Confrontation II: The Reckoning
Part Four: When Right … is Wrong … is Right Again
[A/N: This chapter beta-read, and improved upon, by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Well, this is familiar.
Sophia sat in Principal Blackwell's outer office, under the secretary's watchful eye. Outwardly, she was calm; inside, she was feeling a level of irritation that she was finding hard to explain. I've been in trouble before. Why is this different?
It took her a few moments to figure it out, not helped by the worry that she would get detention and miss the date with Brian. A more distant worry, but just as real, was that if Piggot decided that she had overstepped her very tenuous boundaries, the rug could be pulled out from under her at any moment.
But I was trying to do the right thing, this time!
That gave her the clue; she was feeling honest indignation, not righteous indignation. She had experienced the latter emotion many times, usually over being disciplined for minor infractions. She'd been guilty of them, no doubt, but she had never considered that the crime really merited the punishment.
This time, she had definitely committed the crime, but it had been in a good cause, as opposed to the half-assed justifications she had used to convince herself that she was still a hero. Is this what they call irony? Well, if it is, it sucks. Big time.
The door to the outer office opened, and Kirsten Bright stepped through. The look she sent Sophia didn't make the girl feel any more confident about matters. Walking past her to the desk, Kirsten had a quiet word with the secretary, then came over to where Sophia sat.
Sophia tried to work this out. I didn't call her. "Did Taylor call you?" she asked quietly.
Kirsten looked down at her, lips compressed slightly. "No. The principal did."
"Ah. Right. Listen, it's not what it looks like."
"Really?" Kirsten sat down beside her, so that she could lower her voice to a mere whisper. "I nearly lost my job the first time when the Director found out the full extent of what you'd been getting up to before I did. I'm not going to risk that again. So I told Blackwell to call me any time you acted out in the slightest."
"So you can get on top of things, right?" But the moment the words left her lips, Sophia knew that her guess had been incorrect.
"So that by the time Piggot gets on to me, I have a full accounting of your misdeeds, and a series of recommendations to be carried out. Up to and including having you put on trial as an adult." The woman's tone was deadly serious, for all that it was barely audible.
"But -" There was something wrong with that setup. For one thing, it implied that -
"Make no mistake, Sophia," Kirsten stated flatly. "I am not your friend. I am not on your side. I am not going to stick my neck out one sixteenth of an inch to save you from your richly deserved fate. You were supposed to be a reforming vigilante, in the process of becoming a well-regarded Ward, while I was supposed to check in every now and again, and make sure that you were responding well to your new situation. Except that somewhere along the line, the school decided that 'give her leeway as a Ward' meant 'sweep everything under the carpet'. So I never looked too hard at what was going on. Well, more fool me."
Her lips twisted bitterly. "So I decided to make sure that just one foot out of line meant that you'd get what you deserved. And surprise surprise. You put a foot out of line."
Sophia shook her head. "Like fuck I did."
Kirsten's head jolted back, as if Sophia had slapped her. "What do you mean? Principal Blackwell rang me and said you were caught shoving another girl against the wall."
"Yeah, and I bet she didn't say that Madison was one of the girls who used to help me bully Taylor."
From the look in Kirsten's eyes, Sophia knew she'd scored a hit.
Still, the woman came back strongly. "That still doesn't excuse you bullying her."
Sophia rolled her eyes. "Emma and Madison don't know about Taylor being in the Wards. They tried to get me in on a prank. I tried to tell them no, Madison wouldn't back off, so I was in the middle of convincing her that it was a bad idea when Gladly walked around the corner." She stopped talking, unwilling to give any more details. No need to bring my date with Brian into this.
Kirsten looked confused, then puzzled, then enlightened as the penny finally dropped. "You were trying to stop them from bullying Taylor …?"
"Well, duh. It's not like I can tell them that she's my new best friend without raising a whole lot of new questions about the situation. Like, how and why and where. So I just said no. But Madison wouldn't take that for an answer."
"You could've told a teacher," Kirsten countered. "Or the principal. Not taken matters into your own hands."
For fuck's sake. You do know where we are, right? "This is Winslow. I snitch, it'll be around the school before lunch. And that'll out me harder than anything else. Sophia Hess as a snitch? Everyone and his dog will know that something's up. And there's one other thing."
"Ms Bright, Miss Hess, Principal Blackwell will see you now," announced the secretary.
Kirsten turned and held up a finger. "Sixty seconds," she said, before returning her attention to Sophia. "Talk fast."
