13

Chapter Text

FRI FEB 18

After my normal morning routine, I texted Amy to see what she was up to for today. She replied with a zombified 'shut up or coffee' that had me chuckling. On my run I honestly considered putting on a mask and dashing past Arcadia to a coffee shop near there to get her something, before meeting her at her house and heading to school from there together. While funny, it was an unnecessary risk, and I'd been taking too many of those recently as it was.

Amy was already at school by the time I was done with my shower again. Seated in the cafeteria like before, she'd skipped most of the food options this time, and I repeated my play from yesterday before sitting down next to her, handing her a banana this time. Her stare was nonplussed, almost glaring at me through baggy, slightly bloodshot eyes.

"This better not be a dick joke." She muttered.

I shrugged, cutting mine up into my instant oatmeal. "You know I don't make dick jokes."

She seemed to consider my words for a moment, eyeing the fruit warily before deciding she wasn't at risk of impending pun and started peeling the thing.

"What're your plans for after practice, today?" I asked, mostly to fill the silence. "And why do you look like you haven't slept?"

She eyed me for a moment and huffed a breath out her nose. "Avoiding Carol. Didn't work." She took a quick bite of the fruit. "Vicky wants to hang out, today."

"Is she coming to the practice?"

Amy shook her head. "Nah, she's got a thing." From the disdain in her tone, I guessed the thing involved Dean. Sensing that Amy was looking over my shoulder where Vicky was sitting with him just cemented the idea for me.

"Do... you want me to come along?" I didn't want to sound too pushy or hopeful, but honestly the thought of getting away from it all after whatever Kara had planned seemed like a good idea.

Amy seemed to consider it for a long while, pretending to chew when I knew her fruit didn't need it. I was starting to think she'd turn me down, when she said "Sure. I know Vicky won't mind."

I heaved a little sigh of relief, which had her looking at me oddly, feeling fairly confused. "It's fine. Everything's fine." I said. She wasn't convinced, but dropped it. "I'll see you at lunch, I guess?" Then I got up and started getting ready for class a little early, rather than risk any awkwardness. She let me go, and I watched in my senses as she sat there, contemplating until the bells started ringing.

---

I meandered the halls on the way to lunch. Taking the long way and the occasional wrong turn, spreading my senses out through the school while I thought. I still couldn't feel Cassie anywhere. I was fairly sure I was familiar enough with her to recognize her through the ground, but I was on my fifth or sixth pass through everyone on the school grounds. She just wasn't here.

Also, I was procrastinating on talking with Amy again.

Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I sent Cass a text. 'Are you okay?'

The reply was a succinct 'I'm fine.'

I deleted the original 'You're not at school' and replaced it with 'I can't find you anywhere, are you sure you're okay?'

'Just busy.'

'Busy enough to miss school?'

'Family stuff.'

I could tell she wanted me to drop it, but I didn't want to be the sort of person who did that. 'Do you need help? You know I'll do whatever I can.' There. Fourth time through re-writing it, but it shouldn't go over badly, anyway. I was almost to the cafeteria by the time she replied, despite not changing my wandering path there.

'Maybe. I'll think about it.'

It wasn't much, but it was enough. I sent her an 'okay' and got in the food line, smiling a little.

Amy was sitting with Vicky and her friends, but I didn't see Kara nearby. Wary of another ambush, I slowly sat down. A few moments later my senses spotted her a couple hallways away. With a small sigh, I turned to Amy, who'd been giving me an odd look.

"Yesterday." I summed up. She hummed a noise of realization and nodded upward, in a way that reminded me of something Carol had done while I was over the other day.

We sat in silence for a bit, watching and listening to the chatter around us. Amy was watching the teens around us like a hawk and occasionally poking her sister, while I was keeping an 'eye' on the whole school, and Kara in particular. Eventually the silence got to me. "So, what's Vicky's 'thing' today?"

The girl herself heard me, and cut off her other conversation to answer giddily. "I'm meeting up with the Wards for a joint patrol after school."

Huh. That was interesting. "Can they do that?" I asked Amy.

She shrugged. "They're really not supposed to, but no one cares."

"Hey, if it was a problem, someone would've said something." Vicky pouted. "I do it every week or two, and no one's complained."

