The Crow

V: Captive Child

"Hey, kid, get the hell outta the road!"
You could always turn, Sarah thought in response to the car driver's yell as she glided across the rainy pavement, the wheels of her skateboard clattering. She then stopped and kicked the board up into her hand once she stopped at the front door of Club Trash, walking up to it and letting herself in once she saw Darla and Funboy sitting at one of the tables, their arms wrapped around each other like octopi tentacles.

Another one of these nights…the thought went into Sarah's head, helping prepare herself for what might happen as she strode up to the table, clearing her throat to get their attention.

They looked over at her, Funboy with disdain, and Darla with the best motherly concern she could. It didn't help that she'd downed more than a couple shots. "I told you not to come here", she said, her voice just beginning to slur.
"So I guess you won't be getting home until late, huh Darla?" Sarah asked rhetorically, letting a snippy tone get into her voice. At this point, she might as well let it – ever since this creep came into her mom's life, Sarah had been taking care of herself for the most part, and Darla whenever she had to sleep it off.
"She's busy", Funboy stated testily. "Go play with your dolls or somethin', 'kay?"
"I don't have any dolls", Sarah fired back, the attitude she'd displayed earlier growing.
Funboy's only response was a dour expression that would've turned threatening were it not for Darla's intervening. "Get some food, huh?" she said, pushing a couple of dollars toward Sarah.
She looked down at them, and then back at Darla. "Someone already bought me dinner – the police", Sarah responded, weighing down the last two words heavily even as she grabbed the bills and headed over to the bar, hearing Funboy's mocking repetition and Darla's giggling, but not letting it faze her.

Sarah heaved herself up onto a barstool, looking over at the tall, dark-haired bartender with a grizzled face but friendly demeanor. Once he spotted Sarah, a smile flashed across his face. At least someone was happy to see her.
"Hey kid, aren't you a bit young to be sitting up here at the bar?" he inquired, his tone light in his somewhat growly voice.
"Oh, ha ha ha. Very funny. That's a riot", Sarah responded in kind, her own smile finally breaking out across her face.
"Everything alright with you and your mom, Sarah?" the bartender asked, only half-rhetorically. At this, Sarah shrugged indifferently – she wasn't really thinking of Darla as her mother anymore.
"Not much more that was alright before", Sarah answered. "Cool if I get something to drink?"
"The usual?"
Sarah nodded, pulling out the crumpled dollar bills that Darla had given her, but the bartender pushed them away and said, "Hey, come on, Sarah. It's on the house, you know that." In a few seconds, he was handing her a rather large mug, the drink inside foaming at the top. "One root beer there for ya." Then the bartender looked past Sarah at Darla and Funboy, who'd just left their table and gone up the flight of stairs – Funboy's room, no doubt.
"I dunno if I can help you much tonight, Sarah. Your mom – technically, she's off right now", the bartender stated, adding in a little nod to convey the meaning of the words.
"Yeah, way off", Sarah agreed, slowly lifting the mug to her lips and taking a swallow. She let herself hang around the bar for a while, taking sips of her root beer now again, and kept on thinking. If only Shelly and Eric were here, she thought…if only they could take care of her again. Like they started doing last year…