"Emma's pissed at the statement I made," Sophia said rapidly. "She wants to get Taylor too. She's gonna start connecting the dots pretty soon. Either her and Madison get made to back the fuck off, or the PRT's not gonna like what happens next. Just saying."
"Is that a threat of some sort?" Kirsten's eyes narrowed.
Your intimidation needs work. "Fuck, no. Just letting you know that unless we do something now, they'll keep trying to get at Taylor. And with her powers, if they really manage to get her mad …" She shuddered at the thought. "I am not taking responsibility for that if it happens. Which means they need to stop or be stopped. For their own good."
Kirsten grimaced. "Okay, then. Let's go in, and see if we can't sort out some more of your fallout."
"Hey," protested Sophia as she got up. "This is not my fucking fault."
"You started it," Kirsten said. "If it wasn't for you, would any of this be happening?"
Sophia put as much emphasis into her words as she could without actually raising her voice. "But I'm trying to fix it!"
Her handler's tone was markedly unsympathetic. "That's the only thing saving your ass right now."
Principal Blackwell's tone was chilly. "Sit down."
Sophia eyed the woman unfavourably as she took a seat. The woman had a hairstyle like Piggot's on a build that was, if anything, skinnier than Taylor's. If anyone can rock the skinny look, it'll be Taylor. Give her a few years and a little more confidence, and she'll have the guys begging for dates. This bitch … not so much.
On a less personal note, Sophia also held Blackwell largely responsible for the current situation. If she'd put her foot down when Emma and me were running roughshod over Taylor, all this shit would never have happened.
Kirsten took the initiative. "Principal Blackwell," she said, "why am I here?"
I like it. Putting her on the back foot straight away.
Blackwell stared at the woman. "You told me to call you. If Sophia Hess acted out in any way, you said. You repeated it half a dozen times." She pointed at Sophia, making the girl want to grab the offending digit and snap it. "She acted out. I called you."
Leaning back in her chair, Kirsten folded her arms. "And what form did this 'acting out' take?"
The principal looked confused. "I told you. She was seen shoving another girl up against the wall. I took action immediately. She was separated from the student body and I called you. Just as you instructed me."
"And the girl she was shoving around," Kirsten said. "Did you happen to get her name?"
"Oh, come on," snapped Blackwell. "You personally gave me a twenty-minute lecture on how it didn't matter who we caught her bullying. Does it matter?"
"Yes, actually, it does matter." Kirsten was studying her fingernails now. She looked up at Blackwell. "If you'd bothered to do the slightest level of due diligence, or even asked Sophia herself why she was doing it, you would've learned some important facts, and maybe even spared me a trip across town while you were at it."
"What it God's name does it matter who she was shoving around?" said the principal. "Bullying is bullying! You yelled that at me so many times it's tattooed on my eardrums."
"Well, for instance," Kirsten said, "it might matter if the girl in question was one Madison Clements. One of Sophia's former partners in crime. Who, along with Emma Barnes, was attempting to solicit Sophia's aid to continue with her bullying campaign against Taylor Hebert." She rested her fingertips against her chin and gazed placidly at Blackwell. "Do you think it might matter then?"
Blackwell's eyes flicked from Kirsten to Sophia. "Is this true?" she demanded of the teenager.
"Well, yeah," Sophia said derisively. You fucking moron.
"Why didn't you tell us then?" Blackwell looked as though she were about to start chewing the scenery.
"I tried. You told me to shut up." Sophia did her best to keep the indignation out of her voice. It would sound too much like whining.
"Can anyone else back your story up?"
Sophia managed to refrain from laughing in Blackwell's face, but it was a near thing. "They were talking about bullying someone. Not something you casually talk about in the middle of the corridor. No, I've got no witnesses. Except for Madison and Emma. Good luck getting them to incriminate themselves."
A tiny germ of an idea unfolded in her mind about then. She wasn't sure where it was going, so she let it be.
"Well, unfortunately, if you've got nobody to back up your side of things, then I'm just going to have to treat it as a bullying incident," Blackwell decided. "Mr Gladly saw you do it, after all."
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Sophia snapped. "Why the hell would I attack someone that I helped bully someone else with? It doesn't make sense."
"It would if you wanted someone to bully, and you didn't care who," Blackwell pointed out. "And if you don't tone down your language right now, I'll be adding that on top of the rest of it."
