world waiting to meet her once she was no longer bound to her house.
She honestly couldn’t ever fully imagine what they would be like, or even what she wanted them to be like. It was all too much of a mystery without even a name to go on, and it all existed in a future that was too hypothetical and vague and uncertain. But one day she looked over the wardrobe she neglected in favor of hoodies and sweatpants and the makeup that she wasn’t going to have the chance to wear in public again for years, probably, and thought to herself, When I get better the first thing I’m going to do is get a haircut my parents would hate and a cool leather jacket.
And in that moment she knew that anyone who was gonna be her soulmate was as punk as she was. And if that was all she was gonna know it would be enough.
But most of the time there wasn’t a lot of room for thoughts like those as the fear and helplessness filled up her mind. Anything could trigger an attack and so many of them started on her hands that she started wearing long sleeves just to avoid having to look at them. Even when she could see it though she didn’t think about her mark too often, it was just a part of her and it was easy to ignore now that she almost never left her house and Todd was the only person she ever saw. Besides, as she had gotten older anyone who happened to see it usually assumed it was a tattoo and didn’t comment on it. After all, what reason was there to think it was a soulmate mark when it wasn’t a name or even a word. And while blue marks weren’t entirely unheard of they definitely weren’t common either.
One time, she had a particularly bad attack and saw bright hot lightning jumping across her hands before it moved to cover the rest of her body in a web of shocking burning pain. After she finally managed to get to her pills and the pain faded she noticed that her mark was almost the exact same shade of blue that the lightning had been. In a fit of absolute frustration and anger that had been building beneath the surface of her for years she screamed and started clawing at her mark with her left hand, ignoring the pain and the blood and the purposelessness of the act until she had screamed herself hoarse and then she sat down on the floor in the corner of her bathroom and sobbed. When her hand healed the mark looked exactly the same as it had before. Soulmate marks never changed or scarred. Despite this proof, after that day she stopped thinking about it as a mark at all, because even if it had been supposed to be one it was broken by the disease just like the rest of her was and she wasn’t going to even consider if that meant she had a soulmate or not until she got better. It wouldn’t matter until she got better anyway… if she got better.
Over a year later she met Dirk Gently. He was the first non-Todd person she had actually had an in-person real conversation with in a long time, and he didn’t shy away from rude questions. After bluntly asking her about pararibulitis he caught a glimpse of her hand and exclaimed,
“Is that your soulmate mark?!”
“Uh yeah, I guess.” Amanda replied. “I think the disease messed it up though.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s just a regular mark.”
“Why would it be, it’s not a name?”
“It could be a name, like a really weird name. Or maybe marks don’t actually have to be names.” Dirk looked away suspiciously as he said this.
“Why are you so sure it’s supposed to look like this? Have you ever seen a mark like this before?” Amanda started to get a bit frustrated with his optimism. She didn’t want to think about her mark or the possibility of a soulmate until it actually mattered and wasn’t just one more thing the disease had taken from her.
“No no it’s nothing just, well, I mean, I’ve seen something that looks like that before, but not exactly like that, and not a mark I don’t think, and I can’t see what it could possibly have to do with you, so it’s just a weird coincidence.” He turned away and muttered under his breath, “A really really weird coincidence.”
“Just a coincidence?” Todd chimed in mockingly. “I thought everything was connected?”
“Todd, you mentioned jamming? I’d love to hear you and Amanda play something.” And that ended the conversation.
Later when Todd was leaving he apologized. “Sorry about Dirk, he’s just some weirdo who offered to drive me here.”
“I don’t know, I mean he’s got like zero social skills but he seems kinda exciting and fun.”
“I don’t think my life needs any more exciting things right now.”
“Come on dude! You gotta do all the exciting shit that I can’t so I can live vicariously through you until I get better.”
Todd looked pained by this comment so Amanda continued in a different direction. “Plus, y’know, his name is Dirk Gently. D.G. You think maybe…?”
“No. No. Absolutely not. Trust me, he’s not.”
“Okay, okay, whatever you say.”
Todd smiled at her. “Bye Amanda, I love you.” And he hugged her.
“Yeah I know, love you too.”
Then he left.
The next day the van showed up outside of her house. Loud music reverberated through the street from its speakers and it was covered with a million different colors of graffiti but too crowded for any letters or numbers or symbols to be recognizable, at least not on the side she was looking at. It looked like exactly the kind of van that would contain multiple violent and dangerous people and Amanda was scared. She ran back into her house and shut the door behind her fast. Then she realized how tired she was of being scared and for the first time in a long time she let herself be angry instead.
And nothing changed. When she screamed and threw a brick at the van no one jumped out to come beat the shit out of her but the van didn’t leave either. They threw the brick back at her but the note saying “Hi.” had ruined anything threatening in the act. The van was still just there. Inexplicable and unescapable.
