R_S: Fyi, I have no idea what onomatopoeia to use for a shotgun blast.

Also, possible trigger warnings.

Chapter 11

Safe

Word about 'Bambi' spread like wildfire through the camp, and Katrina felt like every guy had learned her newest moniker by the end of the next day. One or two made some form of playful jab about it, but surprisingly, they were silenced by their own tents. The ritual of earning one's nickname was evidently sacred at Camp Green Lake, and even the crassest of the campers respected the implications. A sly looking, fox-like Asian boy with spiky black hair offered her a nod of respect that she thought was related, but the rest of her tent dismissed it.

"Naw, that's Slingshot," Squid drawled, behaving noticeably less aggressively since her christening, "he knows you're the one who got X-Ray his new glasses. Since you got the goods, he's keepin' an eye to make sure y'all don't cause problems for each other before he leaves. Word is he's out in a week or two."

Squid, it turned out, knew just about everything about the camp and everyone in it. Part of that stemmed from his tendency to break into their files, another part from a gritty survival instinct that Kat had never seen in any other human being, and a final part from being close with Zigzag, whose paranoid observations clued him into more than most others. For a good day or two, he was the most helpful person to her in camp. He was still mean and ornery, but she was starting to realize that was more for the benefit of his tough guy reputation. Unfortunately, that lulled her into a false sense of security, and she ruined his newfound civility almost immediately. All it took was one night, his soft cries noticeable in the dark. She had heard them once or twice before but never known whose they were. In a moment of uncharacteristically daring curiosity, she peeked around her curtain and found the movement of his shaking shoulders through the blackness. The next day, she had gone to him with a soft hand on his shoulder. If she had been a boy, Kat was sure he would have thrown punches. As it was, he got in her face with some snide comments about her mother-complex and told her to piss off. He stopped being so nice (if she really could have called it that) to her afterward. At least she still had the others relatively on her side, she reasoned… sort of.

Despite the new social acceptance that came with her nickname, Kat's physical abilities only lessened as time wore on. She should have been getting stronger with each passing day, but instead, she grew weaker. The physical stress of manual labor coupled with the emotional anxiety of her surroundings and the increasing imminence of a more serious altercation, draining her. The males of the camp were only getting bolder, it seemed, even with the increased respect and protection of her tent, and the digging was only taking her longer. By the end of each day, she still felt like she was dying. The camp was slowly killing her spirit. She did not belong there, and it became more and more obvious to her every day. She wondered if she ever would. Physically, it seemed impossible; socially, still somewhat doubtful.

And despite being welcomed into the fold, so to speak, with D-Tent, Kat (or 'Bambi') still was not entirely accepted. They treated her with noticeably more respectfully and included her more, but certain aspects of her personality simply did not mesh with their way of living. She was still a goody-two-shoes and (her far greater sin) a girl. She still caused them fights with other campers who they found nosing around outside her corner of the tent or her shower stall. She still drew unwanted attention when they just wanted to be left alone. She was still too cutesy and sweet and so damn annoying, as Squid often put it.

"No one has ever thought damn, I wish I could hang out with that animated deer from the movie." He once sneered.

It was simply difficult to adjust to someone so delicate, especially since she expressed a level of respect that they felt undermined their credibility. Kat, unlike the boys, held no sense of delinquency. Dr. Pendanski's group therapy sessions felt less like a waste of time to her and more like a chance to genuinely better herself, so she tried to take them seriously. She responded to his questions and never called him Mom. Noticing how unhappy it made D-Tent to hear him called Dr. Pendanski, she simply took to avoiding addressing him with any title. More infuriating for them, however, was her continuous failure to correct him when he referred to her as 'Kat' or 'Katrina.'

"She's Bambi now." X-Ray corrected the first time, sounding like a king making a royal decree. Pendanski raised an unamused eyebrow.

"Really," he asked, turning to her, "is that so?" Six sets of eyes fell on her expectantly, but the doctor looked at her without humor.