Uh-huh. That sounded just weird enough that I was sure something was going on. Either the Wards weren't reporting it, or their superiors weren't passing it on... maybe it was just Glory Girl and her aura getting her way again. Then again, it might be encouraged. Forming rapports with independents to entice them into the government cape groups. That one sounded about right, from what I knew of them.

By the time I was done with my musings, Vicky was already back to her previous conversation, and Kara was finishing up in the lunch line. She made her way straight to us, as I knew she would, trailed by a few other girls.

"Hey, Tay." She giggled at her rhyme, and I warily greeted her in turn. "I've got everything set up for today, but a couple girls wanted to meet you before they'd drop by."

The three girls she'd indicated couldn't be more different, aside from all being white. "This is Abby," Who was large, less in the heavy-but-curvy way Kara was, and more just... round. She was shy and I could tell she was nervous. "Millie," Another shy one, anxious this time. She was short and mousy, and wore glasses. She just looked so... frail. "and Susan." who was tall, around my height, and where the other two had shoulder-ish length brown hair, Susan's was long, lustrous, and dark. If my hair were straight and you tweaked our faces a bit, she could pass as my older sister. Where the others were shy, she just seemed bored.

"O-kay?" I hadn't expected to need to help with this. I had no idea what to tell them. "What can I help you with?"

The two shy ones looked at each other, and seemed to be competing for who'd have to talk first. In the end, Abby stepped up. "Uh, do you... think you... er, can I?" She indicated herself, and I bit back my scathing thoughts at her shyness. Instead I took the time to really assess her, as she fidgeted.

"I don't think you'd do well with a lot of the advanced forms I know-" She deflated a bit. "-but we're probably not going to get to those with just a couple hours a week after school. Anyone can learn the basics." She seemed satisfied with this, and let her friend talk next.

Or she would, if the girl would stop thinking and fidgeting. How had this girl even survived in Brockton until now? "Just... wanted to see. Maybe talk a bit?" I nodded. Getting to know your teacher a little before you'd trust them made sense. I got up and indicated one of the less full tables nearby, and Kara happily lead them over to claim it. I turned to the last girl.

Susan shrugged. "I was just curious. You don't look like much." If it hadn't been for all my experience with Sophia saying things like that, with every inflection imaginable, I probably would've missed the utter neutrality in the statement. It was a fact, like she'd just mentioned it was partly cloudy today.

"You don't, either." Were I anyone else, I might've missed the small smirk that went with her more obvious shrug. Her clothes were nice, but weren't opulent like the socialites' were. She obviously took care of herself, from the look of her hair and the light makeup I could see. If it weren't for her height and hair, she'd be incredibly average at best. Much like myself. "What has you interested practicing with us?"

Her head tilted in a semi-shrug. "Hard to beat free, compared to the other options. Less time commitment, too. Rather focus on studies, but I'd hate to waste the time by not making it to University." By not surviving the bay, she meant. I nodded. That sounded entirely fair.

I turned to Amy. "You coming?"

She paused, thinking about it. She turned to gaze somewhat longingly at her sister's back for a moment, before some tension leaked from her body and she nodded. "I might as well." She poked her sister to tell her to watch herself, since she wouldn't be there to do it for her, and followed us over.

Kara was smugly reigning over the now empty- aside from us- table, when we got there. "So! How about we talk a little about ourselves?" When no one took her up on the offer, she continued. "I'm me, and amazing, I like most things, and dislike the rest with a violent passion." She muttered the last part darkly, despite the bright so-wide-her-eyes-were-closed smile she wore. "Pompoms! You're up." She cheered, as the last girl sat down with us.

Susan rolled her eyes, but spoke up while re-arranging her tray. "Susan Stralson. I like studying, mostly science. I'm going to be going to university for something science-adjacent, possibly engineering, but I'm not sure what, yet."

Kara smirked. "You sure that's everything, cheer-girl?" Susan gave a low grunt as she dug into her food.

"You're a cheerleader?" I asked. I'd felt that she was fit, but I'd thought it was just regular exercise like I was getting.

She shrugged. "Just in it for the scholarship."

"She's good, though. And really flexible." Kara chipped in. Susan cleared her throat without turning from her food, and Kara made an affirmative hum and briefly held her hands up just over the table's edge. The other two girls blushed a little, and I had to wonder what Susan had on her, that Kara would quiet down that quickly.

