Boarded

A/N:


Chapter 44 (An Angry Message)

"Where is he?" Sam was furious, she'd just learned about Jessica's stalker and somebody's head was about to roll. Jessica had not told her about him, nobody told her. She'd been riding her bike through the neighborhood when she went to the restroom. When she came out, this stalker attached a note to her bike, saying he'd been watching Jessica and her family, knew about her pasts, and would make sure nobody would harm them. She'd called Melanie about the note and Melanie told her.

"Now relax, just come home okay?" Sam growled at Melanie's words and looked around. The man couldn't be that far away. "Don't do anything rash, Sam." Melanie's tone was rising, she was sure Sam would do something bad at this rate.

"Melanie, do you know who it is?" She remained silent, a sign that she knew but was reluctant to tell Sam. Sam tightened her fingers on the sheet of paper and began to crumple it in her hand. "Do you know how much about Jessica, or any of us, that he knows?" Melanie hesitated before answering, she knew Sam deserved to know the truth and was not going to lie about it.

"Yes, and yes." Sam narrowed her eyes and moved her eyes around her surroundings, if she saw anybody watching her, she was going to jump them. "Sam, what are you going to do?"

"Tell me who it is." Melanie repeated herself, but with extra firmness in her voice. She knew how hot tempered her sister was in this moment, and would do anything to calm her down if she could. "Melanie, you will tell me who is stalking our cousin and how much he knows!" She winced at the harshness in her twin's voice, it hurt her a little. She knew Sam didn't mean anything by it, but she could at least have gone a bit easier on her.

"He knows everything, okay? I don't know how, I just know he does. His name is Lenny…" She thought for sure Sam wouldn't recognize the name, but there was a chance she might know him from the school that she and Jessica attended.

"Lenny?" Sam tapped her chin and lifted her eyes up in thought. Who was this Lenny kid? She thought about the first few days Jessica was at the school, and how Jessica helped fend off some bullies from some scrawny little kid that had a crush on her ever since then. Her eyes widened as she thought more about that kid, she remembered seeing him watching them sometimes, but always chalked it up to a boyish crush. Rage seeped through her as a growl begun in her throat and increased in volume. Melanie recognized that tone, Sam was about to roar. "Lenny? That skinny little twit? He's fucking dead when I get my hands on him! Dead!"

"Sam! No, if you make any contact whatsoever with the stalker, it can make things worse! Just let the police handle it." That was assuming Jessica even went to the police, which right now, she didn't want to go there.

"Fuck no! This isn't about Jessica, the fucker left a note on my bike! He's been watching us all, and I won't stand around and let my family be stalked by some skinny little geek who can't take 'no' for a fucking answer!" Sam hung her phone up and threw it into her purse. Her hair flew wildly as she ran and jumped onto her bike. Her eyes were bright with fire as she pedaled down the road at high speeds. Melanie continued to talk in the phone for a few seconds, hoping to calm her sister down, but groaned when she realized Sam had hung up on her.

If Jessica thought she was going to handle this problem alone, she had another thing coming. Most girls don't go after a stalker alone, most are smarter than that, some are too afraid to confront them, but Sam was fearless when it came to protecting her family. She'd sooner die than to let someone threaten or frighten her family or friends. This kid was almost like Nevel was with Carly, but worse. Nevel never actually stalked anyone and Carly was never afraid of him.

Sam wouldn't let on that she knew Jessica had been in contact with Jeremy, or even that she suspected there was something going on between them. She figured she had no right to really complain about it as long as Jessica was happy and not getting hurt in any way. If something developed between the two, it might be odd at first, but she would probably ease into it. The one thing she did know about Jeremy, if he knew about Jessica's stalker, he would probably want to tear the guy apart just like she did.

Sam stopped her bike in front of a small, beaten looking, red brick house and jumped onto the grass. She narrowed her eyes as her bike fell to the ground. This was where Lenny lived. She knew she'd be here before him, considering he'd just left the note on her bike, she hadn't been in the restroom longer than five minutes and the conversation with Melanie wasn't that long. She picked her bike up and walked to the side of the house, hiding both herself and the bike in the bushes.

