Hey Guys, So this is like the first time in a long time that I have tried writing anything creative so don't get your hopes up too much haha. Honestly I don't know if this is any good so if you enjoy it or you want me to continue please let me know, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks for reading

July was normally a warm and pleasant month for the residents of Sandpoint Idaho, but today was different, today the skies were dark and the air heavy with the promise of thunder. Rain fell like bullets from the sky beating upon the back of the only person foolish enough to brave the bad weather, despite this merciless abuse she trudged onwards undeterred, focused only on reaching the tin roofed bus stop visible on the distant horizon. She barely noticed the chill creeping in through her sodden clothes as she readjusted the duffel bag balanced on her shoulder, instead she distracted herself from the current situation by reassuring herself this would be the last time she ever had to see this old worn out town, the last time she'd walk down this unwelcoming road, soon she'd be free. It wasn't that she hated her town, in fact she had some very happy memories of growing up here but her hometown had been ruined for her and now she couldn't wait to escape. As she reached the battered shelter she heard the distinct rumble of the old greyhound bus pulling down the street ready to pick her up, it was going to be a long journey but it would be worth it. Anything had to be better than this place.

The driver didn't wait for her to find her seat before taking off, throwing her sideways into a luckily unoccupied bank of seats. Settling down she stared out the window taking one last glance at the bay she had played in as a child, the normally turquoise bay had been turned a gloomy dark grey and the water churned viciously, attacking the little boats perched upon its surface. She wouldn't miss this place, maybe once she would have but the events of the past two days had taken away any doubt she had left. This place was toxic and she had to escape before she followed in her mother's footsteps. Mother, that was a term that could be used loosely at best, her mother hadn't lived up to that title in a long time, not since Gary had appeared in her life with his vicious temper and raging alcohol addiction. She wondered if her mother had even noticed she was missing yet, probably not she was probably too wrapped up in making amends with her pathetic excuse of a boyfriend. Relentlessly apologising for her unpredictable daughter, assuring him that it wouldn't happen again, telling him it wasn't his fault. Still it had been a whole two days since the argument that had caused her to storm out and some small part of her had hoped her mother would have at least come looking for her by now. It's not like it would have been difficult to find her at the town's only reasonably priced motel, too late now though by leaving this place she was officially cutting ties with everyone and everything in her old life. Tegan shrank down within her seat leaning her head against the window and preparing herself for what she now thought would be the longest, most uncomfortable and nerve wracking journey of her life.

The bus rumbled hitting a rough patch of earth and jolting Tegan awake sharply. She blinked a few times allowing the blurry surroundings of the bus to come into focus, the sky was beginning to darken slightly and there were a handful more people surrounding her indicating the bus had made at least one stop whilst she slept, she looked down at her watch, 6pm she'd been asleep for seven hours already and was almost a quarter of the way through her journey but she still had over a day of travelling to go and she was feeling pretty miserable about that. Her joints ached from being stuck in such an awkward position for so long, and the dampness of the rain still clinging to her clothes had sunk in chilling her to the bones and making her seriously regret stowing away all of her spare clothes in the storage compartment beneath the bus. Sighing she shifted in her seat figuring she couldn't fix the chill but she could at least try and make the journey more comfortable for herself. Moving so that she could resume her staring out the window she tried to count the streetlights that passed her by, hoping the menial task would help her to drift back off into a slumber and pass more of the suffocating journey.

It must have worked because the next time she awoke the sky was once again a beautiful light blue. The sun was creeping higher up into the sky and thankfully she saw that the bus was pulling in to a rest stop as she desperately needed to freshen up and move about. The thirty minute stop allowed Tegan to use the restroom and wash her face, it wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she'd gone to freshen up but beggars can't be choosers. She'd also had the chance to visit the small shop and purchase herself a few essentials to try and keep her sane for the next twenty four hours. Climbing back aboard the bus Tegan reclaimed her seat and eagerly dug through her bag of goodies pulling out a couple of trashy fashion magazines and a bag of trail mix, the closest thing to a nutritious breakfast that she had been able to find in the small store. She mindlessly thumbed through the magazine munching on her food and willing herself to find some amount of entertainment from the mindless drivel she found before her. This journey had better be worth it she thought to herself irritably.

