We rolled into Boise like tumble weeds in a tornado. We were wild and free, and ready to wreak plenty of havoc.

Brams turned toward us as we walked down a rather busy street. He walked backwards as he began to speak to us. "Okay boys," he started. "We are almost home free."

The three of us all exchanged pompous and gloating glances. We were so close to my goal. I could almost taste Ava's lips from there.

"There are just a few more things we have to do to really get in the clear." Brams turned his head and looked to a space between two building chains. He gestured his head for us to follow him into the alleyway. The four of us hid behind a dumpster as Brams squatted and explained the agenda to us.

"Dennis, " he started with the blond, choleric maniac. "You are going to go and mug some people." He tossed Dennis the letter opener that he had confiscated from the asylum. "Find us as much money as you can." Dennis grinned like an evil bobcat. Like a menacing storm cloud.

"Jack," Brams started on the magician. "Once Dennis comes back here with a few bucks, go out and get your self a damn eyepatch. Your milky eye is a defining feature the the Feds are gonna look for. And buy whatever you need to get back to your old tricks." He tossed the ginger a wink. Jack didn't reply with any special facial expressions, just a blank face and a simple nod of the head. It was my turn.

Anticipation leaked through my gut. What sort of complicated, thought out assignment was Brams going to give to me? Would I be in charge of stealing a car? Perhaps even murder the driver? The excitement was boiling in my veins.

"Luther," Brams began. My eye twitched. What would it be? I prayed it would be scrumptious. He looked down at the ground between his knees, then back into my emerald eyes again. "Find some scissors and cut your damn hair: you look like an ugly-ass woman."

That was it?

"Meet me back here in two hours. We'll get ready to go back to Luther's home town, grab his girl, and then hit the road for good. All of us. Together."

We all nodded, my nod not nearly as enthusiastic as the other two's.

"Well, what are you gonna do in the mean time, Brams?" Dennis challenged, seeing if our leader was truly worthy of giving the orders around here. I laughed in my head. As if the bloke would actually be able to coordinate anything if Brams wasn't in the picture.

Brams did that half smirk of his, clueing us in that he was up to some sort of antic. "Watch and learn, boys."

He looked up and over our heads as he stood straight. We rose up from the ground with him as we all looked behind our shoulders. There was a man of Korean descent, smoking a freshly lit cigarette, about 30 feet away from where we were scheming. He wore a baggy, black tee shirt, was covered in bling and let his pants sag past his ass. Definitely looked like the kind of kid who had to stay after school more than once in his life. Brams straightened his shirt out and casually strolled up to the gang member. The man looked up at him under hooded eyes and squinted slightly. Brams smiled, a boyish smile it looked like this time around, and opened his mouth to speak. His brown eyes seemed to melt the man's suspicion away like chocolate.

"Hey," Brams greeted smoothly. "Can I smoke?"

"Sure," the Korean man said gruffly, the cigarette still hanging loosely from his mouth. He pulled a cigarette out from behind his ear and handed it to Brams, who immediately stuck it in his mouth.

"Could you light me?"

The man rolled his eyes as he reached far down into his sagging pockets and pulled out a silver lighter. He flicked it open and lit Brams cig. Brams smiled with the cigarette in his mouth. "Thanks, buddy." He reached out and snatched the lighter from the man's hand and set his black shirt ablaze. The man, startled from this bizarre outburst, tried to pat out the fire, until it finally clicked what Brams had done, then began to fiercely slap his chest.

Brams calmly reached up and then set the man's full head of hair ablaze, causing the man to scream. Brams looked to his right, noticing an open dumpster and pushed the man inside, immediately setting the trash within on fire, his screams going in with him. Brams nonchalantly shut the black door to the dumpster, allowing the man to burn alive within.

"What is it the kids say these days?" Brams asked, more directed towards me, for I was the youngest of the gang. "Get lit? Heh." He put his hands in his pockets and strolled up to us as the sounds from within the dumpster faded as the man inside came closer and closer to death.

Brams took a big puff of the cigarette and let it out slowly through his nose. When he was finished, he stuck the cig in my mouth. "Your first smoke?" he questioned.

"Hardly," I muttered through grit teeth, still angry with him for the meager task I had been given. After I killed my parents, over time, I had smoked the rest of the methamphetamine they had cooked before their demise. Although my mother smoked it while I was in the womb, I never became reliant on it as a child, even after I began to smoke some of it on my own. The only addictions I had were murder and Ava.

"Meth?" he further questioned. I nodded once. "Ah. The chapped, black lips, sunken eyes. I should've figured. Heh heh."

