#eablevins

[optimisticsprinkles]

Read It

Anna Goode meets Noah in the worst of circumstances. She knows she should keep away from him, that seeing him courts danger for them both, but she can't stop herself.

Warnings: Violence and language.

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(I’m open to critiques of color and composition on this image. Also, if you try to read the story on my website, let me know if the colors there make it difficult.)

[sofondabooks]

Last weekend, we had the pleasure of playing 20 Questions with @optimisticsprinkles . 💜

Thank you so much again Beth!

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1464911584648523779.html

[eablevinswrites]

The Big Book of True Loves by E. A. Blevins

[eablevinswrites]

“The Big Book of True Loves” Continued

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Everyone’s big sister.

“What on earth possessed you to help my harebrained brother break into Lash’s hoard?”

Harper shrugged and trailed her fingertips in the water before flicking them dry.

Sabrina, clinging to the pool edge, sighed. “Sometimes I think you do things just to be contrary.”

Harper considered, found that she didn’t disagree, and shrugged again.

Sabrina was a senior and played the big sister to all of Melody’s friends. She had bright green eyes and a matching tail which scintillated in the underwater lights. When her hair was dry, it was long and curly blonde and puffed prettily around her when underwater. Like most mermaids, she spent a lot of time finger-combing the tangles from it.

Harper sat on one of the pool’s platforms to talk to her. Everyone called it “the pool,” but the side-by-side saltwater and freshwater habitats were nothing like the chlorine-scented blue rectangle the rest of the school used.

The freshwater side, separated by a thick pane of aquarium-grade glass from the saltwater side, had leafy greens in attractive configurations and water lilies floating peacefully on the surface. Small, smooth stones lined the bottom, allowing nymphs, sprites, goblins, and naiads to step without cutting their feet.

The saltwater side had kelp and seashells and a wall of real coral on a fake reef which kept students passing on the first floor from peeking in when class was in session. Sand covered the bottom.

The only thing missing, Sabrina had often complained, were fish. The school insisted that fish were pets and required too much upkeep, and the students had to accept their decision. In her tank at home, Sabrina kept seahorses and starfish and a blue tang named Lucky because it kept narrowly escaping the maw of Sabrina’s octopus, Wiggles. Harper thought that Wiggles was the mermaid version of a dog, but Sabrina said that it was the octopus version of an octopus because comparing marine animals to land animals was insulting.

“You’re definitely not aquatic,” Sabrina noted wryly. She had that look Felix got sometimes when he was trying to figure out Harper’s species. She rested her chin on her folded hands, her tail swishing idly behind her. “You could be a dragon,” she suggested. “Felix says you collect sparkly things.”

Harper rolled her eyes, fighting back irritation. She’d told him that in confidence. “It’s hardly a collection. My jewelry box is just a little full. And besides, who doesn’t like sparkly things?” She looked pointedly at Sabrina. Mermaids were known for their attraction to things that shimmered.

“Point taken,” Sabrina demurred. “But you are fierce.”

“Lots of things are fierce. Pixies can be fierce.”

Sabrina laughed. “You are not a pixie.”

“I didn’t say I was a pixie. I’m just pointing out–”

“Okay, okay. Yeah.” Thoughtful silence, then, “You could be a valkyrie.”

“Valkyries like horses.” Harper did not. More, horses did not like Harper. The one time she’d attempted horseback riding, she’d been thrown off and spent the rest of the lesson sulking on the fence and giving her mount the evil eye. Sabrina hadn’t been there, but Felix and Melody had. Felix had laughed when the instructor had apologized profusely and claimed that poor Butterscotch normally had the sweetest temperament. He’d refunded Harper’s class fee, and her mom had sighed when Harper told her the story later.

Sabrina grunted. “Sphinx? Giant? Banshee?”

Harper noted that Sabrina didn’t bring up the bloody, murderous options like lamia or wendigo or bloodcap. It was true that most races had a mean streak, but a few were particularly prone to viciousness even after so many incarnations separating them from the purest form of their species.

