Jolene jumped at the motorist's roar.
Jolene squinted, her eyes not adjusted to the noontime sun that bounced off everything outside. The shiny car sped past the window of the Semisonic's Pub and Grill, which itself was an area that had been sequestered off from the rest of the Semisonic Hotel's lobby. The interior kept itself dark compared to some of the other fancy places Jolene had been, probably to give off a romantic, nostalgic atmosphere like the smoky backgrounds of the 1930s and 1940s.
Josuke shifted in his seat. Jolene's table sat in the middle of the dining area, Josuke in front of her, Thoko playing games to her left. The table was intimate for two people, much less three. Jolene knew if Thoko wasn't playing his DS, he'd ask questions about everything without a thought as to who could hear.
Not that she didn't already tell him everything she knew. She was in prison, this Japanese guy bailed her out because they're related, and there's magic punching ghosts that want to kill her. Thoko told her that sounded awesome.
For all the damage Jolene had taken, she was doing pretty good. She'd fixed up her hair, and Silver Lining had taken most of the damage. Scraped elbows were covered up by the jacket she still wore.
Josuke probably took the most damage, but he didn't really care, from what Jolene could tell. He found some glasses on the way to the hotel, which covered the punch to the face Jolene gave him. She couldn't see what he was looking at. Even though he was facing her directly, his thoughts were elsewhere. He's said very little after the fight. Even though she felt he wouldn't, she wondered if Josuke was mad at her.
Jolene sighed and rested her head in her hand. Her attention turned to a team of bellhops tending to customers' luggage at the entrance to the right of the Pub and Grill. She recalled driving by the Semisonic Hotel with her family when she was younger. It always struck her as some type of ultra-wealthy clubhouse that only the elites could buy their way into, but now that she was seated at the restaurant in the lobby, she realized it wasn't that expensive, just a little pretentious.
Behind her, the grand staircase branched into two separate paths to the rooms, an open balcony overlooking the lobby. The ceiling hung high above the geometric tile work, a dusty chandelier giving little illumination to the garish decor. It did a better job of portraying the time period that lives in people's collective imagination than being historically accurate, but people prefer it that way. They want to walk into a memory,
without realizing how much has changed, or how much was never like that in the first place.
Josuke suddenly put both of his hands on the table.
"Do you want to order something?" he asked, "I have to check us in." "Oh yeah," Thoko said, pausing his game.
Thoko grabbed a drawstring bag resting by his feet. Some anime-styled woman with too much hair and too little armor was cheaply printed on the front. Jolene hoped he didn't spend money on it.
Thoko counted his bills and placed seven ones on the table.
"Do you think this is enough to get one of those drinks that come in a coconut?" he
asked.
Josuke sighed and gave him some money. As he was about to leave, Jolene couldn't
contain herself.
"I'm sorry," she said. Josuke stopped.
"I know I had to do whatever it takes to win, but-" she paused. "I didn't want to hurt
you."
Josuke put his wallet away.
"Neither did I. That's why you were able to win." He walked off.
"Spooky," Thoko said. "What?" Jolene asked.
He placed a hand over his eye. "Tch, I would have beat you... if I was trying." "Whatever."
"What's up with this anyway?" Thoko waved his hand over his eye.
"Hasn't said yet, but we can ask him in the room." There were a lot of things she needed to ask about, and she was going to get an answer.
"We're sharing a room?!" Thoko exclaimed, startling everyone around them.
Thoko, oblivious to anything else, noticed a waiter near him. "Uh, yeah, I'll have a virgin pina colada, the one that comes in a coconut. Jolene, what do you want?"
"You to go back to playing your game," Jolene said, but her attention was caught by something out the window.
Something she thought was impossible.
No. Not him, she thought. Not yet.
"I have to go," Jolene said, heading towards the entrance. "Jolene," Thoko said reprimandingly.
"You can see me through the window," she told him, standing up. "I'll be right back." Thoko sighed, but pressed play.