But it felt so good to be angry instead of scared, it felt like something close to having control again. So she opened up her garage door and took her drumsticks in her hands and played her drums without any reason or melody guiding her, just doing whatever felt like it would release the most anger, the most defiance that had been building up pressure in her heart for years.
And when she finished pouring out all of her frustration and looked to the van for a response she heard a bunch of voices cheering, howling, and yelling and echoing the triumph she felt in her own heart at finally fighting back against something, however ineffectively. When she flipped them off they just cheered louder.
It was that cheering that made her decide to leave the house. She wanted to feel more in control, feel like she had won just for a moment. She wanted to be defiant again. She wanted to keep fighting, to keep feeling like fighting made her feel. She wanted a victory so that she could cheer for herself too. So she walked to the grocery store with the van following faithfully behind her. She looked back at it and it stopped. She saw for the first time that it had “OH NO” written on the hood in bright red letters. She heard the engine start back up as she started walking again. She felt better with the van there somehow, it felt like something she could handle, something she could control even if she couldn’t get rid of it. And, well… as creepy as this whole situation was, she, on some level, was kinda glad that she wasn’t alone.
She had gathered the food she wanted and brought it to the cashier without disaster, she had done it, she had made it. She was more happy than she’d been in years. She thought about how when she walked out and saw the van again she would hold up her bags like trophies and cheer, thought about those voices from inside echoing her as they followed her home. She realized she was actually looking forward to seeing that freaky van again if only to have an audience to her victory, to be able to shove her accomplishment in their faces, and she blamed that on the fact that she hadn’t had a single friend besides her brother since she got sick. She supposed that you could learn to tolerate anyone’s presence if you were lonely and desperate enough.
Then as she was reaching for her wallet it all fell apart. She felt the tension in her nerves that signaled the onset of an attack and stared in horror at her left hand as it appeared to burst into flames. All of her momentarily forgotten fear rushed back as she tried to get to her pills but they all spilled out across the floor and she panicked. She managed to grab her phone and call Todd and and scream at him for help, and she berated herself for being stupid enough to think she could get away with this little adventure as she ran out of the store. She had dropped her phone and abandoned her groceries and was just running blindly into the parking lot. She was running on panic instinct now, futilely trying to outrun the danger inside her. She needed to get home, she needed to get to get to her medicine, to get to her brother, she needed to get help. Help. That was the thought that took over her mind and it was the word that tore it’s way out of her throat in a scream again and again as the fire spread over her entire body and she collapsed in the parking lot. She was burning.
And then suddenly she wasn’t. And she saw and heard so many things. Things that didn’t make sense but whispered secrets and promises of things to come. Things that were there and gone in a flash but were burned into her memory forever. But what stuck with her the most was what she saw right before the vision started. Four faces above her surrounded by electric blue light.
When she woke up, she was back in her garage. She heard footsteps and then an engine getting farther and farther away and then she was left alone with the bag of groceries that had been gathered up and set down beside her next to her phone. She had a hell of a lot of things to think about.
Over the next two days things just got weirder and more exciting. Todd had somehow gotten himself mixed up with a mystery involving maps and secret tunnels and buried treasure and creepy FBI agents and a weird psychic detective and a badass woman with a gun who Amanda thought was way out of Todd’s league (and she made sure to let him know that she thought so at every opportunity she had. It was her duty as a younger sister to do so). Strangely though, the more weird things got the more Amanda felt like things were finally starting to make sense. And when a chance encounter brought her face to face with the men from the van again for a frantic minute as they inexplicably appeared to pull Dirk and Todd out of a burning secret passageway(!) under Todd’s apartment building she knew with complete certainty what she was going to do. And she knew she wouldn’t have to wait long for an opportunity.
The next day when she heard the now familiar growl of the van’s engine outside of Todd’s apartment Amanda felt like it had been waiting for her. Waiting for her to be alone, to be ready to leave, ready to go where she was meant to go. Because of that feeling she wasn’t entirely surprised when she looked out her window and finally saw what was written on the van’s passenger side doors. Even though she had been expecting it, it still made her heart start racing. She ran outside as fast as she could just because she felt like she had to see it up close to be sure that it was real. There were a few different words written on the van’s doors in that bright red paint but the only thing she focussed on was the big number 3 with those same sharp swooping curves and corners that had become so familiar to her over the years.
When the van door slid open in silent invitation it felt like she was finally, and for the very first time, going home. Amanda didn’t hesitate.
……………
The three boys had been proud of their marks at first, when they were first thrown in that cage together. It meant that they belonged together, that they were the same. They were stronger together and together they could be strong enough to survive all the shit these people could throw at them. They took it as a name for themselves and made it part of a mantra. They were The Rowdy 3 and you couldn’t separate or control them. They carved it into the walls of their cell and they screamed it at the guards and the soldiers and the scientists, and the first time they heard someone else call them “The Rowdy 3” instead of “Project Incubus” they felt like they’d won.
And then Mr. Priest dragged an eight year old child into their cell kicking and screaming and left him there.
