Awkward wouldn’t be the word one would ordinarily use when describing a meeting with a prolific mobster. The term seemed apt in Piyumi’s case, however. Mylene hadn’t said a word as Piyumi climbed onto the back of her motorcycle that night, even when the redhead had given her a tentative wave beforehand. The duration of their ride had been similarly quiet, the silence only broken up by the whir of the engine and the buffeting wind. When Mylene took off her helmet after arriving at their destination, however, Piyumi found that she could no longer abide by their unspoken pact of voluntary mutism.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Are you okay?!” 

Mylene’s lips had been divided into uneven halves by a gnarly gash that began at the tip of her chin and ended right underneath her nostrils. Piyumi could tell it was a fresh cut, the blood almost sparkling in the low light as the crimson wetness rested within the crevices of the wound. She raised a hand towards Mylene’s face, but her wrist was swiftly caught before her fingers could make contact. They stood there for a moment, Mylene looking down at Piyumi with an unreadable expression as her white coat fluttered when a gust of wind blew by. 

“I’m fine,” Mylene finally said after a long while, releasing her grip and stepping out of Piyumi’s reach. She looked away to pull a black ski mask over her face. “Everything’s fine.”

“But-” 

“Hey! Looks like the gang’s all here!” 

Damien nonchalantly ambled into the parking lot. While his ski mask was obscuring his face, his annoying nasally twang was a dead giveaway of his identity. He came to a stop when he reached Piyumi, bending down so that he could level his glare directly into her eyes. 

“Didn’t think you’d show up,” he sneered. “Thought you’d done the world a favour and finally died in a ditch somewhere. Shame.” 

Piyumi clicked her tongue, putting on her own ski mask. “Oh, fuck you-”

“Enough,” Mylene broke up Piyumi and Damien’s bickering with a single, firm word. “We’re here for one thing, and one thing only.”

She gestured to the store in front of them. Seeing that it was a little past midnight, the shop had been closed for the day, the lights that would normally illuminate its giant sign switched off and the inside of the building completely shrouded in darkness. 

Perfect for a little B ‘n’ E.  

The spark plug broke through the door easily, the tool concentrating the force of the rupture into one area to keep the sound of the glass shattering to a minimum. With Mylene standing watch outside, Piyumi and Damien carefully crept through the makeshift entrance. Turning on his phone light, Damien made a beeline to the counter, flipping open his switchblade to jimmy open the drawer of the till. Piyumi moved to follow but then something snagged the edge of her eye. There, in the corner, was a rack of potato chips. They seemed innocent enough, until she spied the name on the packaging. 

The milk bar my mother owns is the only one in the area that carries them and they sell like crazy.

Light suddenly flooded the inside of the store. A sharp gasp drew Damien’s gaze, but Piyumi didn’t need to look to know that one Hunter Watson-Jones was standing in the open doorway directly adjacent to the counter. 

“Well, well, well,” Damien strolled around the counter. “What do we have here?” 

Hunter stared like a deer in headlights as Damien leaned towards him while spinning his switchblade between his fingers in a casual but clear threat. 

“There’s no money in the till or behind the counter.” The twirling knife snapped to a stop a mere inch from Hunter’s chest. “Go get us some.”

But Hunter didn’t move, a vacant haze washing over his eyes as they honed in on the weapon in Damien’s hands.

“Uh, hello?” A flash of irritation flashed across Damien’s face. He brought the knife even closer, the tip of the blade poking through Hunter’s shirt. “Dude, did you hear me? What the fuck is wrong with you? Oi!” 

While Damien was confused at his reaction, Piyumi knew exactly why it seemed like Hunter's soul had fled his body, leaving him an empty, emotionless husk. She knew, because while she was loath to talk about her father, he'd had no such qualms at a certain gravestone not so long ago. 

Piyumi moved the instant Damein raised his blade. The knife clattered hard against the tile as she drove her elbow into his side. He stumbled back several steps, glaring absolute daggers at the girl before him.

“Yo, what the fuck-” 

Piyumi didn’t let Damien say another word. She launched herself at him and they both came crashing to the ground. Quickly scrambling on top of him to pin him to the floor, Piyumi slammed her balled fist into Damien’s nose once, then twice, and then, for a single, glorious moment, she thought she had the upper hand as her knuckles came away with a coat of something wet and thick. But Damien was older and stronger. Once he had gotten over his surprise at being tackled, he swept his leg and Piyumi suddenly found herself the one who had their back against the ground, the blood streaming from Damien’s nose hitting her face in splatters. 

“YOU LITTLE SHIT!” he roared, eyes wild and crazed. “YOU’LL PAY FOR THAT!” 

The first blow to her face almost made her vision go black, but the second was enough to beat the reality of the situation back into her. And so, right as the third was about to slam into her, she flung her arms out to grab at something. Anything. 

Her thumbs found his eyes. 

And she pushed. 

Damien howled. He tried to lurch back, but Piyumi had his head gripped like a vice as she thrust her fingers further and further in. Realising that escape was futile, Damien took to pummeling his fists down at her blindly but even as he made contact with her forehead, neck, jaw, nose, Piyumi refused to let go. 

