AN: Hiyo! Wyvern and the Warhawk here with the second part of this month's batch of Sink or Swim. The one story where people actually think through what they are doing, and shit still hits the fan regardless! Oh wait… that's just Worm, isn't it? Or stories with Taylor in general.
Anyhow! We'd like to thank Azazelicko once again for his continued patronage of this story. As always, if you'd like to discuss commissions for a new story from Team Scrimshaw, or patronize one of our already existing ones, our door is always open!
Now then, onto the reading!
Into the Deep End
Daniel Hebert
"Fuck off."
"Mr. Hebert, I must insist-"
"Fuck. Off." The elder Hebert had to take a long, deep breath, if only to keep himself form saying something worse than he already had. "I've told you that if you keep calling here I'll sue you for harassment."
"Yes sir, but that doesn't change the fact your daughter has not been to school since the Winter break." Almost stumbling over his words, the truancy officer tried to get past the very, very angry widower. "It's not that we want to force her to do something you feel is unsafe for her, God knows that there's a reason I don't send my kids to Winslow, but the truth of the matter is that if she doesn't come back to school then you'll be charged for contributing to the delinquency of a minor and she'll have to go before the judge."
Right now his head was pounding and Danny wanted nothing more than to swear at the other man again. But… but this one was polite, seemed earnest. The kind of poor schmuck that really shouldn't be working in the Bay.
"I started the paperwork for getting her into a homeschool program and I'm just waiting on the school to get back to me, shouldn't that count for anything?"
He could hear the wince in the other man's voice when the officer responded.
"Perhaps if she hadn't missed more than a month of school."
The temptation to swear again was strong but Taylor had just stepped into the kitchen and Danny couldn't exactly take the landline into another room.
"Look, this isn't something I'm trying to be difficult about. If I had the option I would have consulted a lawyer about what happened but the simple fact of the matter is that it's not healthy."
Glancing at his daughter's back, he hoped he was being just evasive enough that his child wouldn't pick up exactly what it was he was discussing.
"And I understand that, really, I do. But no charges were pressed, criminal or civil, and I can't change the law. I'm sorry Mr. Hebert, your daughter will have to return to school. If it makes you feel better, I know the secretary at Winslow and I'll personally give her a call and ask her to expedite the paperwork."
"Thank you, but-"
"It's cool Dad." Taylor, bowl of cereal in hand, sat down at the dinner table and gave him a weak smile. "I can go back to school. Promise."
"If you'd like sir I'll make that call now?"
Danny closed his eyes and sighed.
"Yes, that would be wonderful. Have a good day."
Hanging up, he sat down, frowning and doing his best to not look like he was frustrated - both with himself and the situation at hand.
"Did you overhear what we were talking about?"
Taylor rolled her eyes.
"Hardly. You only got evasive when I came in the room." She jabbed a spoon at him. "Aren't you supposed to be good at reading people and being discreet? You're the head of hiring for, like, the biggest union in the city."
Crossing his arms, the elder Hebert raised an eyebrow.
"Up until now I haven't had any complaints."
"Well that's your problem. Everyone's too scared you'll fire them to give you proper feedback." Gesturing at the phone with her spoon, Danny almost laughed out loud when his daughter continued. "Tell you what old man, why don't you make a few calls and I'll tell you how you're doing."
Letting his child take a few bites, the single father took the time to think of how to reply.
Because he was perceptive, though it was easy to imagine that any father would notice, he picked up on the stress in his only child's posture. Her shoulders were tense, her grin was just a bit forced, her eyes looked tight. On the whole Taylor looked like she was about to bolt.
"If you want I'll get the union involved."
"I, wait, what?"
More than a little confused, it took her a few seconds to get what he was suggesting.
"Over one day of school? No way. I appreciate the offer, but wouldn't that be a… pretty huge amount of trouble?"
Shrugging, Danny didn't quite meet his daughter's eye.
"After what I've already screwed up I think I can be forgiven for abusing my power just a little. Besides, now that you've been looking after people around the docks you've got yourself a reputation."
"Did Mr. Berkowitz start working again? I told him I'm not a doctor and he still needs to rest. Cancer isn't the kind of thing you just power through - it takes medication and serious effort to defeat and not even all the Rubedo I could make will make him immortal."
Ignoring the mix of pride and happiness burning in his chest, he simply nodded.