All she said was, “I hate riddles. I dunno about the others.” Giants used to be bad-tempered, but they’d mostly mellowed over the years. Banshees… harbingers of doom. Harper thought it sounded kind of cool. One of her favorite bands had two banshees, and they shrieked into the mic with blood-curdling intensity. “Maybe banshee.”

Sabrina smiled. “How much detention do you have?”

Harper dropped her head backward. “Ugh. So much detention.”

[optimisticsprinkles]

Anna Goode from “Goode Girl”

x | x | x

[optimisticsprinkles]

6. Inheritance

Someone else lays claim to Lucy's gloves. Sixth in a series of connected snippets.

Original work. Also available at my website.

The rubbery smell of hot playground asphalt accented the squeak of sneakers as Lucy dominated the foursquare court. She couldn’t use the force provided by her spiffy magic boxing gloves because her parents said boxing gloves weren’t “appropriate” for school, but Lucy didn’t need any help.

She bent her knees and sent Oscar Norcott a feral grin as he readied himself to start a new round. He was a third grader, one grade above Lucy, but she’d still won two games to his three. He’d learned to take her seriously from day one, when he’d genuinely thought she was a kindergartener and tried to go easy on her and wound up embarrassed in front of his friends. Now, he used his longer arm span to his advantage. It kept him just ahead of Lucy on the scoreboard, but Lucy was fast, determined, and never got tired. Pretty much ever.

Since foursquare needed four players to fill all the squares, other kids played too, but they tended to quit after a game or two. Some of them said it was to let someone else take a turn, but the miserable frowns on their faces convinced Lucy that they just didn’t like being so bad at the game. Luckily, there was another foursquare court nearby so that everyone could play the slow, easy game they preferred and let Lucy and Oscar and sometimes his friends, who weren’t bad but took it worse when the got beaten by a girl, play for keeps. Oscar’s friends seemed to prefer dominating the easy court.

When that happened, a lot of the less competitive kids would start a game of tag, and the really uncoordinated ones went to the swings.

“Lucy Song?”

Lucy turned her head at the unexpected summons, and the red kickball bounced right past her. Her temper flared and she rounded on Oscar. “That’s cheating! I wasn’t ready!”

He shrugged, an infuriating smirk on his face, and went to get the ball.

Mrs. Nelson, the playground monitor, approached Lucy with a slip of paper in her hand. “You’ve been called to the vice principal’s office. Take this pass and go straight there, okay?”

Lucy took the pass with a confused frown and waved it under Oscar’s nose as they passed each other. “You didn’t win that one. I want a rematch.”

“Four to two,” he called after her.

“Three to two!” she called back.

He grinned. “Four!”

She was halfway through the doors and caught the one dropping shut behind her to shout “Three!” before scurrying off down the hall.

Lucy got to the office and showed her pass to the secretary, Mrs. Gardner, who looked through her glasses, past the bulbous end of her long nose, and waved Lucy on with a fond smile. “Go right in, dear. They’re waiting for you.”

Lucy’s dad leaned one hip against his desk as he talked to a tall man in an ill–fitting suit. The man had lightly tanned skin, greying scruff on his jaw, and one eyelid that drooped lower than the other. He looked tough and weather–worn, like a cowboy, and his presence put a worry frown in her dad’s eyes.

“Lucy,” her dad said gently as she entered. He straightened and moved to close the door, his movements precise in a way she’d last seen when her goldfish died. “This is Mr. Drake. He seems to be the owner of the boxing gloves you found, and he’s been looking for them.”

Lucy stared at her dad, then at Mr. Drake, and waited with a sinking feeling for them to tell her they were just kidding.