The kid was scared and hurt and sat curled up in the corner. Cross had tried his best to make him laugh or smile and Gripps had put a blanket around his shoulders but when it became clear that he’d need more time to feel safe they walked over to where Martin was standing, leaning against a wall and staring at the camera on the ceiling with so much hatred and disgust than the others would have been able to see it even if they hadn’t been able to feel it.
Gripps punched a wall hard enough to make the room shake. “It’s not right.” he said in his matter of fact tone that just made whatever he said feel more true. He was overflowing with cold anger.
“Don’t.” Martin scolded. “You’ll scare him.”
“Jesus christ, he’s just a kid.” Cross said, looking over at the seemingly impossibly small figure. “We weren’t that young when they first brought us in.” They had been young, but still older than this boy. They were all somewhere around their early twenties by now. It was hard to tell since they had no way of knowing how long they’d been in this place. Cross might still be eighteen or nineteen.
“He’s definitely one of us, though. I can smell it. Feel it.” Martin replied. The other two nodded in agreement.
“How’d they know though?” Cross asked Martin. Martin was the oldest, and he had lived free in the outside world longer than the others so when Cross had questions he usually turned to him. “Regular people can’t smell nothin’. What could a little kid have even done to get their attention in the first place?”
“Three.” Gripps said. He hadn’t hit anything else but this word was practically a growl. Martin and Cross growled plenty but from Gripps it was rare.
“What?” Cross asked, confused. Martin just pointed as Cross saw him realize. His eyes looked empty like everything inside him had started falling and Cross could feel the guilt bloom in Martin and swallow up every other feeling in him as he sank to the floor. Cross looked where Martin was still pointing and saw that the kid now had his hands up over his face. There was a bright red number 3 on the back of his left hand. Cross howled out of anger and sadness and then let himself hit the floor next to Martin, he felt sick to his stomach. They’d found the kid because he shared the mark that they’d been so proud of.
For a while all four people in the room wallowed in despair that they all felt from each other as well as themselves. Cross yelled, Gripps cried, the kid started rocking back and forth. Martin was silent and still, holding his head in his hands and breathing heavy and fast like the momentum of the movement of his lungs had gotten away from him. Eventually Martin regained some control, took a deep slow breath and stood up, steady determination radiating from him and somewhat calming the others, and he walked over to the corner that the group’s newest addition was curled up in and crouched down to be eye-level with the child.
“Hey kid, look here.” He said, holding up the back of his own left hand so the small boy could see his identical mark. “This right here means we’re the same. And that we all belong together. You, me, my name’s Martin by the way, Gripps, and Cross.” Cross pointed to himself and waved when Martin said his name which made the kid smile just a little and seemed to bring some light into the room. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Jacob Vogel.” The kid answered in a small, shaky voice.
“Well, Vogel, I don’t know what kind of life you had out there, but now we’re your family. And I’m not gonna lie, this place you’ve ended up in, it ain’t good. But family looks out for each other, takes care of each other. You’re not alone here and you ain’t gonna be alone. Not ever again.”
At this declaration Vogel threw his arms around Martin’s neck and Cross and Gripps breathed a joint sigh of relief as the last of Vogel’s fear of them dissipated. Martin gathered the small gangly child up in his arms and walked over to where the beds were. There were only three of them but the rowdies tended to sleep on the floor anyway in a tangled nest of pillows and blankets.
Cross put a blanket on one of the beds and Gripps grabbed a pillow. Before Martin set Vogel down on the bed the three older boys all simultaneously looked up into the camera with identical anger and singularity of purpose. In a far away room a couple of security guards suddenly felt like deer under the gaze of a pack of wolves. Wolves who had just been given a cub to defend.
It took them longer to escape than they would have liked. They’d attacked the first guards that had come to take Vogel for experimentation but they’d ended up stunned and collapsed against the back wall. The shocks and the gas didn’t sting as bad as the knowledge that they’d failed and Vogel had been dragged away crying and screaming for help, and the knowledge that it was going to keep happening again and again until they found some sort of weak point to attack, which would take who knew how long. While they were still trapped they took care of the kid, shielded him from what they could, tried to keep him happy, told him bedtime stories. And they made sure he knew Supervisor Riggins was lying when he tried to be his friend.
But eventually the perfect opportunity presented itself and then the building was burning and crowds of prisoners in jumpsuits and soldiers in body armor were pouring from the exits and all running for their lives and Gripps was helping Vogel over the top of a fence and into Martin’s waiting arms while Cross kept watch. As soon as they were all free and clear and had found a place to sleep Martin walked off after telling his boys to stay put and then came back half an hour later with four pairs of gloves. Cross raised an eyebrow in question when he saw them.
“Anyone left alive’s gonna be looking for us.” Martin answered. “No need to make it too easy for them to recognize us.” He tossed a pair to each of the others.
“Don’t like ‘em.” Vogel muttered, struggling to get his fingers into the right places. Gripps took the gloves from his hands and cut the fingers off with a pocket knife he’d picked up somewhere in the chaos.