"Let's see how you feel about being stalked, shit-face." Sam waited for a few minutes and smirked when she saw Lenny walking down the street. He seemed like he could be blown away by the wind, but as scrawny as he was, she knew he was a bit of a formidable person. He was strong enough to pin someone down, but yet didn't know how to fight. Sam was sure Melanie was right and going after a stalker is never the best idea, but she didn't care right now, she was too furious to really concern herself with wrong or right. Lenny checked the mailbox and frowned, there was nothing new. Sam's phone started to go off, she rolled her eyes and let it ring. It was most likely Melanie, going to lecture her on why going after a stalker was a bad idea, and that often times stalkers will try to get rid of those in their way of their own happiness, those they deem threats. She wasn't worried. Lenny started to walk toward the front door, and that's when he froze from Sam's roar.

"What the hell!" Lenny gasped as Sam charged at him from the bushes and leapt on top of him, slamming him to the ground. She clenched her hands on his shirt and glared into his eyes, lifting him up and slamming him down multiple times. "Stop! That hurts! Stop hurting me!" Her eyes burned with intense anger as she pulled her fist back and slammed it down on his face.

"I'll shatter you!" Sam pulled him up and slammed him against the bricks of his house. She noticed that he had some bruises and scuffs already, that he must have gotten into a fight recently. "I wonder if someone else got you for stalking my cousin." Lenny moaned as he looked into her dangerous glare. Her stare felt like daggers, piercing into his very soul. He couldn't believe it, he thought Sam cared about Jessica and her happiness. She was like Jeremy, wanted to keep him away from her. Sam pointed her finger in his face and felt the bile rising in her throat. "You listen to me and you listen good. I don't want to catch you around Jessica. If you continue to bother her, I will beat the shit out of you, do you understand me?"

"But you should care about her happiness."

"I do."

"She likes me though, you saw it yourself!" Sam raised her eyebrow and her tone became flat as her annoyance with this kid grew. "If she didn't want to be with me, then why would she stop that bully that day?"

"Out of the kindness of her heart, and if you ask me, I think it would have been best if she let those bullies beat you. Bash your skull in…you just don't get that she wants nothing to do with you, do you?"

"Well I admit, she might not know how she feels yet…"

"Oh believe me, she knows how she feels and she knows exactly what she wants." Sam and Melanie knew that pretty damn well too, Melanie probably knew it more, though. Jessica wanted a nice tall, skinny but muscular baseball player who had an exceptional aim and great skill with one of the most famous baseball moves around. "Let me tell you, she doesn't want you. She wants someone who can protect her, who can keep her safe, and look at you…you can't even protect yourself against me."

"Oh?" Sam rolled her eyes and threw Lenny to the ground, kicking him in the side.

"Come on, fight me if you want! You can't do shit to me!" Sam grabbed his hair and lifted his head up, talking venomously into his ear. "You stay away from Jessica. Do you understand me?" Lenny moaned and Sam dropped his head onto the pavement, slowly pressing her foot onto his back. "I said, do you understand me?"

"Yes! Yes I understand you…"

"Thank you." Sam clapped her hands together and walked off to her bike. She felt guilty for beating the kid up, but he needed someone to smack some sense into him. Lenny glared at her for a second before picking himself up and going into his house. Sam took her phone out and dialed Melanie, as the girl had not stopped trying to call her. "Hey Mel."

"Sam!" Her voice was frantic, she had been so worried. "Gibby's tried to call you, didn't he get a hold of you?"

"No?" Sam didn't know he was trying to call her, she'd been so busy dealing with Lenny that she'd not noticed his ring tone. "What's going on?"

"Someone just cherry bombed their mailbox!"

"What?"

"Yeah, I think-" Sam hung up on her again, leaving her with a quiet expression on her face. Sam picked up her bike and pedaled frantically to Gibby's home, where she saw him standing around the mailbox with Jeremy and David. The now broken mailbox lay in pieces on the ground. Gibby looked up as Sam ran to him.

"Gibby what happened? Are you okay!"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It was Jeremy that got hit."

"Huh?" She looked over as Jeremy, who had been kneeling and looking at the pieces on the ground, rose up. He had a cut on his arm, but at most, that was it. He'd been going to get the mail when it exploded.

"Some of the shrapnel hit him. It would have been worse if he was at the mailbox." Jeremy rubbed the back of his head and chuckled, he didn't see much reason to worry, everything was fine as it was. Guppy had stopped him at the door for a few seconds, wanting to show him something he made out of his Lego toys.