Instead, Mr. Drake pierced her with a suspicious stare. “Those gloves were my dad’s. His father left them to him, and when my dad died in the recent tornado that hit your town, I knew he’d want me to have them.” Here he turned his gaze back to her dad, which Lucy appreciated because her eyes had begun to sting. “They have a lot of sentimental value.”

“They’re mine,” Lucy said, bewildered, her eyes wide to hold back that stinging prickling feeling. “I found them.”

Her dad knelt beside her, his voice infinitely gentle. “You did find them. But Mr. Drake owns them. We need to give them back.”

“No!” The tears spilled over and Lucy turned away so they wouldn’t see.

Silence fell behind her. Her dad took a distressed breath, and Mr. Drake spoke in a hard voice. “I’ll have them back one way or another. They’re mine.”

Lucy felt like her heart was breaking. She strangled a sob when her dad settled a hand on her shoulder. “Lucy,” he murmured, but she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She tore herself away and ran out the door. She didn’t slow down until she was in the girls bathroom, locked safely in a stall, where she bawled quietly.

When she thought maybe recess would be over soon, she wiped her nose on her sleeve, exited the stall, and checked her face in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and red. Lucy leaned in to examine them. She didn’t have eyes like most of the kids in school. She and her big sister Hannah had only one fold instead of two. Their mom called it a “monolid” and said it was fairly common in people of Chinese ancestry, like their family. Lucy’s mom and dad had monolids, and mom had taught Hannah how to put on eyeliner when she was old enough to wear it. The eyeliner made Hannah’s eyes look bigger, but Lucy didn’t see how she kept it from getting smudged all day unless she just never rubbed her eyes. Which seemed impossible. Lucy rubbed her eyes when the sun was too bright or when the wind kicked up the rubber smell of the playground and made her sneeze or when the kickball got bounced too hard and hit her in the face. Lucy rubbed her eyes when she was tired.

Lucy never wanted to wear makeup.

She straightened her Elsa shirt with a tug and used a paper towel to scrub at her face, leaving it dry but no less red and puffy.

“Where are my gloves, kid?”

Lucy jumped, heart racing, to face Mr. Drake. A moment later, as the reality sank in, she gaped. “This is the girls bathroom. You’re not allowed in here.”

“My gloves. I want them. Now.”

Lucy couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t leaving. It was the girls bathroom. Boys weren’t allowed. She stared at him and all she could think to say was, “This is the girls bathroom. You have to leave.”

“I’ve been waiting years to inherit those damn things, and I’m not going to let some sticky–fingered brat steal them from me. So where are they?”

“You can’t…”

He stalked forward, head lowered in a bull–like fashion. “Give me the gloves, kid.”

It occurred to Lucy that he didn’t care he was in the girls room. This fact blew her mind. She could barely process it. It was against the very laws of nature. Boys did not get to enter the girls bathroom. And when they tried…

Lucy opened her mouth wide and did what any responsible little girl would do to an invading boy in the bathroom.

She shrieked.

And she bowled into Mr. Drake, pushing and shoving and trying to drive him toward the door.

“Out out out out out!”

She expected him to give way, because that was what boys did when caught invading the girls bathroom. They laughed and let themselves be shoved out. So she was taken by surprise when he wrapped a hand around her throat, one in her shirt, and lifted her against the bathroom wall.

Lucy heard herself whimper, and the skin of her hands grew unusually warm. She kicked her feet at Mr. Drake, but his arms were long and he could twist his body easily out of her reach.

“Where. Are. The gloves.”

And then Lucy shoved him, and he flew backward into the opposite wall.

The gloves were on her hands.

They were supposed to be in her room.

Mr. Drake pulled himself to a crouch and eyed her warily, gaze locked on the gloves. In a dark, strangled voice, he said, “You put them on.”

Lucy looked at him like he was crazy. “Um.”

“And they activated for you.”

Lucy gulped.

He closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his face, his entire body going rigid. When he lifted his eyes to hers, the rage that glittered there made her shrink back.

