Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.

WELCOME TO HYDEVILLE

or

ONE DIFFERENCE:
HYDE DOESN'T TOSS JACKIE'S BAG

Part III

Hyde stepped backward on the porch, pressing into Jackie slightly. He wanted her to climb down, to get as far from his old house as possible, but she didn't get the signal.

Standing in front of them was Shawny Gridders, Edna's former pot dealer and occasional fuck. He'd taken up residence in the house. A damn squatter. Used to be fat as hell, needed a few shoves to squeeze through the doorway. Now if he turned sideways, he'd disappear.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten me, Stevie-boy."

"Yeah, I remember," Hyde said, though selective amnesia would've been preferable. "Uncle" Shawny used to screw Edna right in front of him. Worse, he'd tried to get Hyde involved whenever Edna was too drunk to notice. "See ya around."

"Wait, wait, wait, Steven." Shawny darted down two porch steps and got behind Jackie. She shrieked when he grabbed her hips, his thin but strong fingers groping what didn't belong to him. Hyde reached for his bony arm, but she battered Shawny's wrists with her purse and escaped on her own. She dashed to the house's boarded-up window and shrieked again when she almost ran into it.

Shawny laughed hoarsely. "Meat's so fresh it's still squealing." Shadows flickered in the hollows of his cheeks, thanks to the unreliable lamppost light. He looked older than his age, past his thirties, but his eyes hadn't lost their predatory glint. "Your little piggy should've stayed home."

"Ooh!" She left the boarded-up window and marched toward him. "I am not a pig!"

Hyde grasped her hand and yanked her behind his back. The less Shawny saw of her, the better, but Shawny's laughter became coughs. He had to be on stuff stronger than he used to deal. It made him unpredictable, and Hyde had to play this situation just right.

"If not a piggy," Shawny said and pushed greasy, blond hair from his forehead, "then what is she?"

"Friend's kid sister," Hyde said, and at the sound of Jackie's voice he squeezed her hand. She had to keep her trap shut and let him handle this.

Shawny angled his head, attempting to peer around Hyde. "Thirteen, fourteen?"

Hyde changed his angle with Shawny's, keeping Jackie out of sight. "Twelve."

"Oh!" Jackie resisted Hyde's grip on her, and he tightened it. They were too close to the doorway. If Shawny got either of them inside the house, they were worse than dead.

"Shit," Shawny said, sniffling. "You're scrapin' the bottom of the barrel, ain't ya?"

"It's not what you think it is, man. Doin' a favor for her brother. Showin' her the old neighborhood. Y'know, Scared Straight. Crap like that.."

Shawny laughed again. His greasy hair fell into his face, and when he shoved it back, the blackness of his eyes became apparent. His pupils were dilated from drugs, from lust. "You should introduce her to the trailer park," he said then coughed. He hit his chest a few times. "Big Paul got outta jail."

Hyde pulled Jackie sideways at the mention of Big Paul and dragged her down the porch steps. Big Paul was a rapist, a local legend among Edna's old crowd. Been in prison as long as Hyde was alive, but Hyde had thought he was a myth. A monster conjured up to express sick fantasies and to keep kids from wandering the trailer park.

Shawny stayed where he was, on the porch's lowest step, but his gaze followed Hyde. "Yeah, Big Paul would have a grand old time with her. One look from him, and your little piggy won't leave the farm again."

"Hyde, who is this creep?" Jackie's head peeked from behind Hyde's back. Her palm was growing sweaty against his skin.

"'Creep'?" Shawny placed his hands over his heart. "You hurt me, piglet. You really do."

"I'll show you hurt!" Jackie squirmed out of Hyde's grip; sweat and indignation had made it possible. She bounded forward, but he hooked his arm around her waist and hauled her back. He held onto her wrist this time, tighter than maybe he should have, and forced her to stay behind him.

Shawny walked along the last step of the porch, "She's got spirit," and jumped off where Jackie stood.

Hyde whipped them around so that he was the one facing Shawny. "Her 'spirit' is off-limits, like the rest of her."

"Relax! What d'ya take me for? A pervert?" Shawny jutted his chin in Jackie's direction. "She on her period yet?"

"You're the pig!" Jackie shouted.

Hyde had to get them out of here, but Shawny used to carry a gun, a nine millimeter strapped to his ankle. Hyde could toss Jackie over his shoulder and make a run for it—while Shawny riddled their bodies with bullets.

