Shadow Stalker – Advent of a Hero
Chapter Eight - The Date, Part Two
Each girl got a large cup of soda; Taylor got Coke, while Sophia got Mountain Dew. Taylor bought a large box of popcorn to share, while Sophia picked herself up some beef jerky. Taylor hadn't even known that they had beef jerky.
"We've got popcorn," she said, as they lined up for the movie tickets. "Why beef jerky?"
"I like it," Sophia told her defensively. "It's a thing. I take it out and about," she meant on my patrols, Taylor knew, but didn't want to say it out loud, "and I've gotten used to it."
"Wow," said Taylor. "I've tried it about once, when we went camping. I chewed on it for like an hour and I don't think I made an impression."
Sophia snorted. "Meanwhile now, you could probably bite a piece in half on your first try, if you work at it."
If I used some amp, you mean. Taylor grinned. "Probably." She took a deep breath. "It's so good to see you again. I mean, I only saw you last night, but I wasn't expecting to see you today, and I was so tired after I came back from my run that I was thinking of having a nap, and then Dad said you'd called –"
Her enthusiasm was so infectious that Sophia had to grin. "Whoa, whoa," she said. "Back it up. We're not even in the theatre yet. What movie do you want to see?"
Taylor reined herself in a little. She scanned the rolling display, and her eyes lit on one. "That new one from Earth Aleph. Avatar. It looks pretty cool, don't you think?"
Sophia tilted her hand back and forth slightly. "Eh. Not overly sold on it. Big blue people with tails? Sounds like someone who got a bad batch of powers, to me."
Taylor sighed. "I'll let you sit on my lap."
"Deal!" agreed Sophia, so quickly that Taylor glanced at her suspiciously.
"Were you just holding out for a concession from me?" she asked, just a little dubiously.
Sophia raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Mayyyybe," she said, pretending to be evasive, even as she grinned broadly.
Taylor shook her head. "One of these days, I'll realise what you're doing before you do it, and then where will you be?"
"Thinking up a new strategy, of course," Sophia retorted cheerfully.
Taylor shook her head fondly. "You are so, so bad."
Sophia leaned in to whisper in her ear. "I'm a bad, bad girl," she whispered throatily. "You should hold me down and spank me."
The other people in the line wondered why Taylor was doubled over with laughter as she got to the head of the line.
She was still giggling as they entered the theatre proper. Sophia was looking a little put out. "It wasn't that funny," she said defensively.
"Yes,' said Taylor firmly. "Yes, it was."
The argument was temporarily put on hold as they chose where to sit.
"Up the back," Sophia said. "Come on, the back corner's unoccupied."
Taylor gave her an old-fashioned look she'd seen her father use. "This is so we can make out, isn't it?" she said severely.
Sophia did her best to look innocent. "It doesn't have to be?" she ventured.
"Uh huh," retorted Taylor with a nod. "I thought so." She steered Sophia down the aisle, until they reached a seat more or less in the middle of the cinema. "I let you manoeuvre me into letting you sit on my lap. That's all you get; I actually want to see the movie."
Sophia looked so downcast that Taylor added, "Okay, fine. Every time there's an on-screen kiss, you can kiss me, all right?"
Sophia brightened right up as they settled on to their seat, arranging their respective skirts. "So," she said as they got comfortable. "What's so funny about you spanking me? Doesn't the idea turn you on at all?"
"It's not that," Taylor said. "Look, if you had me over your lap, you'd smack my ass just as hard as you could, right?"
"Sure," replied Sophia, imagining doing just that to Taylor. "It's all part of the fun." She eyed Taylor speculatively. "Do you want me to do that?"
Taylor didn't seem to have heard the question. "Now, imagine what would happen to you if I smacked your ass as hard as I could."
Sophia thought about that. "Oh," she said. "Oh, yeah. Ew." She tilted her head. "But I still don't get what's so funny."
Taylor smirked. "I had a mental image of me with you over my lap, amped all the way up and just barely patting your ass with my hand. Like this." She captured one of Sophia's hands, and tapped it almost feather-light with the flat of her hand. "It just seemed like a silly image to me."
"Yeah, it does seem a little silly," agreed Sophia. She looked at Taylor. "So I guess spanking is out. Darn it." She paused. "Unless you like the idea of me spanking you ..."
Taylor said nothing, her eyes fixed on the advertisements rolling across the screen, but a slow blush mounted her cheeks. Sophia grinned wickedly and snuggled into her embrace.
"That actually wasn't too bad," Sophia said grudgingly as they exited the cinema together.
"Not too bad? Which movie were you watching?" asked Taylor rhetorically. "It was awesome, with those dragon things, and the floating mountains, and the rest of it."
" ... could have done with more kissing, is all I'm saying," maintained Sophia.