Finally two days after it had left Sandpoint, the sweaty creaking bus pulled into the Santa Carla bus terminal and for the last time on her journey Tegan listened to the doors squeal open. Eagerly she threw herself through them fleeing the tin can that had been her prison for the last forty eight hours, barely remembering to grab her duffel bag from the external storage compartment. With much relief, she strolled out of the terminal and into the sweltering Santa Carla afternoon. She was here, she couldn't believe she'd made it. She'd been dreaming of this for years but she'd finally escaped her old life and now that she was here she was a little overwhelmed. She'd only planned on getting here and now that she'd arrived she had no clue what to do first. Sitting down on the curb Tegan decided a plan was in order, she had to get her priorities in order if she wanted to last in this strange place. First things first she needed to find a place to stay, then she needed to get herself sorted, Tegan had packed as much as she could before leaving but in reality, she had seriously misjudged what the essentials are. Once she'd found herself a base and got it kitted out she could worry about the long term goals like finding herself a job. After all she had enough money to survive for a fairly long time thanks to the fact the savings account her grandparents had left her had finally matured when she turned twenty, three days ago.

Looking around Tegan decided to follow the signs to the boardwalk figuring that there must be places to stay close to such a busy tourist area. After walking for fifteen minutes she found it, the boardwalk was unlike anything she had ever seen before, not the place itself, that was pretty unremarkable very similar to the boardwalks she had been to at every seaside town throughout her life. But the people here were what made it so incredible, the sheer volume for a start there were more people crammed onto the wooden structure than she could believe would be safe, but no one else seemed to share her concern. Then there was the appearance of the people, there were goths, punks, rockers and surfers everywhere, all split into individual groups staking their claim to a patch of the boardwalk that they could call their territory, then there were the hair colours, the artificially coloured heads seemed to seriously outnumber their natural counterparts, the colours ranging from bottle blonde to neon green with every colour in between visible somewhere. The place was unique, quirky and unlike anything she'd ever experienced before in her life and that was daunting to her but she couldn't wait to settle in to her new home.

About two hours after arriving at the boardwalk, Tegan found herself trudging through the crowd hauling her bag after her. Spotting a small souvenir shop with a for rent sign in the upstairs window she found herself feeling hopeful, maybe this one will still be vacant she thought to herself as she entered the little tourist shop. "Excuse me" she asked the kind older woman behind the counter "I'm here about the sign you have in the upstairs window, is the room still available?" The woman looked her up and down for a second before nodding her approval "It is, we've had trouble finding someone reliable to rent it in the past though so we'd have to insist on two months' rent up front". Tegan nodded assuring the woman that wouldn't be a problem and followed the woman upstairs to take a look at the place. It wasn't much, just a small studio apartment with a kitchenette in one corner and a tiny bathroom off to the side of the sleeping area, but it was cosy and available which she had guessed was a rare thing in such a busy town. So she agreed offering up the woman the two months' rent that she had insisted upon and taking the keys to the place. The place was quite pleasant with all things considered the walls were a plain lemon yellow and the floor had pale grey carpet, the bed was comfortable and the comforter provided was clean, all in all it was a nice place for now. With her first problem solved Tegan began to unpack and work out what she needed to go and buy, the place was pretty well stocked it turned out that with everything she had brought and everything the woman had provided her with she only really needed to buy groceries, cleaning supplies, a towel and toiletries. Well she thought to herself, the shopping won't do itself, that's your next job Tee better get on with it. With her next task decided she prepared to brave the evening rush and try to find a place that would sell everything she needed. After pulling her hair back into a long wavy ponytail, she changed into her favourite denim shorts and a white crop top grabbed her oversized bomber jacket and her money and left the apartment.