"You'll have to live with your curiosity, man." Hyde's tone was cool, but he barely heard himself speak. The throbbing in his ears was deafening. "Her curfew's about to hit, and I gotta get her back."

Shawny peered up at Hyde's old house. "Looks to me you had a different lesson in mind. She really twelve?" He stepped closer, and Hyde edged Jackie back. "Hey, ain't gonna do nothing but look at her."

Hyde had heard bullshit like that from him before. "She ain't mine. She's on loan, and she's gotta get back home in the same condition she's in now."

"That's it!" Jackie said, and a sharp pain plunged into Hyde's hand. She was biting him, and his fingers opened reflexively. She was free, and with more boldness than brains, she strode up to Shawny and jabbed a finger at his face. "Listen, you strung-out piece of trash, I'm fifteen and no one's property!"

She pulled out the paper bag from her purse and slammed it into his chest. "Now take this and leave us alone."

Shawny didn't acknowledge the bag. It fell to the pavement, and he grabbed her arms, his long fingers coiling below her elbows. "Sexy baby..." his tongue slithered from his mouth and licked his lips, "the things I'd do to you."

Jackie looked back at Hyde with wide, fearful eyes, like a bunny about to get eaten. His heart was pumping so fast that individual beats became impossible to discern, and his thoughts were just as quick. He ducked beneath Shawny's arms, rose up between them, and knocked them from Jackie's body. She staggered backward but not far enough.

"Jackie, go!" he shouted and shoved Shawny against a porch beam, a move he couldn't have done as a kid, when Shawny was big and fat and fucking his mom.

"Oh, but I think your little piggy wants to stay." Shawny's tongue wriggled between his lips, dancing like a cobra. "Don't you, baby?"

"Told you—" Hyde shoved Shawny into the beam again, "she's off-limits! Until you die, man. A day that'll come soon if you go anywhere near her."

Shawny's amusement evaporated, leaving only hard edges and glassy eyes. "You don't belong here anymore, Steven! You don't fucking belong—and anything you bring into this neighborhood is up for grabs!" Spit flew from his mouth and landed on Hyde's cheek. "You wanna get out of here alive? She's your ticket."

"Like hell—"

"Steven!" Jackie's voice broke through his adrenaline-fueled haze. "He has a—"

Something sharp slashed at his denim jacket, a box-cutter blade, and Hyde backed off. Shawny slashed at him again but missed Hyde's neck by a foot. His attacks were wild, imprecise, but they kept Hyde from advancing.

He had to wait for an opening, to use his last-resort defense. Shawny ran at him with the blade and a drug-induced yowl. Hyde dodged the attack and blocked Shawny's arm. The blade didn't drop, but Hyde swung his leg forward. His boot collided with Shawny's crotch, and Shawny fell in a heap, crumpled like a snake's shed skin. The blade was still clutched in his fingers, but Hyde stomped on his wrist.

Shawny groaned, and his fingers released their hold. The blade clattered to the ground, and Hyde kicked it through a hole in the porch steps. He considered kicking Shawny under there, too. It was where the bastard belonged, living with rats.

Hyde glanced up at his old house. Nothing he valued was left inside, except his torsion wrench, which stuck out of the doorknob. He could've retrieved it, but he wasted no time getting back to Jackie.

"Steven," she said when he took her hand, "did he get you—cut you?"

He didn't answer, not until they high-tailed it out of the neighborhood. They sped past the ramshackle houses, past the busted and blinking lampposts to a well-lit, middle-class area. The scent of freshly-cut grass saturated the air. They'd stopped to catch their breath by a fenced-in backyard, and Hyde said, "Bastard got my jacket, not my skin."

Jackie found the rip in the denim. She touched it with a steady hand but spoke with an unsteady voice: "You protected me."

"Bullshit!" He twisted away, tearing the jacket from her. "I'm the one who put you in danger. Why the hell can't you see that?"

A beagle, half-asleep in the yard, lifted its head. It yawned, apparently finding their conversation boring, and put its head back down on its paws.

"You're the one whose eyes don't work." She gestured to his shades. "Maybe if you took those off, you'd finally see me—and yourself."

"Whatever." He started walking again, a fast pace, but she matched him step-for-step. "I'm takin' you to your car, man, and that's it. You're gonna wave your little pom-poms tomorrow and forget I exist. 'Cause you and me, we're never gonna be friends."

She had no response, no comeback. Even her breathing was swallowed by the night, leaving nothing between them but the sound of their boots hitting pavement.