This choice: A menagerie, including Blake and/or his friends • Go Back...Chapter #36Revenge Play by: Seuzz   "I don't care," you tell Sydney. "Random guys, I don't care who. As long as we get it done this weekend. Tomorrow would be soon enough."
There's a pause. "What's wrong, Will?" Sydney asks.
You fight to hold it back. But your heart will burst if you don't tell her, so you let it spill out. "Some of Blake's friends hauled me out to the portables today, during sixth period."
* * * * *
And you tell her what happened. What got said, why it happened, and how it's probably not going to stop. Oh Jesus, she gasps a couple of times. Oh God. Oh Will! "It'll be okay," you tell her when you're done, "just as long as I get someplace else. Someplace they won't know who I am."
"So where do you want to hide?"
"I don't want to hide," you growl through gritted teeth.
"So don't hide," she says. "Fuck 'em over, like we did to Nicholas."
"You mean—?"
"It's obvious, Will. The best way to fuck 'em over, to get back at them, is as one of them."
You talk it over a little more, but she doesn't have to explain it further. You had the same thought. You even explain to her that you wouldn't have to replace all of them with doppelgangers, as she suggests. ("We need to fill out the Brotherhood anyway.") Just turn yourself into one of them ... and start tearing at friendships from the inside.
* * * * *
Sydney picks you up early the next morning. You tell her you've thought some more about what you talked about, and you want to do it. But you want to start by making just one replacement, and see how things go from there. She tells you that the decision is totally up to you, but she does ask for the names of the guys who hauled you outside. "I want to know who they are."
You've parted with Sydney in front of the gym—she has a P.E. class first thing—and are nearing your locker when again strong hands are laid on you. You're thrust through the crowd, and a punch to a kidney slams you face first into a locker. Your knees buckle, but the hand supports you as you're wrenched around. You sphincter loosens to find David Kirkham grinning into your face.
Kirkham is a little smaller than you, but he's compact and strong. He rolls the ever-present toothpick about in his mouth beneath the ever-present shades.
He puts his face close to yours so that he can make himself heard without lifting his voice over the mutter of the crowd.
"I hear you're getting fucked these days, Prescott." His voice is soft, but there's a hard rattle in it, like the scales of a serpent sliding over stone. "Wanna tell me about it?"
Your shoulders rise in a weak shrug. It's never a good idea to talk back to David Kirkham—one of the most fearsome bullies at Westside—but it's an even worse idea to say or do nothing when he address you.
"You're not sure?" His grin widens. "What kind of a pussy-sniffer doesn't know if he's getting fucked?"
Now you just swallow.
"I'm going to do you a favor, Prescott," he hisses. "I'm going to ride you." He tightens his grip on your collar. "I've seen that girl that you don't know if you're fucking or not. Oooh! If I was with her, she's know she was getting fucked. I'd fuck her into a coma then fuck her back out of it. But I was saying I'm gonna do you a solid."
He puts his face so close to yours you can smell the cinnamon on his breath.
"Starting Monday I'm gonna fuck you up every day, in front of her. Give you a chance to prove to her that you got balls big enough for her. You got balls big enough for her, don't you? She inspires you, doesn't she?" He punches you again. "So I'm gonna let you show her how much she inspires you. And as an extra favor, 'cos I like you so much, I won't pull any my punches."
He drops you, and sniggers as he pats your chest. "So get ready for a good show on Monday, Prescott. Play it like your life depends on it." With another hissing laugh, he melts back into the crowd.
You run into the nearest bathroom and throw up.
* * * * *
You can't say anything to Caleb in first period about your run-in with Kirkham. Not that Caleb could do anything about it except grumble sympathetically. But telling him would involve telling him about your new relationship with Sydney, and you've yet to figure out a way of breaking that to him.