So this is how Blackwell shut Taylor down so often, Sophia realised. And all this time, I thought we were just that good at staying out of trouble. It was Blackwell all the time. She's just that good at not giving a shit who's actually in the wrong, so long as she doesn't have to exert herself.
"I actually find that hard to believe," Kirsten said bluntly. "Sophia has her issues, but she's never attacked someone she considered a friend."
The idea opened up fully, and Sophia saw the whole thing. It was a way out, but it would not be without its costs.
"All the same," Blackwell said, "if you've got no proof -"
Fuck it. Let's go for gold. "Actually, I've got something for you," Sophia interrupted her. "Bring Emma Barnes and Madison Clements in here. We'll sort this out once and for all."
"I'm not sure -" began Blackwell.
"I am," Kirsten snapped. "If she says they're involved, then they're involved. And your Mr Gladly, too. So he can verify that they were there."
"I really don't think -" Blackwell tried again.
Kirsten stood up. "You either do this, or I place a phone call to Director Piggot explaining exactly how obstructive you're being, and we start expediting the transfer of both Wards to Arcadia."
That hit home, hard. Sophia had known that having a Ward in the school meant extra funding, but she wasn't sure how much. Looking at Blackwell now, she decided that there had to be a few zeroes involved.
"Okay, fine," the principal huffed. "I'll get it done."
"Good." Kirsten sat down again. "No time like the present."
Blackwell gave her an irritated look. Kirsten didn't seem to notice, or perhaps she just didn't care.
Emma was the first to enter the office, followed by Mr Gladly. Madison trailed along behind.
"What's going on here?" Predictably, Emma went on the attack straight away, once she saw Sophia. Especially once she saw Kirsten. That had to have rung all sorts of alarm bells in her head. "Where's my dad?"
"Your father isn't required at this meeting," Blackwell said wearily. "You aren't being accused of anything." She glanced at Kirsten. "Is she?"
Sophia shook her head, causing Blackwell's irritated expression to crank itself up a notch. "Nope. I just want to deliver a message. But first; Mr Gladly. Can you confirm that she's the one I was shoving around in the halls, earlier? And that she was there too?" She pointed at Madison and Emma in turn.
Gladly looked at Sophia, then at the principal. Blackwell glowered at the Ward, then reluctantly nodded. "Answer the question."
"Well, yeah," he said. "They were both there. Sophia was shoving Madison against the wall pretty hard."
From the look on the principal's face, she'd been hoping he would deny it. "Thank you, Mr Gladly. You may go."
With one confused look over his shoulder, the World Affairs teacher let himself out. Sophia had heard that he was easy to distract from what they'd do to Taylor, but right now she kind of wished that he'd been a hardass about the whole thing. If he had, I might not be sitting here right now.
"What's this about?" asked Emma again.
Sophia took a deep breath. "Emma. Everyone here knows that we all used to bully Taylor Hebert. That finishes now. It's over. It's done. It never happens again. Got it?"
Madison's eyes went wide. Emma stared at Sophia, but recovered fast. "I've got no idea what you're talking about." She looked at Blackwell. "I'd like to go back -"
Fine, hardball it is. "Emma. I'm the one who made the statement to the police about what we used to do to Taylor. The one they're giving you a hard time about. It was me. I was there. I saw everything. I helped you. Now stop playing dumb and understand this. It. Is. Done."
"What the fuck?" burst out Madison. "You made that statement? Why the fuck did you do that?"
Wow, cute little Madison thinks she can swear. Who knew? Sophia was actually kind of amused at that.
Emma turned on the petite girl. "Mads, shut up," she hissed. Standing up, she returned her attention to Blackwell. "I'm not going to sit here and be accused unless my dad's here as well."
"I'm not accusing you of shit," Sophia snapped. "I know you did it. They know you did it. But everything you did is already in the statement. That's being dealt with. What I'm saying is, quit it. I'm this close to going to juvey as it is." She held up her hand with thumb and forefinger a hair apart. "And if anything happens to Hebert, it splashes back on me. And if that happens, I'll know who's really to blame."
"Sophia, we're friends," Emma said, trying for a sweet tone. "I'm sure you don't mean that. I'd hate for your social worker there to hear some of the rumours that might get out and about …"
"Already told her," Sophia retorted.
She blinked, taken properly aback for the first time that she'd entered the room. "What? The guy on the roof …?"
Sophia wanted to grimace. Once, not long after she had met Emma, she'd taken the other girl out on patrol. In order to impress Emma, she had tried to pull a move with a Merchants thug that involved dangling him off a roof to get answers. It had gone wrong, spectacularly so.
