The tiger. In our car.

Eating our chips.

This was the last straw.

"Hello, loser. Missed me?" Heather smiled with innocency as fake as artificial turf.

"Not in this lifetime. Or the next," I growled, my nostrils flaring. How did she get here? I thought the hair mess would've scared her away for good. Maybe I should have let the car door rip her hair off.

"Aw. Don't be so crabby on our reunion. Besides, there's some people I want you to meet. Wonderful, wonderful people," she sang in her plaster voice.

I glared at her, to which she responded by looking into my eyes as well. So. This would be a staredown. I held my gaze, and so did she.

My eyes started to burn. But I couldn't let her win, even if it was something as simple as a staredown.

My eyes started to get watery, but any tears away with my determination to beat her sorry bottle redhead.

Crap, crap, crap! I was losing. "Heather! HEATHER!" Casey yelled, coming to my rescue. Heather blinked in alarm. Ha! I thought, relieving my burning eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Casey asked, his voice stern and commanding of his younger sister.

"Oh, Casey. Dear brother. I just wanted to introduce you all to my friends," she said.

"Just. Leave," Casey ordered.

Heather just laughed. The evil within was starting to ooze out behind her ridiculous "nicey-nice" facade.

"You all know Derek and Gwen. Good friends of mine. But I would like to introduce you to three of my other friends," Tigerface said, her tone getting less bright and more and more evil.

"We don't want to see your friends, Heather! Just go back to Juvie where you came from," Marissa spoke up.

Heather completely ignored her, but I could see her eyes narrow when Marissa said "juvie". They narrowed in my direction.

"This is Gerald Samson, but we all call him Flame," she introduced coolly, as if she introduced big, buff teenagers every day. 'Ol Flamehead wore a leather jacket, with black gloves that had orange and silver studs around the wrists. He had long, black, dried hair that looked as if the tips had been burnt off. His eyes were menacing, like they could burn into your soul if they wanted to.

"Let's just say he likes fire," Heather brushed him off. "Next we have Louise," she continued. Louise. Perfectly normal, sweet name, right?

Not on this girl. Louise was skinny and noticeably pale. She had a platinum blonde pixie-cut, and a short black skirt. She wore a simple white shirt, but what lay on her hip made up for all simplicity. It was a long knife, sheathed on her belt. She looked down and twirled it around like it was her little toy. The shiny diamond-like gems on the handle of her knife glittered orange from the neon city in the backround.

"Last but not least, meet Raymond Smith," she smiled slightly. I breathed. Raymond Smith. The most ordinary name known to man, which could be a good omen to-

A huge man with the largest muscles I had ever seen stood above us. His shirt was a little too tight, showing off the jillions of muscles he had under. He had a brown buzzcut and tanned skin. He had a orange stud piercing his chin, and wore a spiked bracelet around his left wrist. His eyes bore into me like daggers.

"But we like to call him the Hulk," Heather finished, her jeering smile huge as ever.

We were so dead. There was an arsonist, a deranged knife wielder and a sadistic, on-steroids pro-boxer. And not in the feather-weight competition, that's for sure.

"You think you can run away now, Sammy Keyes?" she sneered. "I promised you dead, and I never break promises, now do I?"

"There's a first time for everything," I growled, trying to act like I could take them on.

The Nightmare Squad stepped out of the van, pushing us slowly back into the empty parking lot. I swear, the tires popped right up and the whole car shuddred when Little Hulky Boy stepped out.

The Hulk walked over to me, fingering my cheek with a finger that looked almost as fat as a pool noodle. Louise took on Casey, twirling her knife around her finger with expert skill.

Billy, who was trying to be a replica of the Hulk, stood, baring imaginary muscles. Flamehead went up to him, pulling out his little box of matches.

Marissa was freaking out more than ever. She was doing the McKenze Dance inside and out. Derek and Gwen were both surrounding her, composing intimidating poses and facial expressions, but it was all unnecessary: Marissa was freaked out just by the sight of them.

Heather Tigerface Acosta walks over to me, smiling at the setup. Evil. Pure evil.

"Back to back!" I shouted at Casey, Billy and Marissa. Billy eagerly stood with his back against Marissa's, and Casey and I pressed our backs together. We couldn't win with brute strength, it was totally obvious. We were outnumbered from the moon and back.

Hulky Boy comes over and waves his beefy piggies right in my face. Then Heather snaps her fingers, and within an instant, Hulky Boy over here gets me in a headlock, and Marissa's got fists right next to her face. I can't see Casey, but from the way he's tensing up, Louise's probably got her knife under his chin or something. Billy got a flame in front of his face, but being Billy, he suavely blows it out, making the Flame himself boil up like a volcano about to erupt.

I brushed Casey's fingers with my own for luck, and we go into action.

I try a kick at Hulky Boy's leg, but he just stays still as a rock. His humongous arm's still around my neck, so I do the only thing I can think of.

I bite it.

It tastes like sweat and jail, but I still rip into it with my canines anyway. Hulky Boy's tough, but his skin is surprisingly weak. Once I've got him groaning and holding his arm to his side, I kick him in the only place I know men are weak. Well, you know what place this is.

Hulky Boy doubles over, cussing words I don't even think have had time to be classfied at cuss words. I deliver one last blow to his leg, and he groans again. Then Heather comes flying out of nowhere, grabbing my hair and gouging her nails into my arm. And man! She's filed her nails to perfection because they immediately break skin and I feel the stinging in my right arm. I gut her with my knee in the stomach and she releases her deadly nails, falling back to hold her stomach.

Casey's holding Louise's pale arm up. She has the knife in her grasp, but he has to use two hands to keep her from shish-kabbobing him. Louise is using her other hand to tourniquet Casey's right bicep.

