AN~ Edited.


After Officer brown left, Sabrina took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts. Then, once she was sure her face wouldn't show her emotions, she went to go face Daphne. Ms. Smirt grabbed her by the arm before she left, though, squeezing it a little too tight.

"Don't bother," she said. "Your new foster parents will be here momentarily.

"What does momentarily mean?" Daphne asked Sabrina.

"It means soon, or, like right now," Sabrina replied, watching a pair of adults enter the room.

"Hi," Daphne said. "I'm Daphne, who are you?"

"I'm Mrs. Johnson, and this is my husband, Mr. Johnson," the lady said. She was tall and thin, with a pinched looking face a little like Ms. Smirt's, but younger. Her husband, on the other hand, was built like a professional wrestler.

"I'm Sabrina," Sabrina said, grabbing her suitcase from next to Ms. Smirt's desk. It seemed it hadn't moved since they got back from staying with Mary and Laura.

Ms. Smirt smiled tightly and pushed them out the door of her office. The girls followed the Johnstons out of the orphanage and into the car, where Mrs. Johnston, who it seemed did most of the talking, proceeded to explain things to them.

She said, "We already have two boys, they're twins, Freddy and Gerry. You'll like them. They're going to be professional boxers someday, just like their daddy!" She smiled adoringly at her husband. "They're already members of their school's wrestling team. They have a competition coming up, so we thought you two could help them train some!"

"Help them how?" Sabrina asked warily. She didn't like the sound of this.

"You'd be their partners, of course. They can't fight each other, they're too well matched, and they already know each other's fighting styles so well, it wouldn't help them improve at all. So we need new partners for their extra hours at home." Mrs. Johnston flashed the girls a very white smile. "Now, we've been told that you two have a habit of getting into trouble, so we're going to have to make sure you don't run away. Mr. Johnston has already made arrangements with the local police force- he has a long history with them, he's so well connected- and you two will be good girls, right?"

"Depends," Sabrina said, not making any promises. "What does good mean?"

"Let the boys fight you, don't break out of your handcuffs, do occasional chores, speak only when spoken to, wear the clothes I give you..."

Mrs. Johnston continued like that for some time, but Sabrina tuned her out. She wanted to make an inventory of what was in her suitcase. It felt heavier than before. She opened it up and saw a T-shirt, sized extra large, that she didn't recognize. She unfolded it, seeing that it said something about Bermuda. Keatons, most likely. But that wasn't all. There was also a small, basic set of lock-picking items, and a note.

Sabrina-

You're going away again. This is from Chris. He asked me to give it to you in case he doesn't come back. Sorry I've been in such a bad mood recently, I'll try to be better if and when you come back. I was upset about Chris, and well, when I heard what your last foster dad did to you, I wanted to hurt him back. Jason was worse, though. He was all for finding him and killing him. He really likes you, you know.

Hope you don't have to see me again for a long time (because this foster family is great)

Dare

That note almost made what Mrs. Johnston had said about handcuffs and silence worth it. Almost.

When they reached the house, Mrs. Johnston introduced them to Freddy and Gerry, two boys who looked like miniatures of their father with more hair, and talked about the same amount. She then showed the girls their room, which was a study. It had been set up with two mattresses on the floor next to a radiator. There were two pairs of handcuffs attached to the radiator, within easy distance of the mattresses. They hadn't even bothered to clean out the study.

Next they stopped by the school to arrange to have Sabrina and Daphne enrolled. This involved placement tests, which the girls passed with flying colors, teacher meetings, and the eventual decision that the girls should be put in the gifted classes.

After school, Mrs. Johnson too the girls shopping. She bought them several sets of matching, expensive, fashion-model appropriate clothes that Sabrina hated and Daphne loved but said she'd be afraid to wear when Mrs. Johnson asked. Then they were informed that Mrs. Johnson, while she loved her sons, had always wanted a little girl.

Perfect, Sabrina thought. I'm living with a lady who's going to use us as dress-up dolls in her fantasy to have daughters.

After dinner, where Sabrina ate very slowly because she was afraid she'd get food on the very expensive clothes Mrs. Johnson had dressed her in, Mr. Johnson beckoned for the girls to follow, led them into their 'bedroom,' and locked them in their beds.

"We don't want you to run away!" Mrs. Johnson said cheerily. "We know you'll be happy here in time, but just in case..."

As she walked away, Freddy and Gerry stuck their tongues out at the girls, screwing their faces up. Mr. Johnson smirked at them, then led the boys to bed.

Happy here, my foot. First chance I get, I'm running for it. Sabrina thought to herself, settling down for a long, uncomfortable night.


The next day, Sabrina awoke with a crick in her neck from the position she'd been forced to sleep in. She decided that as soon as she was unlocked, she'd move her mattress so that her arm was more comfortable. She was not going to sleep like that every night until the Johnsons got complacent and decided she wasn't going to run away.