"You're working hard and get along with most of your clients. They can't help but spread the good word kiddo." Here he paused, refreshing his mostly empty cup of coffee and adding a creamer and a pinch of sugar. After taking a swallow he nodded. "Like I said, I can always ask the Union to look after an asset. Not only do you keep the workers healthy, you do it for cheaper than an actual doctor, never jerk anyone around, and you're not handing out opiates like they're candy."
He found it amusing how his daughter simply stood there, mouth slightly agape.
"Instead of Little Owl I might have to call you Little Flytrap if you keep trying to catch 'em."
Snapping her mouth shut, his teenaged daughter huffed, crossed her arm, and actually acted like a child for once. It was so refreshing he couldn't help but chuckle.
"Come on, let's head out." Ruffling her hair, Daniel Hebert enjoyed his time with his daughter instead of taking it for granted.
Baby steps, right?
Taylor Hebert
One hand in her hoody, the other holding the strap of her backpack, Taylor Hebert frowned. She was back at Winslow for one last day and currently standing in front of her dad's red truck. Her father had, after calling the school, threatened to march the whole of the Dockworker's Union down to the highschool and have them withdraw their children.
And even if they didn't have children in the school? Well, they would come for moral support.
Not wanting to potentially have ten thousand angry blue collar worker milling about on school grounds, it would look bad for Blackwell in the press you see, an agreement was quickly reached.
All Taylor had to do was get through one last day, pick up the paperwork confirming she was registered for homeschool on her way to homeroom, sit through the day, and then never. Ever. Ever. So much as look at this craphole again. Of course, with how she was feeling now that was one big if.
"You know you don't have to kiddo."
Shaking her head Taylor silently told him that she did.
For her own sake.
"I'll see you soon Daddy. Love yah." A weak smile and she squeezed her father's hand, climbing out of the truck after he told her goodbye as well.
"Remember the cell phone. If anything happens, anything at all, call me right away and I'll come pick you up." She nodded that she understood, though the teenager still wasn't quite used to the weight in her pocket. It was almost as comforting as it was disquieting. "Love you."
And that was how Taylor found herself standing there. Frowning again, she pulled her brown hoodie a little bit tighter as she reflected on how much she hated bureaucracy.
She didn't come to this conclusion all of a sudden, of course.
But as the seconds ticked by, her footsteps swallowed up by the noise of the milling crowd filling her school's hallways, the thoughts in her head only grew louder and louder. Because when the world was a silence born of a dull, indistinct roar, a thousand voices blending together with a thousand more noises, what was that but a kind of silence. A wave of crushing sound that blotted out thought and killed the individual by erasing them.
Doing as she always did, the young woman turned inwards, keeping her head down. In a way it was pathetic, how quickly her newly found confidence could be ripped away. She hadn't seen Emma or Sophia or Madison or even one of their cronies and yet…. Making it to homeroom had been so stressful she'd almost turned to go to one of the bathrooms and cry
In the end she'd pushed through the terror creeping up her spine and found that sliding into a corner in the back of the room actually let her calm down, even if her whole body felt tense.
No one was looking at her, no one was nodding their head in greeting, not a single word of acknowledgement. It was almost a blessing that no one cared enough to realize she'd ever been gone. A cold comfort that let her begin to unwind as, in her home room at least, she wasn't immediately under threat.
Somehow the Trio had been surprised, the girls simply not knowing how to react to her sudden presence in the hallway on the way to first period.
Moving quickly, Taylor pushed past a confused Sophia, getting a shove for her trouble, and trusted in the press of bodies to shield her from further retaliation. Managing to slip in before her tormentors could catch her the young Tinker managed to claim a seat far enough away from anyone who had it out for her specifically, having to skirt around a small group of E88 groupies to do so, that she actually managed to get through the ninety minute lecture without getting more than a few nasty looks.
On her way out she was stopped, this time by the teacher, who tried to hand her a packet of makeup work - somehow trying to sound like she was disappointed in the teen for missing so much school.
Curling her lip up in disgust, it was all one Taylor Hebert could do not to say something that would most definitely give Blackwell a reason to make things harder on her. And, with how out of their way the school system was being just to seemingly spite her in particular, that would not be a temptation the young woman surrendered to.
Second period had come quickly, though this time Madison had beaten her to the room.