“There. Now you look real cool.” Gripps said as he fit the gloves over Vogel’s small hands. “Real punk rock.”
“Really?!” Vogel’s face lit up instantly “Like you guys?”
“Yeah, just like us guys.” Gripps smiled and Cross grabbed the knife and got to work on his own gloves.
It was quite some time before any of them stopped covering their marks, but after years without a single run in with anyone from the government slowly the fear went away and it became something to be proud of again. First Gripps then Cross and then a bit later Martin and Vogel began to show off their marks. Gripps painted it on the van they found and sometimes on the places they trashed. It told the world “Look out. We’re here, we’re together, we’re unstoppable, and we’re rowdy so you’d better not mess with us.” And for years life went on like that. They never settled anywhere, constantly being led around by fate and chance and the british guy’s panic and the smell of danger, bringing chaos to wherever they ended up. They were as free as anyone could be and they were together and they had the van to sleep in and life was perfect.
It was sixteen years after the breakout when something changed.
Martin had no idea why he’d stolen the picture. In the moment it had seemed like just another random act of destruction. Everything else about the day had been normal. They’d caught the scent of British Guy’s constant underlying aura of panic and the general strangeness that set him apart from everyone else just as they’d started getting hungry, like they always did, and they had slowly but surely tracked him down to some random apartment building. He hadn’t been in danger like he often was when they found him so they hadn’t gotten to beat up anybody, but they’d had enough fun just trashing the building until British Guy’s fear spiked bright and hot and tasty. Martin had taken the picture as they left, ducking back in through the window one last time as a random impulse to annoy the random guy standing in the corner clutching a guitar like it was a shield and like it was something he was desperate to protect at the same time. Somehow the man’s utter confusion had managed to outweigh his fear and Martin had thought that that was hilarious. But now, hours later, there was something that made him keep looking back to the picture as his boys ran and danced and around him demolishing some random shit they came across in a warehouse. In the picture frame was a photograph of a girl, and there was something in her eyes, her smile, that seemed familiar to him somehow.
The next day, on a hunch, he traced back the trail they had followed to find British Guy. They could all smell it when they were in the right place, something in the air that said “You’re meant to be here” and even if they hadn’t they could see the girl from the picture, she was outside on the sidewalk smoking. Martin revved the engine at her and she ran back inside full of fear. Alright, probably not the best first impression.
There was a different fear in her too though, a constant one. Lying deep beneath the surface and always waiting to come out was a big bundle of pain and confusion and helplessness and panic and danger. It was a time bomb, and that time bomb had her living in constant fear of when it was gonna go off. It smelled delicious. And deeper than that fear lay a spark of anger. The boys all recognized it as the familiar anger a person feels when they’re locked in a cage they don’t know how to get out of. And as a background flavor to all those emotions they could tell there was something strange about her. Not in the same way they and British Guy were strange, though. This girl was something different. Something special.
Practically speaking none of the boys had any idea what ‘strange but different’ meant. But they knew they were here for a reason, they could feel it. The stream of creation was pulling them towards this girl and they knew if they waited long enough they’d find out why.
“Alright boys, let’s chill.” Martin said, leaning his seat back, putting his feet up on the steering wheel, and turning up the music loud enough to be sure that the girl could hear it from where she was looking at them through her window. No reason to keep the beat to themselves.
After a while the scent of anger appeared sharp and hot as the girl suddenly threw open her door, stormed out into the yard, threw a brick at their van, and screamed “What! What is it, what do you want?!” It was anger that had been aged like a fine wine, it was frustration beating out fear for the first time in long enough to essentially be forever, it was an act of pure rebellion, and it was beautiful. Suddenly though that time bomb began to bubble up to the surface and that bright streak of punk rock in her drowned in fear. She ran back into the house and then, as the time bomb was slowly pushed back down, fear got replaced by frustrated helplessness. It was terrible.
They sat in silence for a brief unsure moment until suddenly the excitement of an idea washed over them from Cross. Perhaps it was a good time to introduce themselves. He shared his plan and Gripps began searching the back of the van for paper and a marker and while Cross grabbed a rubber band and Vogel hopped out to get the brick she’d thrown at them. Gripps handed Cross a note that said “Hi.” In neat black letters and he quickly attached it to the brick and handed it to Martin who threw it through her window with expert precision. The sound of shattering glass interrupted her hopelessness just after she managed to fully push the time bomb back into complete dormancy and yeah, okay, that definitely caused a fair amount of fear… maybe this wasn’t the best idea. But then the fear was replaced by surprise, and then amusement and they could almost feel her laughing. They got the sense that she didn’t laugh very often. This had been a good idea after all.
Soon after this the girl’s garage door opened and they saw her seated at a set of drums. Excitement built and amplified and rebounded throughout the van as they saw her lift up her drumsticks and smash them back down. She was pouring all the anger and rebellion that had been trapped inside her for so many years into the most beautiful music they had ever heard. When she stopped they hollered and howled and jumped up and down until the van shook. Then she flipped them off. There was so much bright rebel spirit in her and they all were suddenly sure they wanted to do everything they could to make sure nothing ever dampened it again.