Kara patted Abby's shoulder, the girl startling a bit. "I... uhm. Abby Gray. I like drawing and music."

"I keep telling you, you should try out for the band." Our cheerful host cut in.

"I don't know..." At Abby's muttering, Kara gave me a rather significant look. What did she want me to say about it? I hardly knew any of them!

"Uh, it doesn't seem so bad?" I tried, but what did I even know about band? Winslow's music department was one of the worse off in that dumpster fire, with the school not willing to buy instruments, and the students usually too poor to afford them either. It was really just an excuse to hang together to avoid the roving gangs and bullies. "After you're in, it's just another crowd, right?" Abby tensed, and Kara made a strangled noise. "I mean, you don't need to stand out at all, just be another face in the group." That seemed to calm nerves a bit.

"Millie?" Kara seemed to want the momentum to keep going, but the shy little freshman seemed barely able to handle the spotlight.

"Uhm... I... I like... things." She started to shiver, and I held a hand out to where she was sitting, on the other side of Amy. She eyed the hand and nodded, but didn't take it. "I... want to be better. More confident."

I knew that feeling. "Don't worry, I'll do what I can to help." She smiled, but still seemed uninterested in my hand, so I brought it back to my side. Well, I guess that just left me and Amy. "I'm Taylor Hebert. I like training and reading." Though I hadn't had much time for books, lately. "And I'm getting into meditation and tutoring, I guess." Scape-Dinah, go!

Kara gave an exaggerated 'wow' and a brief bout of quiet clapping, and everyone turned to Amy.

She shrugged, picked at her food some more, and said "Amy Dallon. Not really going to change your minds about me one way or another." with a shrug. That was... honestly incredibly defeatist, in my opinion.

Kara's smile looked a tad brittle as she changed the topic. "So, how're classes going?"

I relayed that I was mostly caught up after Winslow, which brought on the usual round of 'are the rumors true' and I dutifully relayed that the myths and legends of the dank morass of humanity's leavings were as Mordor-ian as the prophecy had fortold. Everyone else's classes were going fine, and I learned that Abby and Millie were indeed freshman, and Millie was enjoying the hard science classes while Abby was muddling through them, but liking some of the softer topics. Susan was a junior like Kara, but already taking a couple introductory college courses to go with her AP classes. Unlike seniors like Victoria though, all of Susan's college work was in addition to regular school hours, instead of filling in the time.

The rest of lunch was surprisingly pleasant, before we broke up to finish classes for the day.

---

I met up with Amy on the way to the gym, where we were supposed to meet Kara. I could tell she was on her way, and figured I might as well let her gather people up before we showed up, so I could avoid the awkward introductions-while-waiting phase and jump straight to training. To this end, I slowed down a bit. "So, who all do you think will be there? How many people signed on?"

Amy shrugged. "Most of Kara's friends will be there. Plus a few curious people who might drop out, evened out a bit by people waiting to see if this is going to be a thing before joining up... maybe twenty people?"

I stopped and stared. She kept walking for a bit, then turned. "What?"

"What?" She mirrored unintentionally. "You didn't think more than a week's drumming up would have no one show up, did you? It's a big school."

"Yeah, but that's..." More people than I thought I could handle. "I might need help."

Amy rolled her eyes. "That's why I'm here to save you. Aren't I the best?" The mostly-deadpan drawl to the question marked it as sarcastic and rhetorical, but I answered anyway.

"You're my hero." I opened my arms and stalked towards her, and she backed away holding up her arms.

She was blushing a little, her heart racing and breathing sharp and unsteady as she backed away. "No hugging!"

I dropped my arms and pouted a little. I didn't think that'd set her off that badly. I really needed to figure out her buttons, so I could avoid pushing them. "Yeah, alright." I muttered, then spoke up a tad louder. "I'm really not going to be getting into more than the basics with them, am I?"

Another shrug. "I really doubt it. You're barely past the basics with me, right?" I nodded. "Don't worry about it. If they're after advanced training, they can bark up a different tree." Or ask nicely for my time, I thought to myself. Though honestly, my time was getting a bit scarce lately. They'd have to make do.