Tellingly, the short brunette called one of her hanger-ons over and had the girl rush off. For some reason this made the younger Hebert deeply, deeply concerned. It seemed far too organized for a group of bullies and more like they were trying to figure out what was going on before they confronted her directly. Even more worrisome was the fact that Emma in particular hadn't done anything but give her a strange look.
No names, no barbs, no having the others surround her and berating Taylor until the too tall, too thin, too plain teen wanted to take a short drop from a tall tree.
All of that meant her second class of the day was far less… exciting than normal. Nothing was truly happening and it meant she was left waiting and waiting and waiting until something inevitably did. So the stress of the situation had ended up blending into a bland, numb kind of terror.
Until, that is, the Trio managed to sniff out that she was leaving Winslow for good.
A girl Taylor didn't recognize had run over to three bitches at lunch and whispered something in Emma's ear. That had caused a flurry of rapid discussion and a bit of complaining. Sophia rolled her eyes, Madison looked a bit confused, and Emma seemed almost desperate. And then the others went silent when Sophia said something that Taylor couldn't make out. Obviously this opened a whole can of worms that she was glad she knew was coming.
'They just couldn't leave it well alone. I didn't even get to eat lunch somewhere quiet and they still want to do something dumb. Well, at least it's just one day. It's not like they're going to sick a bunch of Merchants on me.'
Her thoughts were a bit jittery as she quickly finished her PB&J sandwich and scooted, doing everything she could to beat the other girls to her third period class. Unfortunately, she was not so lucky.
'Now is when it starts, I suppose. Guess all I can do is stay on my toes and not let them corner me.'
She could see Sophia waiting for her in the hallway that led to her third period class, the black girl somehow having slipped past her, and violently shoulder checked the taller, thinner, weaker white girl when she tried to slip past. Stumbling backwards, Taylor managed to avoid falling to the ground but still pulled away.
It took a not insignificant effort, but she was able to slip past the quickly forming circle of onlookers before they could start to cheer on a fight. So, even as they tried to back away, the teen moved faster than her peers and managed to get past the edge of the disturbance.
This, of course, was the signal for everything to start going wrong.
Knowing that their favorite target was soon going to leave, Sophia, Emma and Madison had decided to leave her a parting gift. A full course of their heartless bitch menu, complete with extra assholery.
Madison started with the petty stuff, glue in her chair, pencil shavings spilled on her, stupid, childish crap that almost boggled the mind at how petty it was.
Emma had looked almost… hungry. Like there was something almost wrong with her on the inside and that had honestly been the worst part of everything.
'Well, that and not knowing where the Hell Sophia is.'
That in particular had her nervous, almost jittery, because if she had to go, of course it would have to be with style.
"Hey Taylor, what's up!"
Dodging past Greg Veder, Hebert focused on getting to fourth period, the third class, Mrs. Knott's computer class had been almost hilariously, pointlessly a waste of time. Though… if nothing actually happened today then Taylor would have been able to say that she was actually having a not totally awful time.
Well, she would if the classes were actually interesting.
Between all the self-study sessions she'd been doing and the research involved in the pseudoscience babble that were her powers, Taylor had already covered a great number of subjects at home. While she doubted she'd covered everything the teachers were doing, she did so at a much more comfortable pace.
Really, some of the classes felt like they were either plodding along or rushing through the material. Frankly she was a bit surprised that being able to learn at her own pace was certainly something Taylor had taken for granted in the past few months, genuinely having brought her further along than she expected she'd be ever since her grades started slipping.
And then there was the matter of her powers.
It wasn't quite an itch.
More like a niggling in the back of her mind.
A desire to slip back into her small lab and go about producing more Rubedo, or maybe even trying something new. Not being able to play alchemist while at school was distracting and the urge to go back home and lock herself inside her basement was becoming stronger as the day went on.
Taylor was so close to a breakthrough.
So close!
While her limitations in terms of equipment wasn't going away anytime soon, the alchemist-to-be had been working on a new product which to offer to her clients. Even if it was more industrial than medical, it would still be revolutionary if she could figure out how to get it to stabilize!
'Either that or maybe destroy the world.'
Nigredo, the first step in her experiments, was a rather volatile mixture.
Rather, it could be said to be an exceedingly potent acid which broke down and incorporated anything into its own mass before dissipating. Unlike the universal solvent, the alkahest, which many different alchemists had attempted to create, Nigredo was merely another step in what was known to be the 'Magnum Opus'.
The very first step in creating the philosopher's stone.
Or whatever it was that Taylor's powers would cook up in its place.