Jolene waded her way through more stuffy guests and out through the revolving doors. She was suddenly reminded of the need for AC. It was just past noon now, and though the shadows of the skyscrapers hid her from the sun, she could still feel the hot air.
She looked around, hoping that her eyes had tricked her. But no. It was him.
Jolene clenched her fist, then turned left, towards the man in loose clothes, with long braided hair, walking with a peculiar gait.
She placed her hand on his shoulder. "Jibby?" she asked, and the man froze.
He slowly turned, and her cousin met her eyes.
Jolene hugged him without a second thought. There was some small part of her that panicked, just for a moment, wondering if this was a type of enemy's trick, but this was real. He looked real, felt real, he even smelled real, and what's more important, she could feel it in her blood, that this was the real Jibby Joestar hugging her back.
"It's been so long, so much has happened, I just- I'm happy to see you and even though that doesn't change anything I don't care anymore-"
There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted him to say, but she started to get choked up. She pulled back and wiped a tear away.
"Why are you here? What are you doing back in Florida? Last I heard, you were in Europe."
Jibby opened his mouth, but closed it to a saddened smile.
"I gotta get somewhere," he mumbled. He grabbed her hand, and they walked forward.
There was something off about the way he said this. Sure, it had been years since he had left home over some fight she didn't recall the reason for, but Jibby was always loud and boisterous. He wore his emotions on his face, and made sure everyone knew what he was thinking. Jolene couldn't imagine something changing him this much.
They walked along the gum covered sidewalk into sunlight coming through between the buildings. Jolene kept walking with her cousin, but slowed her pace.
"Jibby, I-" she said, "I've been through a lot of stuff"
A trio of tourists in matching hats walked past them. Jolene chose her words carefully.
"Maybe more than you think I have," she continued. "Even if you talked to someone and found out the story, there's still more. I don't know how to explain it right now, but I do have places I have to be."
Jibby looked over his shoulder. Jolene noticed that he left his shirt unbuttoned, and in his pocket was a belt. He was unshaven, even more disheveled than usual, like he was missing sleep. The most disturbing thing, however, was that he kept looking behind her.
Looking for something.
She stopped and broke his grip. "Dammit, Jibby, say something!"
He stopped. He looked around, like he was looking for answers, then sighed. He wiped his face in frustration, but didn't say anything.
Jolene was about to give him a new one, or maybe just storm off back to the hotel, but Jibby's eyes raised in alarm.
Whatever he was looking for, he had found it. Her cousin pulled her close by the arm. "Run," he said, quietly but firm.
Then he started running, pulling her by the arm.
Jolene didn't argue. She knew when her cousin was serious.
They ran forward, then through the street, a car honking at them for cutting it off, but Jibby was unphased. He kept going in some direction only he knew, through crosswalks and alleys, until they stopped in between two buildings.
Jolene panted from the spontaneous exercise, but Jibby remained composed. He stood there. He was waiting for something.
Then it walked in front of them.
Its main body was half a meter long and thirty centimeters thick, though it walked on tall legs about the same height. It was geometric and triangular, like a fat arrowhead. From the bottom of the back end sprouted six spider-like legs which extruded all the way to the front. It walked like it was crawling.
This must be what was chasing Jibby. This was an enemy stand.
The stand faced them. Its front lowered, the first of its spindling, robotic legs bending ever closer to the floor, the last pair raising into hyper-extension with a click in each notch. The pose in which it took reminded Jolene of an unleashed dog, one that did not know the difference between play and aggression. The stand froze in this pose, but by any moment of its choosing, by any anxious movement she made, by any signal from its user hidden from her view, it would pounce and attack.
All she and Jibby could do was wait.
The stand clicked once more, then stopped. Jolene clenched her fists tighter, wondering what the next move would be. A gunman in a wild Western showdown would think the first move to be an advantage, but this wasn't as simple as who shoots first. She had no idea what this stand was going to do, and if she had any trust in Jibby's sense of survival, the smartest thing to do was to run away.
If only he could say anything about it.