We headed through the main doors to the gym building, letting us in to the balcony that ringed the recessed main court area, and was lined with rooms set aside for the school's different batches of exercise equipment. We headed over to the railing to look down at the court, which was lined with folded-back bleachers along its length, with hallways off the ends to bathrooms, mat storage, some offices, and the tunnel under the road between the buildings, which led to the main locker rooms in Arcadia's basement. The floor was covered in mats, since outside was nice enough for people to use the outdoor courts for basketball games and the like.

I already knew where Kara was, but when I looked, my eyes were immediately drawn to the tall, firetruck-red-haired amazon towering above their little group. She had to be a senior, and their classes are usually on different floors than my sophmore ones, but I don't remember seeing her in the lunchrooms at all. In fact, looking over the group- of which Amy was sadly correct, being almost two dozen girls- I spotted at least six with dyed hair, given their bright coloring.

"What's with all the hair dye?"

"A lot of girls around, especially at Arcadia, have blonde hair. Usually with blue or green eyes." Amy said, her voice low and serious. "Which isn't really the best thing, considering what city we're in." E88, yeah. After a moment, she continued. "Around when I started high school, there was a bunch of girls who started dying their hair. Turned out, it was something Kara's group started in middle school, and it'd made it here faster than she did." She paused for a second. "Vicky gets away with looking like the 'aryan ideal' because she's obviously a hero, fighting Nazis whenever she can. The hair dying is a sort of extreme passive-aggression the girls from the nicer neighborhoods can sometimes get away with."

Huh. "And Kara?" She was bordering the line between blonde and light brown, herself.

"Usually bright as a peacock. She dyes her hair back to normal every so often, I think to make herself more approachable to lure new people in. Longest I've seen her stay blonde, actually."

That... actually sounded pretty bad. The girl herself was already waving up at us, though. The time to back out had passed. I briefly debated just vaulting the rail, but dismissed it as needless showboating. Amy and I took the stairs.

Kara greeted us, and started through introductions. I recognized Erika, the girl who'd asked me out, and Serei, the girl who'd gone paintballing with Cass and I. When Tracy, the tall dyed-redhead, was pointed out, things clicked together in my head. Even I'd heard a little about her; the star of the basketball team, with near-perfect grades. The other dyed girls stuck in my head after what Amy'd said. Amanda was pretty average, short dyed red hair, I'd usually seen her hanging around Kara, and from the way they'd been flirting the other day, I was pretty sure they were more than friends. Green-haired Tiffany was standing off near Susan, both were cheerleaders, and I could see a family resemblance. Tina was tiny, with regal purple hair to her shoulders, and sharp aristocratic features just starting to poke out from her baby fat. Julia and Stephanie seemed pretty normal despite their blue and canary-yellow hair.

I tried to keep track of the rest, but they all blurred together a bit. I wasn't too worried, I didn't have to memorize everyone today, after all. After the introductions, I said hi to Serei and Erika, then got down to business.

"Okay! So, we're probably not going to get too advanced with a few hours a week practice, but I'm going to show you some basics and how to practice them yourselves if you want. It doesn't really matter why you're here, I know some people want to learn to defend themselves, or have extra exercise they can do, or feel more confident in themselves..." I sent some looks to the girls I'd already talked to, while keeping an eye on the rest. "And hopefully this can help with all of that. We're going to start with falls, basic strikes, and grip-breaks, and over the next few weeks we'll start getting into proper leverage, stances and styles, and some active meditation like Tai-Chi katas to help keep things from getting rusty. That sound good? Any questions?"

I got a few questions about what styles I knew, where I'd trained, some other basic questions as to my qualifications. After that I demonstrated a couple falls, had Amy do the same, then we took the girls two-at-a-time to try it themselves. After a bit, it took Amy snapping "I'll heal you up if you bruise, ya nambies, just do it!" to get the lines moving again. I took the shyer looking girls after that, but twenty minutes in each girl had given a try or two, and none were complaining of injuries.

"Learning falls is pretty important. We'll be starting out every practice with it, just to make sure people have it down. Just in case that's not what you're here for though, we're going to make sure you all actually know how to throw a punch, and more importantly, how not to do it."