Trying to figure out exactly how to stabilize a substance without overly diluting it was a difficult enough task that it took her mind away from the stack of assignments which had grown with every new class, each of her "educators" giving her several packets of work to do… and she'd left those packets on her desk. Ultimately Mrs. Knott was the only one that had gotten more than a look of disgust. Gladly had even gotten a sneer to go with it, the preening ass.
So it was with increasing trepidation that Taylor counted down the minutes until the end of classes.
Because for all of the Trio's antics today, she knew they wouldn't let her go without giving her another bout of trauma to cherish for the rest of her life. Emma and Madison were all well and good, Taylor could deal with them. But Sophia had yet to act out beyond the usual and that meant the vicious track star was planning something.
Go big or go home, as they say.
And as the day wore on, she had been left to imagine how badly it was going to go.
No more trips.
No shoves.
No barbed words.
Sophia was a ghost following her around. Even if she hadn't done anything serious, yet, Taylor could feel the girl's stare on her back. Just waiting for the right moment to pounce. And the moment came when the bell rang it was finally obvious what all of today had been building up to.
With hindsight being twenty-twenty, she felt she should have seen it coming.
Or rather, it was obvious when a bunch of boys, all of them skirt chasers that hung around the Trio, were hanging around the exit front door, trying to look uninterested but keeping their eyes on the lines of students leaving. A novice's attempt at being discrete and if they were clearly searching for someone, she knew who it would have to be.
Her.
Turning right around, she decided to head back to the classroom, reaching into the pocket of her hoody, Taylor started looking around for her cell phone. Finding nothing there, she tried to drown out the rising panic with thoughts of how the teacher would let her use their phone… only for Mr. Gladly to shut the door in her face. Pretending like he hadn't seen her coming back to his class, he slammed and locked the door.
'Fuck.' Because that had happened thanks to her own pride the wannabe alchemist now needed a new exit strategy. 'Are they… crap. I knew I should have paid better attention to my stuff. Dad got that phone just for today in case something happened and… crap.'
One of the boys had noticed her and now the group was coming her way. Not eager to find out if they wanted her to join their little glee club, Taylor shuffled into the main flow of students as best she could - putting bodies between her and her pursuers - and started moving towards a side hall as quickly as humanly possible.
'It's either through a window or one of the side doors.' And she wasn't feeling particularly athletic today. Could Rubedo be used as a physical booster?
'Questions for later.' Taylor settled for filing away that particular experiment as she stalked towards her first planned way out. Of course, she already had a pretty good idea of what was waiting for her there.
Sophia might have been an asshole. But she wasn't stupid.
Seeing the slouching boy there too, she kept walking straight ahead. Frankly, if there hadn't been a crushing bullying campaign raging for so long then Taylor would have been less paranoid, less prone to noticing when people were trying not to be noticed. 'Still didn't catch whoever stole my phone… wait, when Sophia shoulder checked me! Thank God it was at least cheap.'
Turning suddenly, she tried the first door she found. Finding herself inside the teacher's break room, there was only an exhausted looking old woman in there. Ignoring her dirty look, the rather desperate teen knew there would be exactly as much help here as she'd gotten from Gladly… and pretty much every other adult in her life. So Taylor kept moving, going over to one of the windows and finding it secured with a door jam.
Removing the piece of wood, she had her way out of the school open just as she heard muffled voices outside the break room. Since it had been a few minutes since school had let out for the day, it was obvious that it wasn't people just chatting in the hallways.
Climbing out, Taylor swore as she stumbled and fell into the bushes in front of the window. Springing up, she started speed walking towards the front of the school, where her father would be waiting, and trying to move quickly and without drawing too much attention. Frankly, she wasn't sure which one was more important right now but she was around the side of and behind part of the school right now. Meaning that if anything were to happen it would happen out of sight of the parents.
It went without saying that there was more than one student loitering in the area, all of whom noticed her exit. Just the same, not one of them said anything to her or even seemed to care.
'I wonder if this is really all that uncommon.'
With that depressing thought, she reached the corner of the building, all of five steps from freedom, and that was when she heard a strange noise and felt her head jerk backwards.
Crying out, Taylor hit the ground, tears in her eyes as Sophia, having seemingly appeared from nowhere - the window Taylor had climbed out of was quite visibly closed - and had jerked her backwards by her hair.
"Thought you were gonna get away, huh?"