He lifted himself to a stalking posture. “You stupid little” and then he said a bad word. A really bad word. A word Lucy wasn’t even supposed to know about. It rang out across the bathroom, bouncing off the tile walls like a living thing, angry and vile.

The shock made Lucy freeze. She’d never been called a word that bad before. She wasn’t even allowed to watch movies with words like that.

He took a step toward her, then another, and his voice came out powerful and dark. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Lucy shrank back against the wall.

Mr. Drake took another step and it left him right in front of her. “They’re useless to me now. The only way I can use them is if…” A hard gleam entered his eye that Lucy didn’t like at all. He paused for a moment, then lifted a hand to her throat. “Sorry about this, kid.”

Lucy didn’t think about her gloves or how they could protect her. She didn’t think about screaming or crying or begging. She was too stunned and confused for any of that. So she stood in silence as his hands clenched on her throat, until the panic set in.

“No!” she screamed, shoving his hands away with a gloved swat that made him curse and clutch at his left wrist. She ran to a stall, but he was right behind her. He grabbed the door with his good hand before she could close it.

That was when the bathroom door opened and someone said, “In here. I heard yelling.”

“Hello?” said someone else. Then “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

Lucy wriggled under the separating wall into the next stall while Mr. Drake was distracted. From the stall closest to the doors, she ran for the grownups.

Mrs. Gardner clutched Lucy’s shoulders protectively and glared through her glasses at Mr. Drake.

“He wouldn’t leave,” said Lucy, burrowing her face into Mrs. Gardner’s stomach. “I told him it’s the girls bathroom, but he wouldn’t leave.”

Mrs. Gardner petted her and murmured soothing words while the person with her—a maintenance man—tried to get Mr. Drake to come to the office.

“We’ve called the cops,” said the maintenance man. “I’d hate to have to explain why you’re alone in the bathroom with a little girl.”

This seemed to make Mr. Drake even madder. He snarled, and Lucy clutched harder to Mrs. Gardner.

“I want my dad,” said Lucy.

“Of course, sweetie,” said Mrs. Gardner, tugging her into the hallway as security arrived at a trot.

Lucy saw her dad hurrying toward them and threw herself bodily into his arms. The gloves didn’t seem to hurt him even though she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, buried her face in his neck, and clung as hard as she could.

“What happened?” he asked Mrs. Gardner softly.

“I thought I heard something in the ladies room, so I grabbed Frank to help me check it out.” She shook her head. “If I’d known Lucy was in there, I wouldn’t have taken the time. I’m so sorry, Dan. I should have interrupted sooner.” Tears thickened Mrs. Gardner’s voice and Lucy felt cool, gentle fingers on the back of her neck. “She’s hurt.”

Her dad’s head moved, and he hugged Lucy tighter. His voice sounded shaky when he said, “Backup was smart.”

They took Lucy to the office, where the principal came out to check on her and give her a lollipop and the nurse had to coax her to release the full–body clamp on her dad. Her dad seemed just as reluctant to let her go, which made Lucy feel better, and they finally agreed Lucy could sit in his lap while the nurse examined her.

The cops got there soon after the nurse did and asked Lucy lots of questions. Another pair of cops took Mr. Drake out of the building, but Lucy didn’t see him, only heard him, and was glad they didn’t bring him past the office.

The cops were friendly, but they kept asking her to go back and repeat the wrong parts of the story, like when Mr. Drake had grabbed her and pushed her against the wall and how high did he lift her and did he just grab her shirt or did he wrestle with it.

Lucy answered their questions; however, she needed them to understand. Mr. Drake had refused to leave the bathroom when she’d told him to. He wasn’t allowed in there, but he wouldn’t leave. It was very important to Lucy that she get this point across.

“Okay,” said Officer Clayton, who was maybe her dad’s age or a little older but definitely the older of the two policemen. He asked most of the questions while the other one wrote things down. “Tell me again about the second time he grabbed you. What did he say beforehand?”