We went through some more demonstrations, then I gave everyone the choice of working on strikes with me, or practicing falls with Amy. Four of the girls, Abby and Millie among them, decided they didn't feel like learning to punch yet. Most of the rest seemed eager to move on.

The group spent about half an hour working on that, and partway through Kara stopped her own practice to help the girls near her. The fact that she was also correcting little things like stance and posture, told me she knew her stuff. Far more than I'd thought, making me question again why I was even here. I pushed on, though. Taking the brunt of the teaching work while the other girls trickled in from the falls group, and a couple curious bystanders came up to join in.

Then we started on breaking grabs. We went over basic grappling, and the kinds of grabbing they'd more likely encounter if they were getting mugged or kidnapped. This time after the demonstrations, we split the group three ways to go over it. An hour later, I told the group they could work on whatever they liked for the next half hour or so. Amy took the newcomers and a couple of the others aside to work on falls, Kara took a third of the girls to practice more strikes, while I oversaw the rest practicing grapples and breaks.

"Alright, I think that went pretty well for a first day. Hit the showers everyone, I'll see you next week. Kara? Amy?" The two of them stayed, the rest getting the hint to head off, after a few quick goodbyes. I turned to Amy. "Where's Vicky at? She going to drop by soon?"

She dug out her phone, checked the time and messages. "Yeah, looks like her patrol's almost done. She'll be by in a bit. I can go meet her, I guess?"

I nodded and said 'okay', and she left saying she'd see me in a bit. I turned to Kara, eyeing the girl warily. "We need to talk."

Her usual bright and toothy smile was more subdued than usual, but that just brought her down to looking like a chipper girl having a good day, instead of a manic whirlwind of 'fun'. "Yeah, alright. Where to?"

I checked with my senses, and the lot beside the gym was mostly empty. There were two paths past the building to get to the track field and outdoor courts on the other side of it from Arcadia's main building, and the one on that side was locked up. I motioned for her to follow and she complied.

When we got there, I kept some attention on my senses to ensure we wouldn't be interrupted, but the rest of it was laser-focused on her. "You're a martial artist."

Her smile faltered fractionally, before it returned as she clucked her tongue and replied. "Yup."

"So you didn't need me." It didn't make sense. If she could just teach them herself, why wouldn't she? Hell, a lot of the girls weren't even complete novices, and none of the colored-hairs seemed to not know what they were doing. She probably already was. The confusion and frustration caused me to tense and assume the worst. "You were using me?"

She pouted. "And not even in any of the fun ways, I know, I'm sorry!"

I saw red. Teeth clenched, fists shaking, I hissed, "Why?" I heaved in a deep breath. "I thought you wanted to be friends." And just like all my other 'friends' she'd just betray me, like the sycophants, like Emma, like...

No. Not like Amy.

My eyes welled slightly with tears.

For the first time since I'd met her, her smile dropped completely. Her back straightened, weight shifted, her eyes narrowed. It was like she'd aged two years in as many seconds. "Taylor, honey." She said, sweetly. "No offense, but you're the dorky loner girl. If you start teaching other girls to defend themselves, that makes you cool." I didn't feel very cool, right now. "I'm 'that crazy dyke'. If I start teaching girls how to fight, the Nazis drop all pretense of trying to convince me how great their dicks are, and just fucking shoot me for being the 'next Lustrum'."

I clenched and unclenched my hands a few times. She kept talking. "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, but I'm not sorry about giving my girls a place where they can come together, in public, and learn to protect themselves. No more worrying about who might be watching, no waiting for some stalker to pick them off on the way home from a women's shelter or civic center, or never even make it out of an Empire gym, or ABB 'dojo'." She spat the word, almost growling before she drew deep with her nose and kept on. "I'm sorry you're hurting, but I'm not apologizing."

What the hell do I even say to that? Nothing she said pinged anything but truth to my senses. I took deep breaths, started pacing as my heart raced and my body demanded action. Kara stood there, calmly waiting for me to work it out of my system. After a minute or so of active brooding, I turned back to her. "I don't like being manipulated." I growled.

She smirked. "Well, now that you know, it can be more fun for everyone, right?"

I snapped. "And stop with the damned flirting!" I threw my arms out, and almost unleashed a torrent of something to release the pressure of the rage roiling under my skin. "What the hell do I have to do to get you to just stop!?"