Casey's arm is losing because of this, and Louise's knife grazes his other arm. That's it, I thought. I'm going in.

I don't know what else to do, so I hop on her back and rip the knife out of her hands. It clanks on the cement, flying a few meters away.

I run to the knife, determined to get it before Louise. Casey's occupied with the now-standing Hulky Boy. Heather's still on the ground, thankfully.

I manage to get the knife first, but the moment it's in my hands, Louises pounces on me. I hold the knife up to her chest, regaining composure as we both stand up.

Then, like before, Heather comes flying out of nowhere, knocking the knife out of my hands. I'm so shocked I barely have time to run over and get the knife like before.

Heather throws the knife to Louise, and before I have time to react, she punches me across the face. The right side of my cheek is burning with pain. But I'm angry. I kick her in the shins and she tumbles back.

While I'm watching her tumble back, Louise manages to knock me off my feet so I'm lying on the hard pavement. Her knife's at my chin. I shove her with my hands onto the ground, but then Heather manages to restrain my arms and legs.

Louise is back on her feet, still holding that precious knife of hers. She grazes the knife on my chin, like a little teaser for the big pain. But this teaser hurts and stings. I let out a little cry of pain.

I manage to look at the rest of the scene. Casey's still fighting Hulky Boy, and it looks like he's not doing too good. Hulky Boy's rubbing his shoulder, but he's above Casey, ready to punch with his working arm.

Marissa's screaming as she blocks Gwen's attempts and kicks Derek in the stomach. I watch with horror as Gwen punches Marissa onto the ground. Billy's on Flamey's back, pounding on his back, Flamey slowly crumbling to the ground with each blow. But they Derek comes and pulls Billy off with a grunt and...

I couldn't watch. It was all to much to bear. We were all going to die.

Then, all of a sudden, I think the heavens rained down on us.

Hulky Boy was the first to crumple to the ground. Like an invisible force had come down on him, he just crumpled.

Then went Flamey, which wasn't much since he was tottering around like a drunken person, anyway.

Next to fall was Derek, who was poised to punch Billy across the face.

Then Gwen.

Louise, at this time, was looking at the spectacle. So her blade is nice and high and not close enough to my face to kill me.

But, with the pattern that has seemed to develop, it looked like Louise was going to crumple, too. Her knife was still pointed down at me, so if she lost control of it, it would-

Louise's eyes rolled to the back of her head. The knife came plunging down and-

I rolled out of the way quick enough to see the blade gorged in the cement, two centimeters away from my body.

I looked up just in time to see Heather crumpling to the floor as well.

I exhaled for the first time since I opened the mini-van.

I lay there, stricken for quite a while. And by the silence that passed, I think the others did, too.

Finally, I stood up with shaky legs. I wiped the blood off my chin, and looked up to see four or five teenagers coming towards us in a ratty golf cart. They're screaming like a battle cry.

For some reason, I didn't think that they were going to hurt us. They would've already, if they wanted to.

So I looked over to Louise's limp body, at her back. And what do I see?

A tranquilzer arrow, perfecty lodged in the middle of her back.

I look around. It's the same with the other goons. I walk shakliy over to Casey, who's nose is bleeding slightly and his shoulder is turning a nasty black-and-blue color. "Who do you think they are?" I ask Casey.

"Whoever they are, they saved our butts out there," Casey says in awe. He turns to face me. "Is your chin okay?"

My hand flies up to touch it. It was stinging a little bit, but it would be okay. "Not bad," I reply. "But how's your arm?"

He touches the thin red line on his left arm that had been grazed by Louise's lethal knife. "This is nothing," he says. Then he reaches out to me to tenderly touch the knife cut on my chin.

I push his hand away. "It's nothing," I insist.

He looks at me with concern one last time, but starts to walk over to Marissa and Biily.

Marissa's nose is bleeding, too, but it's light, just like Casey's. But mainly Marissa is fretting over the bruise on Billy's knee where it had skinned the pavement. She gasps at our wounds one last time, then runs into the van to get her good ol' bag of first aid supplies.

By now, the golf-carting teenagers have caught up to us. I looked up to get a better look. They looked like normal teenagers to me, but their clothes were tattered. I noticed, however, that the boy in the passenger's seat had a little gun-like item in his hand.

"Thank you!" I blurt out. Then I realize this sounds stupid so I say, "Who are you guys, anyway?"

The driver parks the golf cart, then steps out. He's got toussled brown hair, he's tall, and he has a strong-looking build. He was the type of guy every girl at my school would faint in front of: cool, tan and handsome. He looks just about our age, maybe a little older.

"We're the Runaways. We were camped over there," he pointed to the right, off into the darkness. "and we saw that you guys could use a little help."

"Well, you came just in time. These people," I geustured to the tranquilzed goons on the ground. "were going to kill us."

He laughed. A kind, husky laugh. "We couldn't just let that happen, now could we?"

I just shuddered, thinking about what would've happened if these so-called Runaways hadn't barged in and saved us.

"My name is Damien. Why don't you go with us to our campsite?" He smiled a nice, warm smile.

I looked at Casey to see what he thought of this Damien guy. "I don't trust him," he whispered into my hair.

Damien took in our indecisive faces. "It's fine. You can drive your car there and everything. I get that you don't trust us. We did tranquilize all of these people, whoever they are. You all look like runaways, too."

"We are," I simply replied.

"Then why don't you come along?"

I looked up at Casey. "We can bring the car. Come on. We have to thank them or something," I whispered.

"Fine. But I'm driving," he said.

Damien's face lit up. "You're coming? Great. Follow me."

Should they trust him? Or is he bad news? Questions, questions...

I want to personally thank BammItsStephiee and N3WYORKD3VIL for being the first to review. Your support is amazing, guys! :)