It took a week and a half for that to happen. A completely awful week and a half. After Sabrina refused to wear one particularly frilly princess-y dress, Mrs. Johnson decided that Daphne was too small to help the boys practice, which effectively made the beatings that much worse for Sabrina. At least she didn't have to hide the bruises this time, though. Daphne didn't particularly like being turned into a fantasy daughter, but she played her part well, for which Sabrina was glad. It was safer that way- Daphne would be the cute daughter Mrs. Johnson had never had, and she wouldn't get hurt. Sabrina, however, spent all her time with the boys. She was either helping them with their schoolwork or their wrestling, always with Mr. Johnson silently watching, making sure she didn't pull anything funny. At school the girls were matching frilled and bowed prissy-looking things, and didn't have many friends because they weren't actually prissy but looked like they were.

It was the day the parents left them home alone that Sabrina knew they were trusted. She took the opportunity. She used the lock picks to take the handcuffs off the radiator, because she figured they'd be useful someday, and then she had Daphne take their stuff outside and wait there for her. Then she went back inside, because the boys were calling her.

She'd been letting them beat her up most days, barely fighting back, in preparation. This way they wouldn't be expecting anything. She'd been watching their fighting styles, making sure she knew exactly what they wouldn't expect. So today when she entered the ring and they told her it would be two against one, them versus her, she wasn't surprised, but she was ready. When they started in on her, she pulled the most illegal wrestling moves possible, and she was out of the room in less than five minutes, leaving a groaning pair of hulking boys behind her.

They ran back to the orphanage that time. Sabrina figured that was the best idea. For one thing, Ms. Smirt had found them last time they'd run away somewhere else. Also, they didn't have anywhere else to run. So they snuck back into the orphanage during the community service hour (when the place was practically abandoned), and the girls figured out what to get out of their bags, because they hadn't had a chance to do so the last two times, having gone directly to the basement. Then Sabrina put their bags in the attic and the girls snuck back into the dormitory just in time to meet up with the other kids.

It took Ms. Smirt a day to find out where they were. Until then, Sabrina and Daphne went about like they belonged there, and spent their spare time laughing about what Ms. Smirt hadn't noticed. But when she did call them down to the office, they received a gloomy week's worth of punishment in the basement. They spent it scrounging for useful things. They built themselves a fort of sorts in one corner, and were about as comfortable as they would have been upstairs.

By the time they emerged from the depths, it was October seventeenth, as the Halloween countdown in the cafeteria proclaimed. Halloween was Ms. Smirt's favorite holiday, a fact that Dare found quite ironic, as her nickname was 'the witch.' Dare was in a much better mood because Chris was back. That combined with Ms. Smirt's almost-good mood made the loners downright cheerful.

The only thing that marred the two weeks heading towards Halloween was Michelson and his cronies. They had seen the mood the loners were in and were determined to squelch it. They'd always been mad that the loners weren't afraid of them, and the fact that someone else was in a good mood made them extremely angry, so they did whatever they could to get under their skins. They pinched in the hallways, stole people's things, messed up schoolwork, lied to get them in trouble, tripped people, dropped things down shirts, put things in their beds, pranking them in any way possible.

Sabrina hated it, and vowed to herself that if she met one more evil prankster, she would make him regret every prank he ever played. Now, pranking people who were evil, that was something entirely different, especially if they'd started it, as Dare hastened to point out when Sabrina told her her vow. She'd agreed, and they'd all attacked back with gusto, but in much less severity. They could put up with pranks, as long as they was nothing serious, even if it was annoyting

Things drew to a head two days before Halloween. Sabrina had been walking to her next class, and she heard yelling in the hallway. When she found the source of the noise, she wasn't particularly surprised to see Michelson messing with someone, as usual. What was surprising was that he was doing it so obviously, dangling the floppy rabbit- in. The. Air.

Sabrina stopped. She stared. Then she glared.

It was Daphne's rabbit.

Michelson and his thugs were laughing and tossing the rabbit to each other in a cruel game of monkey-in-the-middle, as Daphne tried desperately to rescue her precious toy.

"Give her the rabbit back," Sabrina said, surprising herself at how calm her voice was.

"Why should I?" Michelson asked, smirking.

"I'll arm wrestle you for it," Sabrina said, cocking an eyebrow as he hesitated. "Or are you too chicken?"

"I ain't no chicken!" Michelson shouted. "There's a tournament every year two days after Halloween. You start at the bottom and work your way up. I win, I keep the bunny-"

"I win, you and your retards give it back and stop bugging us," Sabrina interrupted.

Michelson raised an eyebrow as the crowd that had gathered muttered to themselves. Sabrina wished she could raise one eyebrow like that.

"Upping the stakes a little, huh?" he asked.

"Stop stalling," Sabrina said. "I've got a class to get to."

"Fine, then," Michelson said. "But you got to get to the top of the tournament first."

"Oh you bet I'll be there," Sabrina said. "See you in four days."