Her smile was gone, again. "Ask nicely." When I just stared at her, she shrugged. "I've been waiting for you to tell me to stop, but you didn't. I figured you must like it, at least a little. I know how nice compliments and flirting can be from someone you find attractive." I tilted my head and stared incredulously at her. "Don't you? I know you're at least bi."

I screamed, then. A low, guttural sound as I grabbed my hair and tried so hard not to just end something. I took a deep breath and roared out, "I'm. Not. GAY!"

Kara stood there, shell-shocked for a moment as she tried to process that. "But... I've seen you looking. At Amy, at me..." She watched me hyperventilate as I tried to cool down. "You've got to be interested, right?" She took in my grit-toothed glare, full of gushing tears and a drip of snot, and flagged as some realization I couldn't fathom struck her. "OhhhhhhshitI'msosorry." She said, trailing off into a horrified mutter. After a few seconds holding her hands in front of her mouth, she asked, "Who was she?"

I wanted to rage, to lash out, to stay angry, but all I could feel was honest sincerity and shame in her words. I hiccoughed, and started to curl in on myself before she stepped forward to prop me up on her shoulder and lower us to the ground. "Hey," she muttered while I sniffled and snorted, trying to breathe. "hey, it's alright. You're okay. You're going to be fine."

Some distant part of myself wondered how often she'd had to do this, she slipped into the role so well. Somewhere along the way, my phone dinged, but I couldn't care right now. When I felt collected enough, I answered. "My best friend." My voice cracked and croaked with the words. "My only friend."

She took a long, slow inhale, and I heard her mutter 'Ahh, fucked the bitch.' under her breath. "I'm sorry." She said, shaking me slightly to draw me out of my daze. "I didn't know it would hurt you so much. I'm sorry."

I sat there for a while as she stroked my hair, trying to think while the cogs of my mind ground slowly through the thick emotional mud gumming everything up. I sighed, then pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. Kara's hands stayed to my sides in case I needed them, but she otherwise didn't help. She watched me staring off, for a second, before she got to her feet too. "Let's get you cleaned up."

She led me through the mostly-deserted halls to one of Arcadia's bathrooms. Empty at this hour, but Kara still went in first in case she needed to distract someone from my predicament. It was an oddly sweet gesture, compounding on others that refused to add up in my muddled mind. I washed my face, and she offered me makeup. At first I declined, but she offered to fix up my eyes a bit, so my crying wasn't as obvious. I relented after that, and she carefully applied product to my cheeks and nose, and around my eyes. It reminded me of when mom would help me dress up, years ago. The thought almost had me crying again. A couple minutes after we'd started, she proclaimed me done. Aside from some redness in the eyes themselves, I looked fine.

With a sigh, I checked my phone. Three texts from Amy, and one from Vicky.

"I should go." I said, stashing it away again.

"Hey," She said from where she'd leaned against the sinks. I looked back. She felt nervous, wary... but she looked determined. "Whatever you decide about me... don't take it out on them? Please?"

I took a breath, held it while I considered, and let it out. "No more flirting?"

She put her hand over her chest and gave a soft smile. "Promise."

I stared at the hand for a few seconds. She didn't feel like she was lying. I nodded, and left. Once out in the hall, I watched her sigh, rub her face, and mutter something. I was already down the hall when she turned to check her makeup, then check her phone.

I met Amy and Vicky by the front of the school. Vicky waved me over, and they watched me carefully as I made my approach. Once I was there, she smiled and said, "Hey, Taylor. You look, good." I could feel the effort it took her to keep it from being a question. I snorted as Amy rolled her eyes at her sister's words.

"Hey. Can we... just go?" I asked, projecting to keep the words above a mutter.

Amy came over, patted my back, and ran a finger along my neckline while her hand was there. I could tell from the mild tingling that my eyes weren't red anymore.

"Yeah, sure." I could tell she was considering her words while we started toward the parting lot. "The Market okay, or would you rather do something else?" At least she remembered I don't like the Boardwalk very much.

"Yeah, that's fine." I'd feel better once we were there, and moving around, keeping from sitting anywhere too long, felt like it'd keep me from wallowing or passing out from emotional drain. I wanted to be fine. Just needed to take the rest of the day one step at a time.