"Are you okay, Jeremy?" Sam looked at the cut on his arm and winced, it looked like a deep gash. Jessica would not want to see that. "Is it tender?"

"Yeah a bit, but all in all, I'm fine. We'll need a new mailbox though…"

"Melanie said it was a cherry bomb." David picked something up from the rubble and groaned, shaking his head.

"Not quite a cherry bomb, but whatever it was, must have been in this package." Sam looked to David and saw the small brown box he was holding. It had a hole in it and one corner of the former square was completely blown off. "We're just fortunate that no one was hurt. Charlotte's inside with Guppy right now…" Guppy couldn't stop crying, thinking that Jeremy had been seriously injured.

"Yeah, the little guy's worried about me." Jeremy had actually been blown back a bit by the explosion, and it was so loud that it really did do a lot to scare everybody. "Whoever did this was trying to convey a point, clearly…" Sam placed her hand on her chest and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Nothing but a cut, that was it. She could probably fork over a couple dollars to help pay for a new mailbox, though.

The next day, Sam was on her usual bike route, pedaling through the streets and the parks. She stopped once again at her usual restroom stop and leaned her bike against a nearby tree. She entered the restroom and took a little extra time to put some makeup on, she was going to end her bike route with a date tonight, Gibby wanted to take her out to dinner. Normally she hated makeup, but this place was a formal place, she needed some makeup, but only a little.

When she left the restroom, she noticed something was a little off about her bike, it looked like it had been moved about an inch away from the tree. She clenched her fingers around her cell phone and flipped it open, just in case. She had a bad feeling in her gut.

She moved a little closer to the bike and froze when she spotted a tiny, brown, square-shaped package wedged between the spokes on her tire. Fear and panic rushed through her veins as she quickly pressed her mom's speed dial number. The phone started to ring and just as Sam turned to run away from her bike, the package exploded.

"Hello? Sam?" Sam screamed as she looked back. A tire flew over her head, parts of her bike went flying in all directions. She froze in her tracks and felt a sharp pain digging into her side and her upper back. A couple pieces of pole like metal had impaled her. Her body shook and her eyes widened. "Sam! Are you okay? What was that noise! Sam? Sam? Sam!" Sam moaned and fell onto her side, her eyes watching as the blood mixed with the grass. "Oh god, Melanie call 911!" Melanie's rushed, panicked voice could be heard in the background asking what was going on as she did what her mother said.

"H-Help." Her voice was weakened, crackling, and the phone was lying on the ground a few inches away from her. She could just barely make out her mother's voice trying to keep her calm while freaking out herself. "I'm in the park…restroom I…usually…"

"Melanie! She's at the restroom she stops at! The park!"

"Got it Mom!"

Sam's vision blurred with the salty tears as she closed her eyes, fearing the worst. She wanted to lose consciousness, but that wasn't happening. Her heart was racing and every muscle in her body was sending out surges of pain. Her hand shook as she closed her fingers on the grass. All she could think about was that her bike was busted and she would miss her date with Gibby. She winced as the sound of sirens crashed into her ears. Maybe she wouldn't die, not here, not if the paramedics had found her so soon.

"There she is! Oh my god it's Samantha!" A familiar voice called out to her as she felt herself being lifted up. She opened her eyes and waited for her vision to adjust while this voice tried to tell her it would be okay. As her vision adjusted, she remembered that Freddie's mother was an emergency paramedic. Swallowing, she could see Marissa bent over her, calling out orders to the other paramedics and looking into her eyes. "Sam, it's going to be okay, you're going to be just fine."

"Whoever did this to me…is dead…when I get out…" Marissa smiled sadly as Sam closed her eyes. At some point of time, they must have cut the metal poles enough to place her safely on the stretcher. She remembered the prior day and moaned, it had to be the same person. "They tried to get…Gibby's brother…"

"What? Jeremy too?"

"Brown package…blew his mailbox to hell…" So this wasn't just a random prankster, it couldn't be. It was something more serious. If her husband had still been alive, he'd be all over this case by now, as he had been a police officer. Sam's body twitched and she began to go into shock, the paramedics then begun to work fast.

"She's going into shock! Come on!"


See, stalkers equal BAD