She only shrugged in response and mumbled a noncommittal comment of "That's what they call me." It had annoyed the group, especially Squid, but they did not take it out on her for once. She was new to this, they figured. She would learn. Unfortunately, she never started standing up to Pendanski about the nickname, and the boys grew increasingly agitated with the amount they had to correct him. If anything, it offered their 'Mom' a sense of sick amusement, and he seemed to make a point of using her name even more. It irked the group, and frankly, Kat thought it was only a matter of time before their previous deal of looking out for her was off, if it was not moot already.

But D-Tent earned her full trust only a day later, albeit in the most unfortunate way.

It was a typical day, hot with a hard sun as she shuffled alone from her hole. As usual, Katrina was last, but that had worked itself into the daily schedule as something of a ritual for the tent. The boys knew when she would generally be done and were showered and dressed by then. While she showered, they often hung out on the porch of the Wreck Room to keep an eye on the guys nosing around her shower (someone broke the lock again at one point, but that time Armpit saw who it was). Once she was done, she met them in the Wreck Room, sometimes after taking some time to relax in the tent.

That day, everything was directly on schedule. She had actually managed to dig a little more than half her hole the day before, pushing herself with the promise of an easier next day, and was able to dig slower and more gently over the hours. Plus, it was the first day with a 'fresh' jumpsuit, so she felt surprisingly cleaner than usual. Or, to be fair, she felt about as clean as one could ever feel at Camp Green Lake. There was only one thing that had ever made her feel dirtier than when she was coated with lake dust, but she had not anticipated having to feel both types of filth at once until it was too late.

She was never in the habit of checking holes for inhabitants during the day, despite being advised otherwise. The snakes generally left you alone, unless you bothered them, and the dreaded lizards were largely nocturnal. The heat and glare of the desert made looking more than a foot in front of you literally painful at times, the shimmery mirage-like image of the camp looming in the distance. During her walks back, Kat always kept her chin tucked nearly to her chest and just shuffled the worn path free of holes. On some later days (days like that day, she hoped), one of the boys might meet her at the edge of camp to make sure she had not passed out in the heat. It was only the sheer luck that Magnet was waiting and Squid and Zigzag had stopped to talk to him on the group's way back from the showers that saved her.

It was sudden, all seeming to happen so fast.

From some holes blocked by mounds of loose dirt leapt two boys. They were both stocky and burly, weathered and toughened by months of digging out in the hot sun. She hardly had a moment to scream, a dirty shirt stuff in her mouth as she was pulled down and away into a hole, the tiny figures wandering around camp just barely in sight. They pulled and lifted, dragging her weak form against the wall of a hole, opposite the dirt that blocked the main camp from view. It was stiff as her back collided roughly with the dirt prison, tears washing down her face. There was a boy on either side of her, restricting her movements. Her big eyes stared up at them, darting between the vaguely familiar faces.

"She mad sweaty, man." The one commented, head cocked to the side, "Would'a been better to grab her after she showered." He was slightly smaller, thinner with a crooked, hooked nose and narrow eyes. His buddy was already gripping the curve of her hip tightly in a big hand, round face nuzzled into the crook of her neck as he pressed against her.

"You wanna get caught, you can go for it at camp. I'm enjoyin' this out here." His voice was muffled against her neck, and she felt the puffs of hot breath as his lips brushed against her flesh. He leaned in to make heavier contact, pushing harder up against her. Kat was shaking by then, as his hand slid up to cup her breast. The one with the hooked nose, she thought they called him Snake Eyes, started working at the knotted sleeves of her jumpsuit. They were getting more eager, even with her struggling. The burly one kissed his way up to the side of her mouth, ripping away the dirty shirt and replacing it with his lips. The kiss was demanding and harsh, trying to force response from her rather than coaxing one. Snake Eyes continued to fiddle with her jumpsuit, yanking it down.

A sense of familiarity came rushing into to her. Someone was kissing her, invading her mouth with his tongue. Someone was touching her in ways they had no right. It had to stop. This could not happen, not again. It sent her reaction into overdrive.