But you don't even get to have a normal conversation with him. He is very white in the face, and when you greet him he just folds his arms and stares at the front of the room with glittering eyes. "Caleb," you say. "Caleb, man, come on!" Even when you wave your hand in front of his face he just turns the color of Antarctica and stares straight ahead.
"The fuck is the matter with Johansson?" you ask Keith when you fall into the desk in front of his in second period. "The son of a bitch went all last period ignoring me."
"It's pro'ly on account of your being such a backstabbing asshole," Tilley replies. He leans back, turns his cap brim-side front, and pulls it down over his eyes. "Can't say I blame him," he adds as he lifts his cell phone to block his view of you.
"What are you talking about?" But with a sinking heart you can make a pretty good guess.
"What you think I'm a'talk about? What's her name? Girl wanted to get to know Caleb only you got to her first?"
You grip your desk and glare. "What are you talking about?" you repeat.
"You know exactly what I'm'a talk about, motherfucker. Girl comes on to Caleb, you sling a lot of shit at him so he don't come back at her, you pick her up and walk off with her instead. Not fucking cool, man." He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. "Not fucking cool."
"Okay, first of all, who told you some girl was coming on to Caleb? And second, what makes you think I'm—"
But the words falter and die. You've never been good at bluffing. Obviously Caleb would have told Keith about Sydney, and about how you talked him into ignoring her; and just as obviously word must have spread back to the two of them that you and her had started going out.
"I tell you one more thing," Keith says, "and then I start talkin' to you like you was a wall. As in, I ain't talkin' to you ever again." You can't help rolling your eyes at Keith's attempt to sound "ghetto." "You better go lookin' for some new friends, 'cos you ain't findin' none where you been findin' 'em b'fore. An' that includes Carson and James." He whistles. "Ain't no one cool wit' what you done to Caleb. You gonna find 'em all cold."
* * * * *
Well, who gives a shit about Caleb and Keith and the rest of those jackwads anyway? You were going to swap places with someone else at school and then they weren't going to be your friends anymore anyway.
And who gives a shit about David Kirkham? Let him torment the pedisequos you leave behind. With a new body—and with a "Brotherhood of Baphomet" behind you—you can fuck him up good.
You spend the rest of the day—which is at least free of any more drama; even James Bridges, who has fourth period with you, ignores you—pondering which of the assholes to make your bitch. By the time Sydney appears at the end of her post-class gymnastics class, you've narrowed it down to four choices.
The first is James Bridges, who appears to be one of Blake's friends. That would be the best spot to strike at O'Brien from. The second is Dylan Lloyd, the grinning psycho who took the lead humiliating you yesterday.
Your third and fourth choices, though, are a little eccentric. One is Steve Patterson, the guy who sort of rescued you. Steve is the alphaest of the alpha bullies, and probably second only to the hulking Gordon Black in the school's pecking order. All by himself, after all, he daunted six guys into letting you go. As Patterson, you'd have nothing to fear, and you'd be able to give O'Brien's friends plenty to worry about, especially Lloyd and Shuler, who are on the basketball team with him. Patterson also has a reputation as a Triple-A poon hound.
The last is a kind of Patterson equivalent: Erik Carstairs. Erik is on the football squad with O'Brien and Bridges, and he seems to be the alpha on the team. At least, the impression you have from talk is that he basically runs the team even though he's not team captain. Just as Patterson could terrorize Lloyd and Shuler, Carstairs (maybe) could terrorize O'Brien, Bridges, Nelson, and their friends.
"I'm not going to tell you who you should pick," Sydney says as you drive off together. "But I'm going to give you four names, and you think about who would go good with whoever you're picking." She rattles off some names, but you're too confused to pay close attention. Say again what I'm supposed to do? you ask her.
"Kelsey Blankenship. Kim Walsh. Catherine Muskov. Deanna Showalter," she says. "I want to put one of them together with each of the guys you pick. You know, for—" She tickles your thigh. "So, think about who would go good with who. But it's totally your decision."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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