Lucy huffed impatiently and told him, adding, “But he couldn’t hurt me because I had my gloves on.” She’d taken them off when the nurse arrived. She glanced down at them in her lap, then leaned in and told the officers in a whisper, “They’re magic.”

Officer Clayton’s concerned face eased into a soft smile. “It’s good you had them, then.”

Lucy nodded and sat back. “That’s why Mr. Drake wanted them. But they’re mine.” She thought the steel in her gaze would warn the officers away from her magic gloves, but they just smiled.

The younger policeman, Officer Greene, said, “I don’t think you’ll have much problem keeping your gloves after all of this. Mr. Drake is in big trouble.”

Lucy’s eyes went round and she looked up at her dad. “Am I in trouble?”

Her dad, who seemed stunned by the question, wrapped his arms tight around her and whispered, “No, honey. No you are not in trouble. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Officer Greene leaned in and touched her hand to get her attention. “Mr. Drake is in trouble, not you.”

Worried tears entered Lucy’s eyes. “But I pushed him.”

The officer’s tone took on a serious, conspiratorial mein. “Then he shouldn’t have been in the girls bathroom, should he?”

It was the perfect thing to say. Lucy took a deep breath and nodded. Her reply held every ounce of conviction that Mr. Drake should not have broken that one, sacrosanct rule. “Boys aren’t allowed.”

The grownups smiled, even her dad, but Lucy didn’t know what she’d said that was funny. Officer Greene only grinned fiercely at her and said, “That’s right, young lady. That is absolutely right.”

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

[eablevinswrites]

“The Big Book of True Loves” Continued

<<< First | << Previous | Next >>

A different day.

Everyone knew that Principal Lash protected the hoard of confiscated items under the floorboards of his office.

Everyone knew it, but still some idiot tried once a year to get their phone back.

This year, that idiot was Harper. Or, more specifically, Felix with Harper standing lookout.

Leprechauns didn’t have many friends, and Felix had fewer than most. Harper understood the need to be left alone, so she and Felix got along okay. They’d known each other for as long as she’d been friends with Melody, so... most of their lives. Harper had never been afraid of climbing too high or running too fast or snarking at the bigger kids, and Felix had never turned down an opportunity for mischief, which was why he kept dragging her into his shenanigans.

Harper crossed her arms and leaned against the countertop as the school secretary, Mrs. Glass, used her one large eye to search the box behind the counter for the earring Harper had “lost.”

“Is this it?” asked Mrs. Glass, coming up with a silver hoop.

“No,” Harper murmured, trying to make her shoulders slump convincingly as her foot tapped against the floor. What was taking so long?

Mrs. Glass disappeared back into the lost and found box. “What did you say it looked like, dear?”

“Silver,” said Harper, spotting the shift of the principal’s door and slumping in relief as Felix slunk silently out and crouched at her feet with a huge grin and a wink. “With a little ballerina charm on it. And the ballerina’s dress is pink.” Felix caught her eye and made a face, and she shooed him away. The fake earring story needed to have details, and she did used to have ballerina earrings. When she was seven. Melody had given them to her.

He’d just crept out into the hallway when Mrs. Glass rose back up. “I’m so sorry, sweetie, I can’t find it. Why don’t you sign the ledger here, and we’ll let you know if it turns up.”

Harper shrugged and picked up the pen from the dusty blue book Mrs. Glass thumped in front of her. She put her name and a description of the item below rows and rows of entries by other students, thanked Mrs. Glass, and left.

Felix waited against the wall by the corner, flipping a large gold coin and catching it. “The luck of the Irish,” he said in a terrible imitation of an accent.

Harper only raised a brow. Leprechauns did have more luck than most. “All that for a coin?”

He held it up between two fingers, letting the light play off of it. “Pure gold,” he said with obvious pleasure. “Saved up for ages to buy it.”

“And yet you lost it.”