Katrina began bucking wildly. She kicked and scratched to the best of her abilities, flailing about in her captors' arms and wriggling desperately, but it was too hot to fight with sufficient vigor, already winded from a day's work digging. The burlier one's kiss persisted, tongue sliding against her with clumsy swipes. She bit down with the precision of a viper, causing him to jump back in pain. The salty copper taste of blood filled her mouth, but she ignored it, not even pausing to spit. Taking a deep breath, she allowed an ear-splitting scream to fill the air. Midway through, she was cut short by the sharp pain that erupted from the side of her face in the form of a slap. Both sounds cut across the still desert air.

"Stupid bitch!" Snake Eyes sneered. He squeezed the sides of her cheeks between his dirty fingers, taking away her ability to move her jaw, and kissed her forcibly puckered lips, shoving his knee between her legs. She screamed against the invasion. His partner's hand groped around her back for the closure to her bra. Before he could find it, she was thrown down to the ground of the hole. She screamed again, as loud as she could as she tried to kick away, but their hands silenced the sound instantly and the tangle of orange material around her feet made it impossible to move away. She sobbed and screamed to the best of her abilities, kicking out her legs. The sweat that glazed her skin gave her some lubrication to twist away, but she only got as far as a standing position and half a scream before she tripped on the jumpsuit. Within moments, she was under them once more. She tried to swipe at them again, but their grips on her wrists held strong.

Time felt like it slowed, as though no one would ever hear her cries or come to her aid. Their mouths and hands moved against her, and no matter how hard she fought, no matter how slick the sweat made her skin, there seemed to be no escape. Their hardness pressed against her in suffocating forcefulness as they began to reach down carelessly in an effort to open their own clothing, movements hindered by the full-body cover jumpsuits offered. It felt like an eternity to Kat, though in reality, it had only been a minute or two. But a minute or two was more than enough. Just as she was about to give up, Snake Eyes was ripped away from her. The big guy, Meatloaf if she now recognized him correctly, followed after. Her immediate reaction was to scoot back against the wall of the hole, curling herself into the tightest ball possible. All around the boys chanted crudely, egging on the battle that happened just at the edge of her sight out of the hole.

As she would later learn, the boys waiting for her at the edge heard her screams distantly from camp and set out into the desert to search for her. Zero had been sitting in the tent unaware, but the others split up appropriately- Magnet running to find a counselor while the rest fanned out amongst the holes trying to locate her. Many of the other boys from the camp caught on to the commotion as well, following D-Tent in hopes of a show. They certainly got one. Immediately upon seeing Snake Eyes and Meatloaf, Armpit plucked the scrawnier one from the hole with seemingly little effort, his teddy-bear like persona replaced by that of a fierce grizzly. Squid and Zigzag pulled Meatloaf by an arm each, X-Ray waiting to join the tussle. The four summarily began to reap retribution on the two attackers. Though they were interrupted by a member of their tent, B-Tent, who decided he had their backs, none of the others got involved, and the fight was set at a fairly even match. Snake Eyes was not much of an opponent, but Meatloaf and his buddy, Scarface (dubbed thusly due to an unfortunate abundance of craterous acne scars, not in any homage to the movie), both held their own well in a fight. If anything, they were almost too much for the D-Tent boys to handle. Nonetheless, they fought ferociously.

X-Ray, considering his scrawny build, mostly focused on Snake Eyes, once Armpit was distracted by the addition of Scarface. The two grappled intensely, throwing punches and locking one another into binds. Meanwhile, Armpit had turned his attention to the ugly mug of their fellow B-Tenter, and it was a pretty damn near even fight. Armpit was bigger, but Scarface was nastier. The ones who seemed to be fairing the best were Zigzag and Squid, who had ganged up on Meatloaf. He was much larger than them in girth, but Zigzag managed to keep him half held back, known to have a violent streak of his own. At one point, the fight shifted closer to the hole where Kat hid, knocking dirt toward her half-clothed and curled away body. She yelped fearfully. Squid's gaze found her, a red mark dusting the side of his jaw where it would soon start to bruise. He all but threw Meatloaf away from the hole, letting Zigzag jump back onto him. He turned back to regard the girl with an unreadable expression before throwing himself back into the brawl. He was smaller than the other two but fought with equal if not greater ferocity.