Taylor giggled, and gave her friend a light slap on the shoulder. "Oh, you! Is that all you think about?"
"When I'm with you, most times, yes," admitted Sophia.
"Even when I'm doing the 'Rarr Hulk smash' thing?" asked Taylor. "Because that doesn't strike me as being a romantic moment at all."
"Well, that's when I'm feeling both terrified and turned on, all at the same time," admitted Sophia. "When you're amped up, it's like you're a force of nature. Nothing can stand in your way. You're like the ultimate predator."
Taylor stopped, so suddenly that Sophia took a couple more steps before realising, and turned around to come back. "What?" she asked. "What's the matter?"
"It's back to that, is it?" asked Taylor sadly. "Is that why you're attracted to me? Because I'm like a predator to you? Is that why you like me so much, and want to be my friend? Because I typify your stupid fucking predator ideal?"
"I – no!" said Sophia. "No, it's not like that. I didn't mean it like that."
"How did you mean it?" asked Taylor. "I thought you were getting better. I thought you were over that shit. That you liked me for me."
Sophia sighed. "I do like you for you. You're funny and bubbly and sexy –"
Taylor snorted. "Yeah, right. Like a broomstick. Or an ironing board."
"It's true!" protested Sophia. "Yes, you being so strong and powerful has a bit to do with it, but most of it's you. All you. When I look at your face, when I see your smile, when you let me kiss you, I go weak at the knees."
Taylor's lips tightened. "And when I throw a dumpster, or jump a hundred feet from one rooftop to another, does that make you go weak at the knees too?"
Sophia's eyes dropped. "Maybe," she admitted in a small voice.
"So the part of me that I'm most concerned about, the part I have to keep under the strictest control, that's one of the parts that you're most attracted to, is that it?" asked Taylor quietly.
Sophia was conflicted. "Maybe?" she as much asked as admitted.
"Is that a yes or a no, or a 'yes but I don't want to admit it'?" pressed Taylor.
"What do you want me to say?" asked Sophia plaintively. "Yes, that part of you attracts me. It's who I am. I want to get close to you. I want to share in the power."
Taylor shook her head. "I don't believe this," she said. "I thought you'd changed. I thought you were different now. But you're still all about the power, the violence, the predator and prey thing. How can I believe anything you say any more?"
"But I'm not lying to you," protested Sophia desperately. "I'm telling you how I feel."
Taylor stopped, and took Sophia by the hand. She led the shorter girl into an alcove, where they were off the street and out of view. "Sophia," she said quietly. "I do like you. Quite a lot, in fact. But this … this power thing? This predator-prey thing? It's not me. I don't like it. I don't like that part of you. The Shadow Stalker part, the bit that's got to be the top predator in the heap."
"But I'm always Shadow Stalker," protested Sophia. "That's always me."
Taylor shook her head. "No, Sophia," she said. "No, you're not. Sometimes you're just plain Sophia, a teenage girl having fun, pretty and sexy and someone I want to kiss and cuddle with. I don't want to kiss and cuddle with Shadow Stalker."
"But what's the difference?" asked Sophia plaintively. "I can't tell the difference."
"The difference," said Taylor quietly, "is that I might be falling in love with Sophia Hess, but I can't love Shadow Stalker. Shadow Stalker would have let me get raped. You tell me how I'm supposed to feel about that."
"But I said I was sorry," Sophia told her, her voice breaking. "I've said I was sorry. How many times do I have to say it?"
"Until you no longer have to say it, because we both know you mean it all the way through, that there's no part left in you of the person who would let someone get beat up or raped or murdered just because they're too scared to fight back." Taylor's voice was distant.
"If I hadn't fought back," she went on, "I would have been raped. If I hadn't triggered … I would have died. For fighting back. Because you held back to see what I would do. And if there's still a part of you that would do that again … I can't love that part. I can't abide that part. I can't be with that part."
Sophia was still trying to formulate her response, when she found herself gripped in Taylor's arms. She looked up at the taller girl, bewildered, yet intoxicated by her close proximity.
"Sophia," whispered Taylor, "you need to decide whether you want me more like this …" she deposited a gentle kiss on Sophia's lips, sending a thrill through her mind and a rush of warmth through her body, "or like this."
Her grip tightened, and Sophia recognised the signs of Taylor amping herself up. She struggled for a moment, uselessly; she may as well have tried to escape the grip of steel bands. Taylor looked down at Sophia, her posture stiff, her body almost rigid, her flesh like stone. Then she kissed her.
The kiss was forceful, demanding. There was power behind it, Taylor's soft-looking lips giving not in the slightest, crushing and bruising Sophia's lips. She was helpless in Taylor's arms; with the slightest squeeze of her arms, the other girl could snap her spine, kill her without effort.