The three of us stood there, staring at our leader. He shrugged. "Well, what are you waiting for?" He waved his arms around. "Go do your shit!"

We rolled our eyes and turned around as we began to walk out of the alleyway. The three of us started walking down the street together, leaving Brams behind in the alley. Jack looked toward Dennis and I.

"You two do what you need to do." He looked to his right, drawing our attention to the building next to us. It was a tavern who's lights appeared to be very dim and grungy. Perfect camouflage. "I'm going to duck in here for the time being. Meet me back here when you have money, Dennis." Dennis nodded while taking in a deep breath. The brute really didn't like taking orders. No serial murderer did, but that was the way it had to be.

Without a word from me or anymore from Jack, I spat out my cigarette, turned on my heel and began to walk in the opposite direction as them. I walked with great haste. I didn't need either of them slowing me down, or stopping me to fill my head with some useless nonsense. It was time to get on with my shitty business.

Scowling the entire walk there, I made my way to some sort of a large department store. I attracted a lot of stares from middle aged women and children as I walked through the isles of the store, trying to find my way to the arts and crafts section.

Browsing casually through the glitter and glue, I finally located a packaged pair of red "safety scissors" for ages 4+. Rolling my eyes, seeing that this was the best they were going to offer, I grabbed it off of the shelf, and made sure no one was around me as I ripped off the packaging and shoved the scissors into my pocket.

After I tucked them away, I looked around one last time to be positive that no one had seen me. I looked to my left to see someone slowly waddle past my isle. My eyebrows twitched for a moment before my heart race quickened slightly.

A woman wearing shorts and flips flops stumbled past. I couldn't see her face, but her skin was nearly green, and appeared to have a leathery texture. For a brief, terrifying moment, my brain had caused me to believe that I had just laid eyes on my mother. My horrid, meth addicted mother, of whom I killed nearly 5 years ago.

With petrified caution, I silently stepped out of the isle I was standing in to take a look at the woman who had just passed me. I let out a sigh of relief as I saw this woman's backside. She wore a white tank top, revealing her shoulder. There was no tattoo of my father's name, as my mother had once possessed. And this woman's hair was grey, where my mother's was almost blacker than mine.

Shaking off the eerie feeling I had, I made my way to the bathroom, remembering how bad of a meth addiction issue Idaho was dealing with, and reminded myself that, especially in populated areas, I would see many more of the methamphetamine zombies.

I walked into the bathroom, and, believing I was alone, closed the main door and locked it shut. Walking up to the mirror, I pulled the scissors out of my pocket, and looked up.

The man I saw in the mirror wasn't anyone I knew. He had a healthy complexion, not pallid, wan and pale as I was. He was round in the face and his lips were nearly pink. His hair was washed and teeth were white. I hated what they had forced me to become.

I held the cheap scissors out in front of me. They were the key. The first step in turning me back into who I truly was. Piece by piece, I carefully snipped sections of my hair off. When I was finished with my makeover, my hair rested just above my shoulders, just as it had when I was first arrested back in October.

As I was tidying up the snippets of black hair that had fallen into the sink, I heard a sound from a stall next to me. I sharply turned my head toward the source of the noise. I furrowed my brows, but wasn't enthused in the slightest. I didn't have anything to be afraid of in this world.

"Hello?" I spoke as I clapped my hands over the trash can to brush the hair off. I heard a series of wheezes and coughs. As I slowly approached the stall and opened the door up, a crazed man hopped out at me and shouted in inaudible gurgles. I grabbed his hands that were trying to scratch my eyes away as I stared at his scabby face. The acrid smell of rotting eggs and feline urine lingered on his disgusting tongue. I looked up to see that he held a meth pipe in one hand and a lighter in the other. I looked back into the man's deranged eyes.

"Money..." he breathed, his breath worsening as he spoke. "Give me your money..."

I pushed him against the wall and pulled out my dull scissors. I eyed them as the man stared at them like they were the stuff of his worst nightmares. I then turned my eyes to look into his, my lips curling up ever so slightly. "This is really gonna hurt."

Before the delusional man had a chance to say a thing, I opened the scissors wide and plunged them into his jugular, blood shooting everywhere like jets of water from a broken pipe. The crimson liquid spilled from his mouth like a waterfall. I tilted my head back as I breathed in and closed my eyes. Endorphins flowed through my brain as they always did after a fresh kill, leaving me feeling as though I had just climaxed, or indulged in the best meal of my life. There was something so euphoric about draining the life from a human's body. It's as though you're gaining breath and a heartbeat by taking theirs.