That was, until Damien somehow managed to get his hands under the wool over her face and pulled her ski mask right off.

A pair of gasps snapped Piyumi’s attention to the side. She stared straight into the faces of not only Hunter, but also Waliyha, who had made her way downstairs sometime during the scuffle. 

It was over. It was all over. 

They knew. 

Piyumi heard something sink into her abdomen with a sickening squelch. Her head whipped back to Damien just in time to catch the glob of saliva he spat down at her with her cheek. He could have rained acid down at her for all she cared though, because the only thing she could focus on at that moment was the butt of Damien’s switchblade poking up from her stomach.

And that’s when the pain hit. White, and hot, and cold, and dark, and far away, and all-consuming. The world around her inked and blotched, like someone had smeared their fingers across a freshly painted canvas, blending colours that didn’t belong together, melding plural into singular. She could hear the blare of police sirens in the distance, but it didn’t matter. Frantic footsteps burst into the store as a familiar raspy voice barked out for someone to call an ambulance, but it didn’t matter. Her friends were almost certainly no longer her friends, but it didn’t matter. Someone was begging her to hold on, but it didn’t matter. 

This was where Piyumi Perera died. 

Hell looked eerily like a hospital room. 

Piyumi groaned as her eyes took their sweet time adjusting to the harsh light burning into her retinas. White walls, bare and stark, bore down on her from all four sides and there was a steady, rhythmic beeping sounding from something nearby. She supposed that that would be enough to make anyone go nuts if they were subjected to it for a long time, so that at least was a point in favour of the possibility that she had successfully made the pilgrimage to the underworld. Still, Piyumi mused as she looked down at the gauze wrapped around her abdomen, she didn’t think that bandaging up people’s wounds was part of the package. How oddly hospitable. 

“Piyumi!”

Before she could register what was happening, Piyumi was suddenly buried beneath a pair of bodies, a flurry of arms flinging themselves around her neck. “Ack!” she wheezed. “Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe!” 

The participants of the pile untangled themselves from Piyumi with hasty and hurried apologies. When the redhead saw who the culprits were though, she realised that she was the one who should've been grovelling for forgiveness. 

“What are you two doing here?” 

Hunter and Waliyha exchanged a look before they sat down on the edge of her bed. 

“Piyumi,” Hunter gently curled his fingers over Piyumi’s knuckles to ease the tight grip she had of the bed sheets. “It’s okay.” 

“We had a sneaking suspicion about your, uh, activities,” Waliyha smiled. “I mean, that intimidating motorbike lady constantly picking you up after school was kind of a dead giveaway.” 

Piyumi’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “What?! Then why would you…?” 

“Be your friend?” A teasing smile strung out Waliyha’s lips. “Well, despite the things I say, Piyumi, you’re not half bad.” 

“That’s right! That’s right!” Hunter nodded furiously. “You saved me from that bully before we even knew each other! You’re a good person.” 

Piyumi choked back a cry. “How can you say that?” she managed to warble. “I tried to rob you blind. You were almost stabbed, just like your…your…” 

“I know,” Piyumi saw a shudder run through Hunter as he took in a breath. “When I think back to that moment and how wrong it could have all gone, I…I mean, I completely froze. I was done for.” 

If this truly was Hell, then it was even crueller than she had imagined. “Exactly,” Piyumi could barely muster a whisper. “So please, I-”

“But don’t you see, Piyumi? I wasn’t. Because of you.”

“He’s right,” Waliyha piped up when she saw Piyumi's shock. “Think about it. If you hadn’t intervened, Damien would have stabbed Hunter. So really, in some weird, strange way, I think you were meant to be there, you know?” 

“That’s…” Piyumi found herself at a loss for words. What on earth were her friends saying? “That’s not…Look, there’s no way of knowing that-” 

“Well, that’s how I want to see it anyway,” Waliyha shrugged rather dismissively, but then a warm smile lit her face. “I am rather relentless when it comes to what I want. But you already know that, don't you?” 

The tears were flowing freely now. Hunter reached out to gently push away the strands of hair that had fallen onto Piyumi's face, before he rested his forehead against hers. “You saved me,” he murmured, his eyes fluttering shut as his own tears started to fall. “Thankyou.” 

Piyumi felt a weight fall against her shoulder, and then heard a content sigh as Waliyha snuggled in closer. What little hold she had on her emotions slipped away. She leaked from her eyes and nose and mouth, loud and disgusting and ugly. The sobs seizing her body pulled her stitches taut, needled at the bruises that made patchwork of her face. A broken mess of a human being, if she could be called human at all. She sure didn’t feel like one. Like she had failed to meet a set of very imperative and essential requirements needed to qualify her as such. Her lungs couldn’t get enough air, her heart felt like it was on fire. So what right, then, did she have to call herself human?

But somehow, despite it all, Hunter and Waliyha were undeterred. They said nothing else as Piyumi continued to cry. Their hold remained, steadfast and unwavering.

And for the first time in her life, Piyumi felt lucky.