A few other boys tried to break up the dispute, grabbing at them to hold them back. They gave up after Zigzag literally lifted a smaller boy who clung to one of his arms and flung him away. Instead they formed an impenetrable circle around them, like a great roman arena. The word 'fight' chanted repeatedly like a bad movie, punctuated and interrupted by cheers at the best and most brutal moves. Kat just felt sick to her stomach, noticing the side leers thrown at her quaking form.

BOOSH!

The boys jumped away from each other, the entire crowd hitting the ground at the interruption of a shotgun blast. Mr. Sir approached aggressively, Pendanski scurrying behind with Magnet in tow. Instantly, the boys began to scatter, wanting nothing to do with the impending storm.

"All y'all freeze, NOW!" Mr. Sir's tone left no room for argument, and the group froze. By then Snake Eyes, Meatloaf, and Scarface had all intermingled with the crowd, hoping to slip away unidentified. Zigzag's eyes searched around wildly, still raring for a fight, but like everyone else, his body remained stationary. The boys hardly dared to breathe in the face of Mr. Sir's rage.

"What in the hell is goin' on out here?" He demanded, spittle flying from his lips, "D-Tent, what are you idiots doin'? I want answers, damnit!"

"It wasn't our fault, Mr. Sir." Armpit spoke first, "We was just tryin' to help."

"Help? Help what, Theodore?" Pendanski jumped in, looking stern. The entire camp's attention slowly turned toward the hole beside them. From there, tiny sniffles sounded. Squid quickly grabbed one of their towels, dropped in preparation for the fight, and hopped down to cover Kat from prying eyes. The counselors peered in to find her that way: crying, shaking, and half dressed, her tentmate trying to preserve some sense of chastity by covering her with a threadbare towel. The two scowled.

"Everyone back to their tents, shows over! Y'all wait for me to let ya out; no one's leavin' until we know who's responsible for this!" He barked with such force that the boys scurried back to their respective tents. "AND DON'T GO STOPPIN FOR NO SHOWERS NEITHER!" He called after with equal aggression. The only ones who did not leave were D-Tent, who moved toward Kat.

One boy slammed his shoulder into Magnet as he passed. "Went runnin' to mommy? Didn't have you pegged as a narc." X-Ray pushed the guy back, coming to the defense of his tent. He held his glasses together with one hand, the damage worsened by the fight. He prayed the delivery truck would come within the next day or two.

"Man, stuff it Chief. Your boys were in the wrong and you know it. Keep your tent away from Bambi, ya got me?" B-Tent's leader just stared him down. X-Ray was right, he knew that, but it did not look good to get pushed around by another group. The veiled threat was there- D-Tent would only point fingers at the ones directly involved, but if issues persisted, they could easily be held accountable. Chief mentally noted that he would have to get Slingshot to give them something as a make-shift truce.

"Moose, Brick," He barked to his second and third in command, "let's go." The two moved around the departing boys to crowd around the hole, where Kat had pulled her jumpsuit back on and was being plucked out by Zigzag and Squid. She looked pale and jumpy, keeping her distance from Mr. Sir.

"Are you alright, chica?" Magnet inquired breathlessly from her side. She nodded in a weird, jerky motion, keeping her eyes down.

"Katrina," Pendanski started, reaching a hand out to place it on her shoulder. She jumped away instantly, as though she had been burned, moving in closer to the boys from her tent.

Mr. Sir sighed, "C'mon girlie, we'll have the boys walk ya back to the tent so we can get to the bottom of all this." Another halting nod.

Taking a step back, she nestled herself between Zigzag and Squid for the walk back, the feel of their arms against hers and Armpit's warm presence just inches from her back a comfort. X-Ray led the way, staring straight ahead, but Magnet snuck glances at her every few seconds. She could feel Squid's gaze almost steadfastly burrowing into the side of her face. It did not matter. It felt good to have him watching her.

It felt safe.

End of Chapter

R_S: Review s'il vous plait!