A kick came around, slow and lazy, and caught the stunned girl in her ribs. Rolling with the strike more out of instinct than any real training, the blow was bruising but not breaking, and the wounded girl immediately tried to get to her feet and run.
"Damn, I guess white girls can bounce."
Sophia laughed as she darted forwards, driving a foot into the back of Taylor's knee. She followed this up with a sharp jab to the back of Hebert's head, these blows knocking the weaker girl first to one knee, then to the ground again. A second kick, this one much faster than the first, slammed into the side of the alchemist's head.
Flopping over, stars danced in her vision and it took several long seconds, filled with ringing and Sophia's mocking insults, before she could even try to sit up.
"Come on. After all the shit we put you through, aren't you gonna fight back a little?"
Taylor bit back a retort.
It didn't matter.
Sophia didn't matter. No matter how much she wanted to find the nearest sink and make something terrible and toxic to fling at her. Taylor knew this is what the thug of a girl wanted. To get her in trouble, to play up some kind of story to ruin whatever was left of her reputation.
"Fuck you!"
Her head wasn't straight, her thoughts were jumbled, but Taylor Hebert glared up at her tormenter with hate in her eyes. And she told her the two words that best expressed how she felt about life, about Sophia, and most of the world if she were being particularly honest.
In return it got her a kick in the gut, the track star pulling her leg back and really letting it fly.
Vomiting, the downed girl tried to see if anyone was watching this, if anyone would help her. But all she saw were some of the boys who had been helping Sophia. Everyone else had left.
"Hey, uh, you got her. Isn't this a bit much?"
One of the boys had spoken up, coming over to the track star and grabbing her arm. In response to that, Hess snatched her hand free and slammed her palms over the guy's ears as hard as he could.
"Don't touch me, loser! And the freak is going to pay for talking shit to me! Prey like her deserves to be taught their place."
When the heel of Sophia's running shoe caught her eyes, Taylor's glasses broke with a loud crunch - the glass cutting her cheek and nose even as the stronger girl ground the ruined spectacles into her victim's face. Stomp after stomp followed, Hebert trying to block the blows with her arms, and only managing to make blearly, unfocused eye contact with a shamefaced black teenager. He hurriedly looked away, instead stooping to pick up his groaning friend and carrying him off.
For all of a second the Tinker wanted to chuckle: the boy who had stood up for her had been asian and now a black guy was carrying him out of the way. They were a goddamned rainbow cavalcade of ass kicking.
Any further witty thoughts were lost as the blows continued to rain down on her.
RING!
RING!
RING!
Tension drained from her body as a phone alarm blared. Of course, Taylor didn't have a phone. But, as an aborted strike proved, there was at least one person that did.
"What? I'm busy."
She considered screaming, making some kind of noise. But that would just make Sophia angrier. It wasn't worth it getting beaten over, even if the satisfaction of getting her bully into trouble would be nothing short of cathartic.
Instead, she opted for staying quiet.
"Shit, that was today?"
"Tardiness is…"
"I said I'm going. Fu-fine. Just give me a bit and I'll come over."
"Unbecoming conduct… must set an example…
Sophia stepped back.
"Listen, I said I'm getting ready, alright. I'm at school doing stuff for the track team and lost track of time. I'll be there in a few."
Taylor couldn't hear the voice on the other end this time, but she could tell it was an older man, perhaps a relative or someone from work? Sophia didn't strike her as the type who would let an adult yank her around because of rules and regulations. She didn't let them do that in school, no way she would do it somewhere she wasn't absolutely compelled to be.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Taylor tensed her legs and arms, wincing when she felt her right arm twinge in pain, and prepared to do the one thing she knew might help her.
Her bully was far too busy yelling and trading barbs over the phone to notice.
Or rather, if she tried to do something to stop her, it would have most likely caught the attention of whoever was on the other side of the call. Someone she couldn't just blow off. Someone who actually held a measure of authority over her.
And then Taylor ran.
She didn't bother looking back, didn't bother playing any games, the guys were positioned to stop her from heading towards the front of the school and she wouldn't be able to get past it. Instead, the too tall, too thin teenager used her long legs as soon as she regained her balance. Grunting as her arms took her weight, her wrist already swelling and hacking a fat wad of blood from her mouth, her eyes watered and just breathing hurt.