The next day Drummer Girl left her house and started walking down the middle of the street. They were close behind. They could smell that something bad was coming soon, feel the subtle pull of the stream of creation guiding them to where hopeless situations needed the introduction of a wild card. But they would have followed the scared punk woman anyway. They liked her. Drummer Girl felt confident and anxious and determined. They didn’t know exactly what bad thing was coming but if she was gonna be in trouble they were gonna be there to take care of it when it happened. When she went into the store they hung back far enough not to cause a panic but close enough that they could still sense her. As time went on she started feeling less anxious and more happy and Cross said “I bet she’s smiling.”
Martin considered this for a moment and realized that the thought of it left him smiling too. “Yeah, probably. That’ll be nice to see.”
Then suddenly everything changed.
The time bomb of pain had surfaced again and this time it didn’t get pushed back down, it exploded fully and completely, taking over every other feeling that was there before. Martin had slammed his foot on the gas pedal the moment he had smelled fear and almost before he knew it the van was lightly crashing into the side of the grocery store and Drummer was on the ground in front of them. Gripps, Cross, and Vogel had jumped out of the van almost at the moment it stopped moving and immediately started terrorizing the assholes who were filming her and laughing. While she lay on the ground and screamed for help. It was sick.
They were so angry that at first they didn’t notice Martin’s stunned shock. He was standing over Drummer, looking down at her. She had her hands up over her face and there was a familiar 3 on the back of her right hand that was a bright beautiful electric blue. The same electric blue as neurological energy. Energy that they smelled and tracked and followed and needed and craved.
In a moment he recovered and whistled for his boys to come over. Something a bit like hope and a bit like excitement and very much like purpose started building up in him and spreading through each of the others as they formed a circle around her and saw what Martin did. They were definitely meant to be here. And they were meant to be here for her.
Martin took a deep breath. Drummer Girl was radiating out so much of so many different enticing emotions, pain and panic and fear and pain and confusion and pain and despair and pain pain pain so big it was almost blocking out everything else and energy. So much energy. So much energy that it was too much and it was burning her mind. Well, they could certainly help with that. Today the rowdies got to be knights in shining armor instead of scary monsters. Well, maybe it was ‘in addition to’ more than it was ‘instead of’. Martin smirked amusedly at the thought anyway and saw that Cross was smiling too. Vogel looked like he was about to start jumping up and down in place, Gripps looked focussed. Anticipation thrummed out from all of them in waves. Things were about to change for the Rowdy 3, and all four of them had a feeling it was gonna be for the better.
When they drained the complex tangle of burning energy out of her her eyes went weird. Misshapen pupils over blank white. Then she passed out, which was worrying. But they could feel that she was fine, confused and tired but not broken. Martin picked her up and carried her into the van while Gripps ran into the store and then back out of it holding a paper bag full of food and a cell phone. “That’s a good idea,” said Martin. “She’ll be glad to have those.” Gripps was always the one who remembered details like that. Martin set her down gently on the floor of the van and hopped back into the driver’s seat.
“Is she staying with us now?” Vogel asked.
“Nope.” Gripps replied concisely.
“We’re taking her back to her house.” Martin explained as he started the van.
“But she belongs with us!” They could all sense that Vogel was right, the mark was honestly just extra confirmation.
“Best to let her come to us though.” Martin reasoned. “If she wakes up and we have her here she’ll freak out.”
“But why?” Vogel whined, not understanding.
Martin wasn’t exactly sure how to explain, but Cross stepped in from the passenger seat.
“Listen up here Vogel. It’s been a super messy long day for Drummer Girl. She’s gonna be tired, and she needs to rest up at somewhere she knows before she’ll be ready to ride with us. She’s used to normal life, not rowdy life, so she’ll freak if she don’t wake up somewhere normal.”
“Okay.” Vogel nodded in comprehension.
“But don’t worry.” Martin added. “We’ll sniff out any danger she gets caught up in in the meantime.”
“Keep her safe.” Gripps summarized.
When they got back to her house, she was still passed out, eyes moving rapidly behind closed lids. They set her and her stuff down in the garage and then left. It was upsetting to drive away from that house but they realized that it might seem threatening if they were still outside when she woke up. Best to just give her some time and space. Scaring people was the Rowdy 3’s default way of acting towards outsiders but they didn’t want to scare Drummer Girl. Then again, she wasn’t exactly an outsider, not according to the marks on their hands. They trusted the stream of creation to lead them back to her when the time was right. And, if not, they knew where she lived.