The staircase brought her down outside the little souvenir shop right in the middle of the boardwalk. Perfect she thought picking a direction she started hunting for a convenience store of some sort, there was no rhyme or reason to the way the stalls were arranged on the boardwalk making it difficult to find what you want, she was about to give up hope having walked most of the boardwalk when she came across a row of more practical looking shops off to the side near the entrance. There sandwiched in between a video store and a small clothes shop was the answer to her prayers, she hurried towards the little convenience store making a mental note to pop into the video store later if she had time. Twenty dollars and several large carrier bags later she exited the shop feeling satisfied and proud of herself, she'd managed to find everything on her list including a towel which she'd found alongside the small selection of beach essentials at the back of the store. On a whim she popped into the little movie store next door thinking that it might be nice to just relax inside on her first night, after all she had been busy the last few days and she just wanted to destress. As she opened the door a little bell tinkled overhead causing the overworked cashier to look up a forced smile on her face to welcome her to the store. She fancied something light hearted to take her mind off the past few days so after browsing a few of the aisles, she picked up a copy of ghostbusters, which she had heard was quite good and took it to the counter.

As she waited in the queue to pay for her movie, the bell above the door tinkled again making her look up in time to see a group of bikers walking in. Each one of the men had their own unique look but Tegan could tell immediately that they were all from the same gang, they didn't look alike but the way they carried themselves, as if they were above everyone else, like they knew something that no one else knew it just screamed gang at her. No these boys didn't wear a uniform like the other gangs she had seen on the boardwalk but they were definitely a gang and something about them chilled her to the core, made her feel as if she were in immediate danger. As if sensing her staring one of the blondes towards the back of the group turned her way, he was quite attractive in a weird rocker kind of way and by the way he looked at her he knew it. Grinning he went to walk over to her but before he could close the short distance between them the cashier spoke up, "You know you're not allowed in here, Max is in his office and he'll be pissed if he sees you". With that the girl gave a pointed look to the bleach blonde who was obviously the leader, he only smirked back in response waiting a few seconds before turning and silently leading the others out of the shop. As he passed through the door way, the rocker turned back to her throwing a wink in her direction he chuckled and hurried to catch up with the others. Tegan turned her attention back to the queue in front of her wondering exactly how long it would be before she could get back to her new home and climb into bed to watch the movie. She was tired, her arms ached from carrying bags and it was making her extremely irritable. When it came to her turn to pay she handed the girl her money and assured her she'd have the movie back by the designated time in two days giving nothing but short sharp answers to try and avoid the small talk that everyone here seemed to want to make. With the receipt in her pocket Tegan exited the store and headed for home thanking god that the end was finally in sight. But before she had even begun to make her way through the crowd her ideas of a nice leisurely stroll back were shattered by some idiot barging into her.

The force of the other person's body sent one of her shopping bags flying, emptying its contents over the boardwalk floor. "Fucking brilliant" she cursed not bothering to look up more concerned about collecting the groceries that had begun to be dispersed further across the floor thanks to people kicking them. "Are you fucking retarded" she yelled again at the unknown culprit "I mean seriously how difficult is it to just look where you're going and not just walk at people" she sighed picking up the last apple off of the ground "What you got nothing to say?" she snapped standing back up ready to confront the idiot. As she turned around to face the person responsible for her now considerably worse mood she gasped. There standing in front of her, a huge grin spread right across his face was the rocker from the video store. Tegan broke their eye contact the warning bells ringing louder than ever in her head as she realised she'd just publicly berated a member of a dangerous gang. She had no evidence to say they were dangerous but her gut told her they were and she always trusted her gut. Her mind raced at a thousand miles a minute trying to work out the best way to style this out, honestly she didn't see a best way but the least humiliating way would definitely be to stand her ground. Squaring herself up and trying to hide the fear that must by now have been obvious to anyone who paid her any attention she lifted her eyes up again, Once again she blushed a deep crimson as she took in the surroundings and realised that it wasn't just the rocker, stood behind him with equally entertained looks on their faces were the other three. Oh Shit the voice in her head moaned.

Thanks for reading guys, let me know if you'd be interested in me continuing this and if you have any ideas or improvements you'd like to see. I'm completely open to feedback!

Thank You Again Xx