But the day was over and Taylor was done with this shithole. Sophia's going away party had probably gotten ruined by whoever had enough leverage over the teenager thug to force her into actually listening to them but there was no way she was going to take the chance that her bully had something worse in mind for her.
After all, why else would she have brought so many boys to corner somewhere no one else could see?
It didn't matter.
Taylor just wanted to go home.
She'd definitely need some Rubedo after getting roughed up. Enough that her dad wouldn't notice her limping. The two of them were finally free of this place, there was no way she was going to waste anymore time fighting Blackwell and her goons than she already had. Taylor was done turning the other cheek when that meant her family was going to be dragged through the mud.
So she ran.
Panic and adrenaline gave her a speed she'd never known before in her life and the few times she'd been out jogging meant that she was merely instantly out of breath instead of keeling over.
"Shit, grab her! If she gets away, you're all a part of this!"
Sophia snapped out her order with venom and the other girl even reached for something in her pocket - perhaps a knife or other weapon. But that didn't matter. She snarled and turned away, shoving the rest of her followers into action with enough aggression they seemed more scared of her than eager to catch Taylor.
All in all, a critical delay that the fleeing teenager barely caught out of the corner of her eye, blurry with tears and blood and a lack of her glasses as they were.
Heart thundering on her ears, Taylor ran and ran and ran. Her feet hit grass then dirt then pavement then asphalt. Across the road, down an alleyway, out the otherside. Moving and moving and moving, always forward, she heard the pounding of footsteps behind her.
In the end, she made a bad turn. Having taken another alley she found her exit blocked by a pile of debris - a severely overflowing dumpster and several piles of trashbags that been left to accumulate. Thinking fast, she only had seconds after all, she used her good arm clear what almost looked like a path through the bags of garbage. Then, trying her hardest not to groan in pain and disgust, pulled several of the least awful looking bags on top of her as she sat in a corner formed by the dumpster and the alley walls.
This put her out of sight of anyone coming around the corner and thanks to a mixture of exhaustion and injury was her best hope of escape… or so she prayed.
"Damnit, where did she go!"
The boys came running around, clearly unsure what to do.
"Did she go through the garbage? Looks like someone tried to push through that crap."
"Fuck that, I'm touching that shit!"
As the second and third spoke up, the first swore again and turned about.
"Did anyone see anything?"
His question was met with silence until, eventually, a fourth man spoke up.
"Nah, lost her when she turned a corner. She's damn fast for someone with twigs for legs."
"Ok. Crap. Uh…." The first one tried to take charge, clearly unsure what to do. "Ok we tell Sophia that the dyke ran into a store. Let's get out of here, I don't like these tags. They look… Merchant."
Over a long, long five minutes her heart rate slowed and the panic faded from her system. This was something of a double edged sword, as, when Taylor finally moved from her hiding spot, pushing the garbage off of herself, her body hurt like it had never hurt before.
Not even the pain in her chest she felt when she'd tried to use her father's forty five to splatter her brains across her bedroom wall compared to what she knew was at least two or three broken bones.
But right now, despite the filth, despite the pain, despite the tears in her eyes and silent sobs wracking her body, she felt exhilarated.
"I don't want to die." Hiccuping, crying, and laughing all at once as joy burned so intensely inside of her that she thought she might burst into flames, one lonely little Tinker gave voice to everything inside of her. "I don't want to die anymore!"
The pain and fear of the last God only knows how long had burned away the part of her that was suicidal. It had cleaned out the detritus of years of bullying and given her the strength to escape her torment, at least this once. And even better, she,
"I, Taylor Hebert, just outran a pack of losers who were so pussy whipped they'd sacrifice everything approaching common humanity for a chance of getting their dicks touched by a psycho!"
Her words were a bit slurred and she thought her nose might be broken too, but that was all ok. A splash of Rubedo and she'd be fine. Because she had won.
Of course, this was Brockton Bay.
"Hey there girly."
Of course, this was Earth Bet.
"You look real banged up, want something for the pain?"
Of course, she was Taylor fucking Hebert.
"Or we could just give you a ride to the hospital."
Because standing behind her was not a group of highschool delinquents, but grown men. Ratty, filthy, one with rotten teeth, one with no teeth, and the third with open sores on his face.
"Oh. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
Her words got a leer from all three of them.
"Don't worry, it's just a bit of fun."
And just like that, broken bones and all, the teenager tried to bodily throw herself up the mound of trash in a desperate attempt to once more get away.