That fact, shamefully, turned her on more than anything else. She was Taylor's plaything, entirely at her mercy. Whatever Taylor wished to do with her, she could do. She closed her eyes, giving herself entirely over to Taylor's mastery of her.
When Taylor ended the kiss and released her, Sophia was so overcome that she fell to her knees, gasping. Taylor looked down at her, still amped up.
"Have you changed at all, Sophia?" she asked, her voice the grating multiple-toned sound that bespoke of high amp, but still managing to register sadness. "Have you even tried?"
Sophia couldn't answer; after that kiss, that earth-shattering, mind-blasting kiss, she was in no shape to think coherently, let along talk. The blood roared in her ears; she felt the bruises forming on her body, on her lips, where Taylor had held her in all her power, and kissed her. Could have done much more with her.
If she had tried, Sophia would have been helpless to stop her. Would not have even wanted to. She wanted to feel Taylor's hands, crackling with the power of amp, on her body. Had the dark shameful urge to be at Taylor's mercy, a mouse to her cat, as so many others had been the same to her …
Her head cleared. She looked up.
Taylor was gone.
Taylor stood atop the building and watched Sophia search frantically for her. Tears slid unheeded down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry, Sophia," she said out loud. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She turned and started away across the rooftop. Within three strides, she was running. When she reached the edge of the roof, she leaped, without hesitation.
Three rooftops away, she descended to ground level via the fire escape. She had no desire to drop four storeys and reveal to all and sundry the exact colour of her underwear. This is why fliers don't wear skirts.
It took two more blocks before she found a working pay phone. She was now crying so hard she could barely see; she fumbled coins into the slot and dialled the number.
Danny Hebert frowned as the phone rang. It was barely three. Their date couldn't have ended this quickly.
He picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Dad," he heard Taylor's voice, sobbing. "Come pick me up. Please."
"What's happened? Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm okay. Just please, pick me up." She gulped and started to cry again.
"Okay, I'm on the way. Where are you?"
She gave him an address. A street corner. Blocks away from the movie theatre. In the bad part of town.
What's she doing there?
He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. As he reached it, the phone rang again.
Sighing, he went back and answered it.
"Hello?"
"Mr Hebert?"
"Sophia?" he asked, honestly surprised. "Aren't you with Taylor?"
"No," she said. "I don't know where she is. We had an argument and she left. I haven't been able to find her."
"Well, I just got a phone call from her," he said. "She sounded really upset. Wanted me to pick her up."
"Shit," said Sophia. "Where is she?"
Danny gave her the address, then dashed outside. Moments later, he was pulling away from the curb.
Sophia found Taylor easily enough. She was still half a block away, and she could hear the sound of metal tearing. What's going on?
As she got closer, she saw. Taylor was sitting on the curb, still crying, unmindful of the grime on the back of her dress. Several extremely rough-looking customers were eyeing her very warily; this was perhaps due to the fact that she had a metal trash can lid in her hands, and she was tearing pieces off to wipe her eyes with.
Sophia had no idea how hard Taylor was amping, but she could recognise a dangerous situation when she saw it. Right now, despite all her protestations to the contrary, Taylor was in full fight-or-flight mode right now. She wasn't thinking civilised. She wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone if she decided that was the right course of action.
So Sophia stopped a healthy distance away, and said, "Hey."
Taylor didn't respond; she tore off a rough square of metal with a discordant shriek, and blew her nose with it. Crumpling it up, she threw it across the street, where it hit a brick wall and embedded itself there.
Her audience decided to take a few steps back.
Sophia, on the other hand, moved forward.
"Hey," she said, a little more loudly.
Taylor looked around. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red. Wow, her father was right. She looks really upset.
"What."
Her voice was totally uninflected, and had a heavy multiple-voice overlay. She was seriously amped. As if I couldn't tell by the fact that she's using galvanised iron like tissue paper.
Sophia wasn't good at diplomacy. She either got what she wanted, or went around the rules somehow, and got what she wanted anyway. She wasn't good at persuasion.
"Is it okay if I … you know, sit?" she asked. "So we can … talk?"
Taylor made a half-shrug, expressing supreme disinterest in anything Sophia said or did.
Sophia sat down about a yard away from her.
Fights, I can handle. You know whose side you're on, and whose side you're not. You kick the asses of the other guys until they can't get up.
I don't know what to do in this situation.
She paused. If I go with what I'd normally do, I'm gonna fuck this up. So what's the last thing I'd normally do?
She took a deep breath. This better be worth it. "Taylor, I'm sorry."
Taylor looked around at her with red-rimmed eyes. "You said that already."
Sophia shook her head. "No, I'm sorry for being what I am. I'm sorry for not being better for you. I'm sorry for being a bitch, the kind of bitch that would have let that happen to you."