I let the man's lifeless body sink to the floor. After staring at it for a moment, I bent down and took the black hoodie that the dead man was wearing and put it on, zipping it up as I reached for the meth pipe and lighter. I smoked the rest of the contents of the pipe as I squatted there on the bathroom floor. I wanted my black, chapped lips back.

After I finished smoking the pipe, I smashed it on the floor and stomped on it, crushing it into fine sand, so that the police wouldn't be able to ID any prints, but I made sure to keep the lighter. Something Brams would want. Or, perhaps I would keep it to myself, in case I ever needed to fight fire with fire.

After wiping the blood off of them, and licking it sadistically from my hands, I shoved the scissors back into my pocket, pulled my hood over my head, and walked out of the bathroom like nothing had happened.

I glanced at a clock as I was leaving the store to see how long I had taken in the bathroom. About an hour and a half, from the looks of things. Time seemed to pass much faster when I was doped up.

Trying my best to stumble my way through the streets of Boise completely high, I somehow, God knows how, made it back to the alleyway that Brams had told us all to meet us back at. Jack and Dennis had already made it back, Jack dealing a deck of cards between him and the blond psycho across from him. The two were about to indulge in a game of poker. So, Jack had gotten his supplies, which meant that Dennis had acquired money.

Jack looked up at me as I silently approached down the alleyway and towards the dumpster they were seated behind. "Ah, Luther," Jack said coolly as he continued dealing cards. "You're practically a new man."

I just let out a humming breath in response as the world around me seemed to wiz by in hellish blurs. I had forgotten the fantastic rush of amphetamines.

"Whaaat..." I stumbled out. "Did you scavenge?" I asked Dennis.

Dennis excitedly pulled out a backpack that he had supposedly stolen and unzipped it, revealing the contents. "I got a few hoodie jackets and about 300 bucks in cash."

I smiled wickedly and nodded. "Good work..."

Jack turned his head back towards me, a bit more concerned this time. "Luther, are you high or something?"

"I killed a man in the bathroom..." I rambled. "And I took his happy pipe."

Jack turned back towards Dennis, for they had just began their game of poker. "He's trippin' big time..." he sighed.

All of a sudden, a cheap looking car came screeching down the alleyway. I turned around sharply, immediately noticing that Brams was behind the wheel. He pulled up next to the three of us and jumped out of the vehicle.

"Ain't she a beaut?" he asked, patting the hood. He stood against the driver's side door with his arms crossed, smiling that charismatic smile of his at us. Jack rolled his eyes as he reluctantly collected all of the cards he had just dealt. I tripped over my feet as I walked up to the car. Brams immediately cringed when he noticed my clumsiness and looked towards Jack and Dennis.

"What the fuck is he doing?" he questioned, pointing a finger at me. Jack stood up as Dennis finished packing up on the ground.

"I'm not quite sure," Jack said. "He just stumbled in like that. He said something about killing somebody, and I think he must've finished off whatever the poor bugger was smoking."

Brams turned his head from Jack and toward me. He pinched my cheek and pulled it to the left, forcing me to look at him. He grabbed my other cheek and pulled our faces together. Our lips connected for a good 3 seconds. My eyes widened. What the hell...?

"That oughta sober you up!" Brams exclaimed, giving my cheek two small pats. "What did we find, Dennis?"

Dennis relayed to him what he had stolen. "And what did you do with your time, Brams?" Dennis challenged once again.

Brams looked behind him at the car he was leaning against. "Uh, I think it's pretty obvious." Dennis rolled his eyes. "Oh, and I set fire to the fire department." The arsonist chuckled to himself as he shook his head slightly. "That way the police are gonna be too distracted over there to survey people leaving the city. So let's get a move on before the whole thing blows over.

Dennis and Jack complied, as both of them piled into the backseat of the black car. Brams led me over to the passenger seat and opened the door up. From the seat, he grabbed a black shirt and tossed it at me. I caught it in my hands and stared at him.

"Don't say I never did anything for you." The charming man winked at me as he walked around the front of the car to climb into the driver's seat.

Raising a quizzical brow, I opened up the shirt to see what exactly Brams had gotten for me. My eyes widened slightly. A black turtle neck.

How did he know that's what I liked to wear?

We zoomed out of the city to the sound of a static-y radio, heading west through the barren hills of Boise, and closer as ever to my Ava.

~*~*~*~*~

Heyy sorry I know it's been a couple months. Finals are crazy, I got my license, I met Norman Reedus from the Walking Dead, you know, just regular stuff that's been keeping me busy.

Anyway I'm starting to write a fantasy novel on this page, if you're interested, and the (much better) prequel to it is on my main page at modernjomarch if you want to give it a vote! Would be much appreciated!

Another update is coming up soon! See you guys in a bit!!