"She told me," Kirsten confirmed. "And the rest of it."
"Wait, what guy on what roof?" asked Madison.
Kirsten and Sophia spoke at the same time. "You don't need to know." Sophia looked back to Emma. "That's it. It's really simple. Leave Taylor Hebert alone. Got it?"
Emma rolled her eyes. "Well, I don't even know what you're going on about. I've never done anything to her anyway, so leaving her alone's gonna be real easy."
"Good," Sophia said flatly. "Make sure you remember it." She was tempted to add I know where you live, but she had a suspicion that both Kirsten and Blackwell might object.
As it was, it looked like Emma already had that in mind; the redhead had paled slightly. "Can we go now?" she asked, not quite meekly, but with far less of the defiance that she'd had when she entered the office.
"You can," agreed Blackwell. "Go straight back to class."
Sophia wanted to add and don't tell anyone what happened, but she suspected that this might make them more likely to talk about it. As it was, she figured she had a fifty-fifty chance that they'd stay quiet.
I guess I'm gonna have to live with those odds.
The door closed behind the two girls, and Kirsten looked at Blackwell. "I'm satisfied. Are you?"
Blackwell gave her an irritated look. "If I say yes, will you get out of my office?"
Kirsten wasn't finished. "And Sophia doesn't get in trouble?"
Sophia blinked. Holy shit, she's actually backing me up.
The expression on the principal's face suggested that she'd been sucking on a whole crate full of lemons. "This time. She's free to go."
And don't you fucking forget it.
The temptation to give Blackwell the finger on the way out the door was very strong, but Sophia managed to resist the impulse.
They paused outside the outer office. Kirsten turned to Sophia. "You were in the right this time, but don't -" She stopped as her phone rang. Frowning, she dug it out of her pocket and answered it. "Kirsten Bright here. Oh – hello, Director."
On the verge of walking off, Sophia stopped and turned. If Piggy's calling Kirsten, then this is some kind of important.
"Yes – yes, the matter was resolved. No, she's not in trouble. She was trying to – oh, you already know? How -? Oh, she called you?"
For a moment, Sophia wondered who 'she' was, until she saw several flies performing an intricate mid-air ballet in front of her face. Taylor. Duh.
It took her a moment to realise that she'd automatically assumed that Taylor would actually defend her and not try to screw her over. For all that she was expecting it, it still gave her a weird feeling. Someone's actually on my side in all this. She wasn't including Kirsten; the 'social worker' had been willing to throw her to the wolves until Sophia got a word in edgewise.
Kirsten finished the call, then put her phone away. "That was … odd."
"Taylor called your boss?" Sophia grinned; she loved it when she guessed right.
"Well, yes." Kirsten frowned. "She apparently saw what was happening and made the call. Just to let the Director know that something was going on."
Sophia would have bet that there was more to it, but she decided not to push it. This time. "So I'm not in trouble?"
"It appears not." Kirsten's voice was dry. "But let's try not to have a repeat performance any time soon, shall we?"
Sophia gave her a direct look. "You do your job, I'll do mine."
Now it was Kirsten who looked as though she'd bitten into something sour. "I suppose that's the best I can hope for."
Taylor
"Hey." As Sophia made room on the bus seat for me, I slid in beside her.
"Hey yourself," she replied with a crooked grin. "I heard what you did for me."
"Moi?" I acted surprised. "I didn't do anything. Okay, I might've made a phone call, but that was totally innocent."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Innocent. I guess I had it handled, but yeah, it was appreciated anyway. Just in case someone got the wrong idea."
"So is it all settled?" I asked, digging in my backpack.
"For now. Hopefully." She sighed. "I had to tell Emma about the statement so she'd get off your fucking back. I was hoping not to have to go there."
"Let me guess," I said, handing her the tracking bracelet. "She said she knew nothing about anything?"
Lifting her foot on to the seat, she pulled up her jeans leg. I leaned forward to make sure nobody saw as she snapped the bracelet on and pulled the jeans down again. "To hear her say it, she was pure as the driven snow. Oh, and then she threatened me with that other shit. Thanks for that, by the way. I was able to look her in the eye and tell her to fuck off."
I gave her a halfway grin. "That's why it's called damage control. How did Blackwell take it?"
Sophia grimaced. "Didn't want to know about my side of it. Thank fuck I was able to talk Kirsten around."
I nodded. "That's good. So, you ready to talk some more about our issues?"
