Here's Chapter Four - Enjoy!
Again, this may not be one of my better chapters - I've been sick. ^^;
The Dark
She was soaked. The colors of her favorite halter, already beginning to bleed away. Andher hair, she'd worked so hard at getting it to just the right shine.
And, evidently - her progress was meant to be flushed from the moment she'd awoken that morning.
Tossing her ruined jeans to a shadowed corner of the room, and breathing a silent prayer, in the hopes that her mother wouldn't see them, Cindy torn open the drawer of her vanity, and wrenched out her hair brush – tearing it through the soaking, blonde mess on the top of her head.
"Neutron!" she growled – he'd promised to walk her home – she'd been so looking forward to seeing him grovel at her feet, pleading forgiveness for making goo-goo eyes at stupid Betty – when his girlfriend had been watching the whole thing!
Girlfriend. That felt weird. For so many years they'd been enemies. Then rivals. Then colleagues. Then ... what?
What was she to Neutron?
Well ... she knew perfectly well what Betty was – what she'd always been. A goodie-two-shoes, little-miss-perfect, with a clean completion, pretty face, and never a harsh word to say to anyone ... other than Cindy herself (she was hardly a "miss big-mouth" – in her own opinion).
Quinlan was Jimmy's ideal girl – that candy-coated piece of perfection that the genius could never hope to attain.
Cindy was his second choice.
And, if a kiss – after so long, didn't prove they were meant for each other.
Then — she supposed I guess – we aren't.
That was supposed to be the moment – the kiss; after which, they would stroll down the alleyway hand-in-hand (check) gaze into each other's eyes (check) and trot off together, to a life of extreme scientific success, and fairytale romance ...
Happily Ever After ... ?
Major — UN-Check!
"F-f-Fine!" the distraught blonde burbled, to no one in particular in the empty room. Feeling frightfully angry, at the tears that stung at her eyes.
"I. Don't. Need. Spewtron." she bellowed, fitfully — calling out the exact stream of words she had spoken to Libby at the Candy Bar, landing a punch to the ballet-style floor with each pause – and delivering a string of whimpers from a frightened Humphrey beyond the closed door.
Cindy delivered on final blow to the unfeeling ground, and at that exact moment that her clenched fist had tapped the floor, the room had gone dark — terrifyingly, blindingly dark.
Her voice suddenly matched the frequency of Humphrey's cries, and her body had gone numb — aliens, androids, and a low sugar-high, she could handle — the dark : not so much.
Cindy?
She may have imagined it. But, she could almost swear she heard Neutron's voice just then.
But — it was broken.
Chipped with static.
Almost like it's coming from ...
She couldn't believe him. As soon as the power came back, and she remembered what a jerk he'd been, well ... he would be in for it.
She'd prayed that big head could take a punch.
There at the bottom of her vanity was a walkie-talkie – inconspicuously duct-taped to the wood, and just waiting for her to find it.
So much for Mr. Science – Neutron's gone old school.
She cursed her mouth — how dare it smile at a time like this!
Cindy? You there?
Yes, yes she was.
I may as well pick up.