The next night, when they pulled British Guy out of a burning building, Drummer was there. With him. Like it was fate. It was fate. She wasn’t in any danger but was obviously concerned for those who were. When Drummer had seen them she’d defended them, she’d said “It’s okay, I know these guys.” to the woman standing protectively in front of her. Drummer was scared at the situation, scared for Confused Guy, who was in the fire with British Guy and still just as amusingly baffled at their presence (“Who are those guys?!” he had screamed as they left and Cross had laughed so hard he almost fell over), but she didn’t seem to be scared of them, which was encouraging. So, in the morning, after British Guy and Confused Guy had left to go who cares where and Drummer was alone, Martin parked the van outside of the apartment building and they all waited. They didn’t have to wait long.
They were all nervous but not very. They shouldn’t have to do much more than act like they always did in order to make a good impression, after all, she was one of them. Something different, something bright electric blue instead of intense blazing red but still one of them. While they introduced themselves they noticed her eyes moving to the marks on the back of each of their hands. She was happy with what she saw and that got them all even more excited. She had questions, of course she did, and they gave answers. Mostly Martin did, he was the best at big words and being understood by normal people when he talked. She was kind of confused and kind of nervous but not scared and she seemed to understand what they told her about themselves without needing too much explaining and Cross even managed to make her laugh. Things were going well. They decided it was time they showed her how much fun hanging around with them could really be.
It was dark out by the time Martin found them the perfect opportunity to cause some trouble, but the smile on Drummer’s face as she slammed Martin’s baseball bat into the cop car over and over was the most beautiful thing any of the boys had ever seen and well worth the wait. The moment was ruined though when she dropped the bat and screamed. She sank down onto her knees and her hands were shaking. The time bomb was back. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been before at the grocery store, not a full blown explosion, but it was still bad. The boys moved into a protective circle around her and Cross slowly reached out his hands and put them over hers. As he leeched the pain out of her nerves he said to her, in a tone more soft and gentle than anything she had heard before from any of the rowdies, “You’re not gonna have to worry about that shit anymore.” And she smiled. And she felt hope. And the rowdy boys and their Drummer Girl spent the rest of the night causing chaos and reveling in the feeling of being free and together and having everything and everyone they would ever need right there with them.
So when Blackwing showed up again it felt like everything inside of the rowdies shattered like glass.
Not now, not now when things were better than they could possibly imagine. It was just Riggins and one random soldier boy, they hadn’t come prepared for a fight. They’d get one, though. Riggins had thought he could talk them into coming back. Talk them into walking right back into a cage. They could win this fight. They were about to win this fight when from behind them they smelled a spike of fear and heard Soldier Boy shout “Drop your weapons!”
He had a gun to Drummer’s head.
HE HAD A GUN TO DRUMMER’S HEAD.
Even Riggins was horrified. The boys lowered their weapons but made it clear that Soldier Boy wasn’t going to get away with this.
“We see you.”
“Don’t think we don’t.”
“We’re gonna get you.”
While the other boys made their threat and Riggins tried unsuccessfully to talk Soldier Boy down Martin walked up in front of Riggins and snarled an insult at him. Then he looked right at Drummer, and pointed at her with his bat, focusing all of his attention on her and acting like Soldier Boy wasn’t even there. “Don’t be scared, Drummer Girl.” She was so scared and it broke his entire heart. “We’ll see you again.”
The boys turned around and got in their van while Riggins yelled after them. This was enough of a distraction for Drummer to get away and she ran off in the opposite direction of the van.
Martin drove and drove and drove and then stopped. And he broke down in frustrated tears. Cross wouldn’t let go of Vogel, who was shaking. Gripps had gone outside to hit a tree with his sledgehammer. Martin knew that the universe didn’t protect people. The stream of creation put people where they needed to be to do what it wanted them to do and anything beyond that was actual honest coincidence. He thanked it anyway that Drummer’s sleeves had been long enough that the Blackwing people hadn’t seen her mark.
When they did find Drummer again it was by following the smell of danger. They took out the men with the cattle prods and crossbows easy enough but the scent of danger remained. Drummer’s time bomb had exploded again but this time was different. In addition to all the pain and fear she wasn’t breathing right. It looked and sounded rough, harsh, painful. It was like she was trying to breathe through water instead of air. Her energy was drowning her. Oddly enough British Guy wasn’t where the danger was like usual but Confused Guy was there. He tried to stand between them and Drummer. No, no one was gonna do that now or ever again. Cross barked and growled at him, trying to scare him off and too angry for words. When that didn’t work Gripps pushed his way past and knocked him to the ground. They circled around her and fed until her breathing was normal again.
As Drummer pulled herself back up from the ground Confused Guy ran to help her but she wouldn’t let him. Betrayal and bitter anger poured out from her. Drummer yelled at him and insulted him before telling him she never wanted to see him again. Then she turned to the rowdies and said “Get me out of here.” Of course. Always. Anything for you. They didn’t say these things or anything else because sometimes no words worked better than saying something but they did their best to project an aura of steadfast support as she followed them into the van. The first time they pulled over Martin dug around in the back of the van until he found a leather jacket and a big red wrench. He presented these to Drummer without comment but it sent a message he could tell she understood: You might have lost someone today but you’re one of us now. You’re family.