Taylor was staring at her.
"I'm sorry for still thinking in that mindset sometimes," Sophia went on. "It's so easy to get back into. But I can be that person, and I can be the person who loves you, at the same time. But that makes you uncomfortable. And I'm sorry for that, too."
Taylor's eyes were fixed on her. But she didn't seem to be amped up any more. Sophia took that as a good sign.
She took a deep breath. "I do bad things, sometimes," she admitted. "I go overboard a bit too much. Trying to build a rep. Trying to keep the creeps in their place. But since I met you, I've been trying to be good, to be the sort of person you could love."
She had no idea where this was coming from. But Taylor didn't seem to be hitting her or running away again, so she figured it was better than silence.
Looking down the street, she saw Danny's truck approaching. Standing up, she moved to beside Taylor, and reached down with her hand. "Come on," she said softly. "Let's get you home."
Taylor reached up and took her hand.
The ride home was awkwardly silent. Taylor wasn't talking, and Sophia didn't know what else to say. Danny wasn't sure what was going on, and decided that it would be better to wait until they were all in familiar surroundings before pushing it any farther.
So when he pulled the truck into the driveway, he turned to the pair of them and said, "Inside. Now."
Sophia looked startled. "Uh, shouldn't I be getting home?"
Danny shook his head. "No. This needs to be addressed. Something happened, and I don't want it to spiral out of control. So … inside. We're going to have a talk."
They trooped into the house; Danny gestured to them to sit at the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair himself, and sat down.
"Taylor," he said quietly. "What happened?"
"She hasn't changed," said Taylor bitterly. "All this time, and she's still the same person underneath."
"But I'm not," protested Sophia. "I'm trying to change, really I am."
Danny cleared his throat. "Taylor, Sophia has changed. I've seen it." He looked at the dark-skinned girl. "You're a different person, a better person, than you were when I met you."
"Well, she hasn't changed enough," Taylor retorted. "She's still got the same bullshit predator-prey mindset going on."
Danny sighed. "What happened?" he asked again.
This time, Sophia gave him a blow-by-blow account of the conversation outside the cinema. Taylor sat, head down, throughout the recital.
At the end of it, he ventured, "It sounds like a chance remark to me …"
Taylor looked up and shook her head.
"No," she said. "No, it's not. She said it without thinking. But she meant it." She took a deep breath. "Okay, you've changed, Soph. A bit. I can see it. But you haven't changed enough. Not so much that I'm comfortable being around you. I can see that now. You're still pushy. A bit grabby. Wanting to go farther. Those little comments, the innuendoes."
She pushed her chair away from the table, stood up. "You're too aggressive," she said. "Even when it comes to our relationship, it's still about predator and prey. You keep trying to be the predator, or pushing me to be. You can't be satisfied with a simple, equal relationship. Everything's about dominance, with you."
Sophia's eyes followed her. "So what does this mean … for us?" she asked.
Taylor shook her head. "It means that there isn't really an us, not any more. We can be friends, and we can hang out, but not … anything more. Until I get more comfortable with the way you do things, or until you learn to tone it down to the way I like it."
"But …" Sophia was bewildered. "The way you kissed me … I thought you liked …"
"Of course I liked it," Taylor told her. "I'd have to be an idiot not to. And I like you. A lot. But I'm not comfortable with the way this is going. So I'm stepping back."
"Can we still at least go out on patrol together?" asked Sophia plaintively.
Taylor's eyes were troubled. "I don't know. I really don't."
Sophia stood up then. "Okay then," she said. "I'll do it."
Danny tilted his head. "Do what?" he asked.
Sophia gave him a grin that looked almost carefree. "Go out there and be the biggest damn hero you've ever seen."
She walked around the table and stood in front of Taylor. "I'll do it," she said softly. "For you. I'll prove I can be better. That I can change."
Stretching up on tiptoe, she kissed Taylor softly on the lips, a gentle peck. "You'll see," she said. "Just watch."
She turned to walk out of the room. Danny started to his feet. "I'll drive you back home –"
Sophia shook her head. "Thanks, but I can bus it. I need the time to think, anyway."
She went out through the front hall. Taylor followed her, at a distance. At the front door, Sophia turned and looked back.
"The movie was fun, wasn't it?" she said, with a sad smile.
"Yeah," agree Taylor. "The movie was fun."
"Well, I'll see you around."
Taylor nodded. "See you around."
The door closed behind Sophia. Taylor stood there, wanting to dash out, grab her, take her back. Knowing that she couldn't.
She turned and went back into the kitchen. Danny was still standing there.
"Are you going to be okay, Taylor?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know, Dad," she said. "I really don't know."
End of Chapter Eight