But that was it, wasn't it? Sound, Jolene thought to herself. This was all about sound.
Jibby wasn't giving her the silent treatment for no reason. This stand must be affected by noises that Jibby was making. It wasn't just talking, either, it was all noise. That's why he said as little as possible, but also why he had his belt in his pocket. He didn't want to make any noise. It was almost as if the stand was using sound to track her cousin, but how was it doing that in the middle of downtown Miami? There was noise everywhere. The streets are always filled with honking traffic, the lights and speakers of the shopping centers begged everyone's attention, hell, even the birds cried out. Maybe that's how he was able to get this far, but there it was, and here they were, crouched in anticipation-
A loud metal clang came from behind her.
Jolene jumped. Instinctively, she turned her head, seeing a man with a hairnet and a stained white uniform step out of the building's grimy double doors, throwing a trash bag onto an open, yet mostly filled dumpster. The bag landed on the ground with a clatter, scattering the birds pecking away at the garbage. Jolene cursed to herself, quickly returning her attention to the dog-stand, hoping it wasn't already going for her throat.
The dog still stood poised, but its body shook, then split open along its horizontal seam. It looked like a yawning mouth, but instead of teeth or tongue, the top and bottom were connected by a slimy, elastic film. The "mouth" halted with a jerk, the membrane's holes jiggling in the breeze.
Jolene felt a hand grab her shoulder. Jibby had not taken his eyes off the thing. He knew what was coming next. He pulled her closer.
"Quiet," he whispered.
He wiped his mouth, then he pushed her into the garbage.
A loud, droning noise emitted, presumably, from the stand as Jolene ducked behind the trash. If she looked carefully, she could see the air around her warp into strange shapes, but it was diffcult to concentrate. She covered her ears and bit her lip to stop from crying out, mustering to keep all but a whimper in. If Jibby told her to do something, he meant it.
The cook, who stumbled into this fight of no fault of his own, covered his ears as well. The cook staggered back, saying something that Jolene couldn't make out under the
rest of the noise. It struck Jolene that he could hear it, too, which meant that he was a stand user as well, or that this stand had control over something everyone could hear.
Jolene felt a rumble, and the noise stopped. Ears ringing, she peeked over the trash to see why the stand had stopped. It was on its side, knocked over by a bag of garbage Jibby had thrown. The bag had ripped open, and all of the garbage was covered in a slimy film much like the one within the stand's body. Her cousin was standing over it, but as she was about to say something, he turned around and placed a finger over his mouth. She could save the questions for after the fight.
Ears returning to normal, Jolene could now hear the stream of expletives coming from the cook. She wondered if she should even bother giving him an excuse, or run to Thoko and Josuke, who must have heard the commotion.
The cursing stopped. The cook had his hand to his throat. As he gasped for air, waving at her for help, a sludge oozed out of his mouth. The stand walked closer to him, its mouth bouncing slightly. With every tortured step the cook took, the stand drawing ever closer, the sludge rose out of the impact and covered his shoes. He slipped to his side, knocking into the dumpster with a loud clang. He fell face first into the growing puddle of slime, then was still.
Jolene couldn't hold back anymore.
"Jibby-" she said, as quietly as she could, but the stand turned around impossibly fast. It's dripping mouth opened, and Jolene felt her heart beat faster.
BANG.
Jibby kicked a trash can near him. The stand's pointed nose now pointed to Jibby.
He banged on the trash can again. Jolene thought she could see a spectral figure trailing behind him, but it was too fast to make anything out.
Jibby picked up a man's lid. He slammed it on the wall, playing it like a cylinder. The stand crawled past Jolene, ignoring her.
"Don't follow me!" he yelled. "Go to the beach!"
Jibby jumped through the doors the cook had come out of, and the stand followed
suit.
Jolene looked at the man lying on the floor, but she shook her head. This was no time to freeze up in thought. She had to trust that Jibby had a plan, and trust that her other friends would be able to find her.
Jolene headed for the beach.