He tilted his head, the green in his eyes twinkling at her. “Thus the rescue mission.”

He flipped it again, but his cocky expression fell when a leathery hand snatched it out of the air.

Principal Lash, who had just turned the corner, examined the coin and turned a speculative glower on the two of them. “My office. Now.”

Harper glared furiously at Felix, who winced. He’d just had to show off his prize.

Mrs. Glass blinked at them as they followed Principal Lash into the back.

Lash lifted two floorboards and poked around in his hoard, looking for something. Harper saw cell phones, rubber lizards, packs of chewing gum, mp3 players, firecrackers, cigarettes, a whoopie cushion, and at least three magazines with naked women on the cover.

Principal Lash rolled the coin over and over in his hand as he searched for the matching item in his hoard and did not find it.

Smoke billowed from his nostrils, the human skin of his face thinning so that ridges of scales peeked from beneath, and he turned eyes like burning brands on the two students.

Felix whimpered as the old dragon dropped the coin into the jumbled pile and nudged the planks into place with his foot. Harper elbowed Felix sharply in the ribs, making him jerk his gaze from the place where his coin lay.

She shook her head at him, and Felix seemed to curl in on himself in defeat.

So much for leprechaun luck.

Harper crossed her arms and glowered at the floor as Principal Lash sat behind his desk and pondered their fate. In the olden days, those found plundering a dragon’s hoard died an ignoble death, but things were more progressive now. He might want to roast them alive, but they’d probably just get detention. Every day. Until they graduated.

Maybe longer. He looked pretty pissed.

Really, it was Felix’s fault. He should have known better -- he used to think he was a dragon because of his hoarding instincts and had researched them for months before someone had suggested leprechaun, and then his powers had bloomed.

The gold had been the tip-off. It was true that some dragons specialized their hoarding, but most usually had at least a theme, and Felix just hoarded gold -- not silver or diamonds or pearls, just... gold. The purer the gold, the more he wanted it, and he could sniff out metal impurity almost instantly. This trait made leprechauns great at jewelry-making, but you never saw gold in a leprechaun’s shop. Just silver and platinum and gemstones. They always kept the gold for themselves.

They’d also been known to steal gold, especially from each other, which was why leprechauns didn’t hang out together like pixies or mermaids or centaurs. Too paranoid.

Which was also a dragon trait, so nobody had been surprised when Felix thought he might one day breathe fire.

But for all leprechauns had damned good luck, Harper was starting to think this one was her own personal bad luck charm.

“I can’t decide if this is worse than the time I almost drowned because you wanted to try cliff diving,” she muttered.

“You owed me for the mountain climbing,” he replied in an equally low voice.

Harper rolled her eyes. She and Nora and Daphne had joined Melody’s family for a camping trip the previous summer, and Harper had felt inexplicably drawn to the small mountain nearby with its crags and rocks and uneven surfaces. Nobody else had wanted to go, so Felix had shrugged and promised his parents he’d keep an eye on her. They’d climbed, and Harper had loved being up high with the sun beating down on her head and the wind picking at her hair. When they were a third of the way up, two hours into climbing, Harper had slipped on a narrow ridge and started to tip backward. If Felix hadn’t been there to grab her, she probably would have died.

They hadn’t told anyone. They’d turned around without speaking and climbed back down, both shaken by the near miss, and had kept it to themselves.

The rest of the trip, Harper had tried not to let her eyes drift to the mountain too often or with too much longing. She didn’t know why, but it had touched something inside of her that she didn’t understand.

Felix, when she’d mentioned this, had suggested that she was probably a mountain goblin. He’d ducked the pine cone she’d thrown at his head (mountain goblins were ugly) and proceeded to badger her into cliff diving because no one else had the guts. The only thing that had swayed Harper was that he’d saved her life and also Sabrina would be in the water and able to help if they needed her.