Inside the left pocket of the jacket there was a pair of fingerless gloves. He didn’t say anything to her about them, just made sure she had them if she wanted them. Once they got back on the road Gripps started painting Drummer’s fingernails neon green. She smiled. Things felt like they were gonna be okay.
Blackwing showed up again while Drummer and Vogel were jumping and dancing wildly in the sand. Everyone else was drinking beer and watching them. It was the most content and at peace they had all felt in a long time, until the boys smelled the danger and froze. This time Blackwing had brought an army. The three older rowdies all looked at each other in a moment of perfect understanding of what they had to do. Martin looked back at the two youngest, the two newest rowdies. “Vogel. Get her out of here.” And then Vogel understood too. Drummer still didn’t though, had no clue what could scare her boys this way. Confusion and fear radiated off of her as Vogel took her right hand in his left and started running.
Cross held his crowbar in front of him as he moved to the front of the group, in between the army and everyone else.
“Wanna rush?” He asked no one in particular. He could tell that Gripps and Martin felt the same way he did. No one was thinking about if they could actually win this fight, that made no difference. They fought because it was who they were, they fought because these people had hurt them and their family, they fought because they weren’t about to just walk back into any cage, and, most importantly, they fought so Vogel and Drummer Girl had time to run. They fought because they were the Rowdy 3. All five of them.
“Let’s rush.” Cross said and he jumped into the fray. Gripps charged forwards and Martin howled before doing the same.
……………
“Martin would want us to wear these, to keep us safe.” Vogel said after pulling the gloves out of the pocket of Amanda’s jacket. He took the right one, tried to put it on his left hand and failed, and then gave it back and took the left one. They had hidden for the night in some kind of abandoned shed they found after spending the rest of the day running so far that Amanda had been sure that her legs were going to collapse underneath her and was so out of breath she felt like her lungs were going to explode. Which was only made worse by the leftover soreness from when she had nearly hemorrhaged them while hallucinating that she was drowning as her world fell apart around her for what would end up being the first of two times within 48 hours.
Long story short, it had been a rough couple of days for Amanda.
After the running she and Vogel had collapsed against the wall of the shed and she had held him while they both cried. He had clung to her like a scared child clings to his mother even though he was older than her and she got the distinct impression that she was going to have to be the strong one for both of them.
After they had both run out of tears Amanda had managed to get Vogel to explain as best he could who exactly was coming after them and why. There were some things Vogel didn’t know and some things he didn’t know the words for but Amanda understood enough to realize why everyone had been so scared.
Now it was the next morning and they were about to set out in the old car they had found in the shed. Neither of them knew where they were going to go but they couldn’t stand just sitting still either.
Amanda looked down at the glove in her hand. And then she looked at the electric blue 3 that had been with her for as long as she could remember. She thought about the short amount of time she had been able to be proud of that mark because of what it meant. She saw the neon green nail polish that Gripps had somehow managed to delicately and expertly paint onto her fingernails in the back of a moving van without spilling it all over the both of them. She thought about the slightly too big leather jacket she had had to leave behind when it fell off of her shoulders while they ran. She remembered her resolution to give herself a full punk rock makeover as soon as she got better. She hadn’t even considered that it could happen sooner. She hadn’t considered that she would find her soulmates before getting better either. Now she knew she was never going to get better but she had been given another way to live free when her four soulmates had found her and brought the punk rock back into her life with them. And now her life was once again trying to tell her that she had to wait for an uncertain vague hypothetical future until she could have what she wanted. “Hide,” it was saying to her, “Hide and run and lock all of your hope and happiness and pride away until it’s safe.”
Fuck that. She was sick of hiding.
“No.” She said.
“What?”
“I said no. Listen to me Vogel,” she grabbed his hand, pulled off the glove, and held his hand out so his mark was next to her own “Do you know what these marks mean?” It was a genuine question, Amanda had noticed that whatever kind of education Vogel had received had had some pretty big gaps in it.
“They mean that we’re family. We belong together.” Amanda didn’t know what she had expected him to say but the unusual seriousness of his tone and the fact that his answer couldn’t have been more right caught her off guard. But she recovered quickly.
“That’s right, Vogel, and I’m not going to hide that. I know it’s dangerous, I know Blackwing is looking for us. But I promise you that we are going to find the boys, and get them back, and we’ll all be together again, and I’m not gonna let anyone stop us or convince us that we can’t. Because we’re the Rowdy 3 and that means we can do anything.”
She believed what she had said. This time there was still hope, and she wasn’t completely helpless. As long as there was still something she could do to get her new life, her new family, back she would do it and no matter what she wasn’t going back to living in fear. She had lost her brother, or at least her ability to trust him, she had lost the hope that she was ever going to live a normal life again, she couldn’t go back home, she couldn’t contact her parents, she had basically lost everything she had ever had. And along with that she had lost three of the people who had made it so that those other losses almost didn’t even matter. The people who she was ready to give all of that up for anyway. She was so tired of everything in her life being taken from her, like hell was she gonna put up with losing her soulmates too.