Once she'd realized that she might never get her mom back, Sarah had taken to keeping track of the apartment they'd lived in ever since they had first moved to the inner city. Back then, Darla was a happier and livelier person, living to take care of her daughter and make a name for herself doing something good for the community. Turns out, that something good was essentially being the personal escort and arm candy for any of the crowd Funboy hung out with. Funboy in particular took a particular liking to her and wouldn't stop until she was exclusively his.
Ironically, if it weren't because of that, she may never have met the two people who ended up mattering most to her that year ago. Sarah had snuck into the Pit while her mom was busy keeping bar and stumbled across Eric's band playing. She stuck close to the door, but the music seemed to get into her and encouraged her to let loose a bit, jumping around and banging her head to the grunge rock sound that Eric had going with his band.
It was then that she'd met Shelly. "You having fun, little lady?" she'd asked, shouting over the loud music, a camera held ready in her hand and snapping pictures every once in a while.
"Most fun I've had in a while! Who are these guys?"
"Hangman's Joke – they're my boyfriend's band! I'm getting photo's of them as part of a photography project I'm working on at my job!"
"Who's your boyfriend?"
Shelly had pointed out Eric to her, and Sarah first got her proper sight of him – long black hair, handsome face with high cheekbones, a mellow voice that could croon or scream at any time, and just proved to be very attuned to the music. His guitar work definitely sealed the deal for her though – Sarah had always thought guitar players were the coolest members of any band. It helped that the guy was pretty well-built, even beneath the dark fabric of his clothes and the leather of his open jacket.
"Where's your mom!?" Shelly then asked. Sarah pointed to the door that led back into the quiet bar before saying, "I don't think she'll be done for a while, and she doesn't care anyway."
Sarah hadn't meant to sound sad when she answered, but Shelly must've picked up on it, because she then asked, "You want to hang with Eric and I for a while? I promise, we don't bite", Shelly added with a laugh before offering a hand. "I'm Shelly Webster, by the way!"
Soon enough, Sarah had bonded more and more with both Shelly and Eric, looking up to them as sort of a hybrid of foster parents and older siblings – helping Shelly pick the best photos for her projects and the newspapers and magazines she sent them too, taking some guitar lessons from Eric, sharing their same sense of goofy and sometimes dirty humor, and always accepting their invitation to be at their place anytime one of them was home. Not even the happenings of Sarah's apartment were quiet between them. Yet no matter how often Sarah came and how long she stayed, they never once complained – in fact, they loved having her over, no matter the time of day or night.

All of that seemed like a life that should've belonged to someone else, whoever Sarah used to be back then and not the way she was now. She at least had people taking care of her when they could, but they still couldn't compare to Eric and Shelly. Downing the last of her root beer – the last of her memories moving to the back of her mind in tandem – she headed for the door, throwing a small wave of thanks to the bartender.
"You need a lift back home, Sarah?"
"Nah, I'll be alright. Thanks, though!" she called back as she opened the door, stepping out into the rainy Detroit night. Looking out at the rainy cityscape, she let a look of small disgust pass over her face before shrugging it off. As she went to the curb, a fat form of a man clad in a sweater and baseball cap pushed her aside and made his way into the bar, grumbling over a wrapped-up hand.

It was just after she'd boarded her skateboard and began to kick away when someone came back up from behind and grabbed Sarah around her stomach, pulling her away from the path of a speeding car.
"Let go of me, you creep!" Sarah shouted, kicking her legs out to make things harder. She didn't need to bother – the guy let her go practically right away, leaning his forehead against a streetlight post. Once Sarah realized what had happened, she decided to apologize after yelling to the car, "You didn't even slow down, you dickhead!"

"He couldn't have stopped", the man said in a smooth, quiet voice. Sarah just managed to catch a glimpse of white behind the wet, black locks of long hair. Shrugging and still angry, she replied, "That guy was a buttface; I could've made it." She stepped closer to the man, looking at his pitch-white profile with the darkly lined eyes. "What are you supposed to be, a clown or something?" she teased.
"Heh…sometimes", the man answered back. Sarah looked to his other side and noticed him holding a guitar. Weird, seeing a guy like this on the street, but she'd seen weirder. She shrugged again and stepped off the curb to retrieve her skateboard, it having glided halfway across the street when she was grabbed.
"It's more like surfing than skating", she said. "I wish the rain would stop just once." She kicked the skateboard back up into her hand.

"It can't rain all the time."

She'd heard those words before. And that voice too, the more she thought about it. That was his voice, and the words lyrics from one of his songs – her favorite one. But it couldn't be – he was dead.

He'd been dead.

But…"Eric?" She turned around, attempting to properly see just who she'd been saved by – but just as quickly as he'd appeared, the man was gone, leaving Sarah filled with questions.
Questions and a small spark of hope that she hadn't felt in a long time. Hopefully, she'd know why that hope was there and what the answers to all her questions were.
Even now, Eric's words from a year ago were right – the night seemed long, but even then, it couldn't rain all the time.