Felix, with his double handfuls of luck, had sliced cleanly into the water, but Harper had hit her head on a rock. Sabrina had had to pluck her from the water, dazed but conscious, and deliver her to shore where the trio’s mother fussed over her with the manic energy of an anxious pixie.

Harper had spent the rest of the trip with a headache and a bad attitude, testing everyone’s patience until they left her alone with her grump.

Next >>

[eablevinswrites]

Read It

Anna Goode meets Noah in the worst of circumstances. She knows she should keep away from him, that seeing him courts danger for them both, but she can’t stop herself.

Warnings: Violence and language.

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Excerpt

Anna Margaretta Goode strode toward the old sports equipment shed, her short heels sinking into the soft post-rainstorm grass. When she couldn’t find her boyfriend, she knew to look for him here. He and his friends from the lacrosse team liked to hang out in there, pretending they were tough and disreputable. It smelled like old feet, but they didn’t seem to mind.

She slogged up to the door and pounded her fist against it. “Miles! Miles you jerk, I’ve been waiting thirty minutes on your sorry butt! The buses are gone, the humidity is destroying my hair, and I want to go the hell home!”

Miles opened the door a crack. She heard his teammate Abel’s voice from the room behind him: “Dude, put a leash on your girlfriend.”

“This isn’t a good time, baby,” said Miles.

Anna glared up at him. “When is a good time? When you say so? It’s five-thirty, practice is well over, and all my other ride options are gone. I’ve ruined my shoes coming out here because you decided I’m not as important as, what, smoking pot?” She planted a hand in the middle of his chest, gave a good hard shove, and squeezed in the doorway as he took a surprised step back.

“Goddammit, Miles, I told you to leash the bitch.”

Anna stopped cold at the sight of a swarthy young man tied and gagged with duct tape. He hung from a pull-up bar by his bound hands, face bruised and bloody.

And she went off. In Spanish, because she knew none of them spoke Spanish and it always pissed Abel off to no end. Anna was fluent thanks to her Mexican mother, and she used it to dress the boys up and down for being stupid violent assholes.

She targeted most of it at Abel, because she knew the others were just followers. This insane idea was his, no question.

He argued back some, mostly threats about gagging her and orders for Miles to shut her up. Miles did take her by the shoulders and try to tug her away to calm her down, but it was too gentle to be effective.

When she ran out of air, she switched to English and snapped viciously, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Abel rolled his eyes in disgust.

She turned to Rich and Jason, who sat by the window flexing their damaged knuckles. The brothers grinned sheepishly, and the expression made them look even more alike than usual. “Just welcoming the new kid. He’s a transfer from Summit.”

Abel gave their captive a shove. “Bastard thinks he’s better than us. We’re teaching him a lesson.”

Anna turned on Miles. “You’re going to get expelled if you keep letting him talk you into crap like this.”

Abel rolled his eyes. “Better hide your balls, Miles, before she cuts them off.”

Anna turned and snapped, “That’s funny, coming from a guy without any.”

Abel grabbed his crotch. “You wanna check?”

Miles slid his arms around Anna’s waist. “Calm down, baby, he’s just messing with you.”

She swatted his arms away. “You don’t get to touch me while I’m mad at you.”

“What did I do?”

“Did you forget about taking me home? Or is beating the crap out of some stranger more satisfying than having a girlfriend, because I swear to God . . .”

“Okay, I’m sorry already! Jeez.” Miles hunched his shoulders up around his ears.

Abel made a face. “Is there any chance you two can take this outside before my balls shrivel up from all this bitching?”

Anna tossed him a glare. “Not a snowball’s in hell.”

Abel let his head fall back. “I’m going to the vending machine. Don’t touch anything ‘til I get back. You guys coming?” The brothers followed him out, leaving Anna and Miles alone in the shed.

More or less.

Anna ignored their duct-taped audience and jabbed a fingernail into Miles’s chest. “You are going to go get your car, and you are going to bring it out here.”