She wrinkled her nose. "No. Can I stop you?"
I grinned. "Nope."
I looked at her with concern. "You didn't have to wear the skates, you know."
She continued to struggle along with the roller-blades. "You know me. I don't like to lose. Even if it hurts."
This wasn't an argument I was going to win. "So, on the subject of hurting, did you really enjoy hurting me, or was it something that you told yourself that you should be enjoying?"
I skated in an arc around Sophia while I waited for the answer. The dark-skinned girl, still not all that steady on her own roller-blades, concentrated on staying upright.
"I guess … hurting you wasn't the point, but it was something that happened along the way." She paused for a moment.
"A means to an end?" I suggested.
"Yeah, something like that," she said. "The idea was to push you down, make sure you knew where you were supposed to be. If you got hurt because you didn't know your place, tough shit."
"But why?" I swung around and matched my pace to hers. "Why push me down in the first place? Why pick me?"
"Emma needed to be strong," she said slowly. "She needed someone to be stronger than."
I nodded. "Thus the Nazi shit."
She grimaced. "Yeah, that." I could tell that she still didn't like being compared to being a Nazi. "So when I saw you, and how you let me push you around, I decided that you were too weak, too wimpy to belong in my world. In Emma's world."
"Just like that." My voice was flat.
"Just like that," she agreed. "Of course, I had no idea what I was fucking talking about. I know that now."
The aggrieved tone of her voice made me grin. "Let me guess. You've been getting hit in the face by everything you used to do to me?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, you have no fucking idea. I wish there was a cape who could send people back in time. I'd go back to when I first met you, and I'd kick the shit out of myself. Every time I think I can finally relax, I find out I've sabotaged myself fucking again."
"That's gotta suck," I said, almost managing to sound sympathetic. Though it would have been interesting to watch Shadow Stalker from the future beat up her past version.
"Yeah. It does." She huffed a sigh. "Can we change the fucking subject now please?"
I was impressed. She'd managed to swear and say 'please' in the same statement. "Sure. About Madison. What the fuck's up with her?"
"She's a brown-noser who sucks up to whoever's strongest around her," Sophia said promptly. "Pretty sure she's got a crush on Emma."
I blinked. "She's gay?" Not that there was anything wrong about that, but I just hadn't thought it was Madison's style.
Sophia snorted. "Fuck, no. She's just got a crush. That's different – mostly. Though it's still a bit creepy."
I thought about that for a moment. " … yeah, I guess that makes a kind of sense." Then I began to chuckle as something else occurred to me.
She glanced at me warily. "What's so funny?"
"Well, if she sucks up to whoever's strongest … that means she probably had a crush on you, too," I explained with a grin.
Sophia recoiled so hard she almost fell over. "What? Fuck, no!"
I started to laugh, to the point where I had to grab on to the rail to stay upright. Sophia glared at me, apparently unable to see the funny side of things. "It's not funny!" she insisted. "And it's not true anyway."
"Really?" I giggled, wiping tears away from my eyes. "So you've never seen her staring wistfully at you, just hoping that you would notice her for herself …" I started laughing again, hanging on to the rail.
"Shut up," she muttered. "Just shut up."
"That's not a no," I teased her.
She glared at me. "Just shut up, okay?"
"Shut up about what?" It was Brian's voice.
We both looked around; he stood there, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Beside him, Aisha smirked at us both. She was dressed slightly more modestly than the previous time we'd met, but only by a matter of degree. A small matter of degree.
"Nothing." Sophia answered his question, shooting me a warning look. I answered it with a grin. "Personal stuff. Something that should never see the light of day. Ever."
"If you say so." Brian sounded amused. "So, you ready for the date?"
"Wait a minute," interjected his sister. "I wanna hear more about this stuff that should never see the light of day. This sounds interesting."
I rolled toward her slightly. "Well, tell you what. If you don't make yourself too much of a pain, I might give you a hint or two."
Sophia shook her head. "Don't you dare!"
Amused, I looked at her over my glasses. "You've got a date with a hunky guy. I'm keeping Aisha company. Wanna trade?"
She flung up her hands, then grabbed for the rail as her skates threatened to roll from under her. "Fine. You win."
Aisha grinned at me. "I'll take that deal."
Brian helped Sophia to a bench, where she began to take her skates off. I heard him stage-whisper to her, "Don't worry. She's never managed to be good for that long before."
"Always a first time," sang out Aisha.
Sophia groaned and put her face in her hands.
End of Part Four