Vogel had obviously been pumped up by her speech and seemed less scared and as ready to fight this as Amanda was. “Alright boss! Let’s do this!” He said as he hopped into the car. With all of the others gone Amanda guessed that Vogel considered her in charge now. She didn’t feel great about that responsibility but she was going to get the rest of their family back and when she did, they could go back to following Martin.
Later, when her and Vogel were at a convenience store grabbing all the food they could steal she picked up a can of spray-paint as she ran out of the door and when they were sure the cops weren’t following them they pulled over and Amanda sprayed a big red 3 on the hood of the car. Was that a stupid move? Absolutely. But Amanda didn’t care, she meant what she had said, no more hiding. And anyone who was gonna try to use that pride against her was in for a fight.
The next time she had an attack and a vision the pictures she saw and the voice she heard were showing her where to go. What to do to get her family back. She had a plan now and nothing could slow her down or stand in her way, she wasn’t going to let it. Over the next few days she managed to pick up some black hair dye, a razor, and neon green nail polish. If she was going to fight the government to get her boys back then there was no better time to finally start looking the part of the rebel punk. Soon enough she managed to find a leather jacket too, or rather Vogel did. He ran up to her holding it and looking excited.
“Boss! Look! Look what I found!” The back of the black jacket had a weird looking fractal outlined in electric blue. Amanda realized with a start it was a shape she had seen before in her visions.
“Vogel... it’s perfect.” It fit like it had been made for her. It fit like the certainty that the universe was giving her what she needed. It fit like the determination in her heart.
Three months later, when everything was falling apart and her and Vogel had gone from dodging bullets in a motel room in Montana to running from crazy fairytale knights in a place that made no sense, that determination was starting to waver under the wait of confusion and frantic fear and loss of control. But then Amanda found her. The voice from the visions. The voice that had been guiding her, that she had put her trust in. And this voice, this person, this magical witch was telling Amanda that she had the power within herself to save her family and all she had to do was learn to use it. What choice did Amanda have but to believe it.
And then she’d done it. She’d found her boys and pulled them out of their cages and into this strange world and they had defeated the approaching army and everyone was partying and it was all so perfect like the end of a disney-ified fairytale.
The rowdies were all here and together and they were all hugging her and she had no idea how she had managed to do it or what was going on in this weird magical land but it didn’t matter. As long as the Rowdy 3 were together they could get through anything.
………………
When they first got here, wherever here was, they’d partied all through the night at the sheer joy of being free and not starving and together again as soon as they had stopped the danger. Now they were going through the remains of the boxhead army, looking for weapons and clothes other than jumpsuits and making sure Vogel got a jacket while some of the fuzzy rainbow creatures attempted to cover him in even more flowers.
Martin looked over and noticed Drummer staring at them. The government still had his glasses so he couldn’t see her expression but he could feel that there was nothing else in the world she’d rather be looking at. He walked over to sit next to her.
She said “I’m happy to see you.” The only other person who’d ever said that to him in his entire life was Cross, a few weeks ago, when they’d first seen each other after being recaptured by Blackwing, who had decided to keep each of them in an entirely separate cage this time. No one was ever happy to see the rowdies. No one except the other rowdies.
Drummer told him that she was ready to give up learning about her visions and apparent magic powers and probable big epic destiny just because she thought they’d be eager to leave this weird place and go home. It was almost funny. As if home meant anything but all of them together in the same place. And maybe their van, but the goddamn CIA still had that too.
So he told her. He told her what he’d known, what all the boys had known on some level, since the moment they saw the soulmate mark on her hand.
“No, Drummer. You’re in charge.”
She looked at him in obvious disbelief but there was honestly no reason for her to be incredulous. What purpose did The Rowdy 3 have before they found her? All they did was follow some british guy around and wait to stumble across the scent of bad guys they could fight. Now that they didn’t need British Guy anymore, now that they had their Drummer Girl, there was absolutely nothing stopping them from going or staying wherever, whenever. And Drummer had a purpose, she was special, and Martin felt like he was maybe starting to understand what that meant. He couldn’t imagine a better life than protecting her and helping her fulfill her great big destiny and making sure that her rebel spirit was never drowned out by fear again.
“Where you go, we go.” He said to her to make her understand. “Don’t got no place to be but here for you.”
This left Drummer completely speechless, she just threw her arms around Martin’s neck and held on to him for a long time. A part of him hoped she’d hold on to him forever. As he thought this he found himself tracing the 3 on her hand that was currently hanging onto his shoulder.
Whatever warm bright shining electric blue thing Drummer was, she was a Rowdy 3 too. They were bonded. She belonged to them, and they belonged to her. They all belonged with each other. And nothing could ever change that. Together they were strong enough to fight off anything that would try.