“That’s against school rules, Anna. It’ll mess up the grass.”

She jabbed him harder. “So is everything you’ve ever done in this shed, so you are going to get your freaking car, bring it out, and pick me up because there is no way in hell I’m walking all the way back to the parking lot in heels.”

Miles hesitated, but she flung her arm up and pointed toward the door. “Go.”

With a scowl, he moved. “I’m going, I’m going. God, you’ve gotten bitchy.”

As the door shut behind him, she turned, pulled a lipstick out of her purse, and uncapped it. She deftly twisted the tube until a small blade appeared. Anna sliced through the duct tape on the boy’s feet, then went to work on his hands. When he dropped to the floor and rubbed his wrists, she put the knife away and crumpled the duct tape into a ball. “Use the window. Head straight for the trees. They won’t be able to see you from the vending machines.” She nodded toward a large window in the back of the shed.

The boy ripped the tape off his mouth and spat blood onto the floor. He was taller than her and had shoulder-length dark hair, but she couldn’t tell much about his face with all the bruising. He rubbed gingerly at his ribs and his shirt hiked up enough to show a patchwork of fresh bruises across his abdomen and sides.

She frowned. “You can run, right? Nothing broken?”

“I can run.”

“Then get out of here.”

He hesitated. “What about you?”

“They won’t hurt me.” Probably.

“You’re sure?”

“I’ll be fine. Go.” With the same gesture she’d used on Miles, she pointed at the window.

He went.

Anna exited the the shed by the door and shut it behind her before Abel and the other two started back from the vending machines under the football stands.

“What are you doing out here?” Abel asked when they reached her. He had a cold drink in one hand and shoved the shed door open with the other.

“Waiting for Miles.”

“Where—” Abel paused, halfway inside the shed, then let out a vicious curse. He stepped back and grabbed Anna’s arm hard enough to make her gasp. “Where is he?”

“Getting his truck. He’s going to pick me up.”

Abel stared at her a second. “Not Miles, you stupid bitch. The guy that was there.” On the last word, he yanked her into the shed, nearly pulling her off her feet, and angled her toward the pull-up bar.

She snarled something in Spanish, pulling at her arm, and he twisted it so hard that she gasped and froze. She could have sworn the bone creaked.

“Did you let him go?!”

She willed herself to believe that the feeling in her stomach was fury and not terror. She dredged every ounce of bravado in her body, dragging it up from her toes to stare Abel straight in the eye. “Don’t try and blame your weak knots on me, jackass. Now let me go.” She tried to keep the pleading out of her voice when she added, “You know Miles doesn’t like you to touch me.”

Abel breathed heavily for a moment, pupils contracted, before he released her.

She raised her chin and held her injured arm but refused to examine it even though the pain made her want to cry.

Abel turned to Rich and Jason. “We have to find him. Come on.”

She watched them round the shed to look for footprints, which were easy to find in the soft post-rain grass. She watched them through the open window as they raced toward the trees in the distance. If she hadn’t cut the boy free, how badly would they have hurt him? Would they even have known when to stop?

Would they have refused if Abel decided to hurt Anna instead of the boy from Summit?

She doubted it.

Anna examined the angry red handprint on her arm and silently prayed the Summit boy had gotten enough of a head start. Otherwise, he was screwed.

Read the rest.

[optimisticsprinkles]

(( Character development drabble. ))

Soren usually liked school, but today wasn't usual. Lucy Song kept beating him at four square. It wasn't unusual for Lucy to beat the boys—it was one of the reasons the boys didn't like her, which made the girls like her even more—but Soren didn't like four square and had only been roped into it because the teacher told him he had to be more active.

He was in hell.

He watched the ball bounce past him again, and Lucy Song jumped up and down, her black pigtails bouncing with the movement.

“Got you! Got you! Got you! You're out!”

Soren stepped to the side of the four square court and looked at the playground clock. Wasn't it time to go back in yet?

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