Nevel isn't a terrorist. He's not toying with us out of spite. There's a method to his madness… There's something he wants.
This is what Carly held in the back of her mind as she and Freddie traipsed up his front steps to rap on his door. But before either of their knuckles made contact, the aperture swung open to reveal the chesire smile of the blonde arch nemesis. "Well, well. If it isn't my two favorite troglodytes. Come in and shut the door behind you. I'll excuse your intrusion," he sauntered back into his living room.
"Troglodyte?" Carly murmured unsurely to her best friend.
"Dinosaur," Freddie confidently answered her.
"Oh." Carly and Freddie trailed after him and settled down on the couch.
"What do you want from us, bow-tie?" Freddie asked tersely through clenched teeth. This bought him a nudge from the point of Carly's naked elbow.
"Diplomatic as possible," she mouthed to him silently in reminder.
"Well a little civility wouldn't hurt." Nevel leaned backwards against an armrest and picked up a small brass bell, ringing it with a fluid tilt of the wrist. At the soft chiming, a porcupine in a miniature tuxedo popped up from behind the coffee table to begin pushing a tray with three champagne flutes toward them by the wedge of its little black nose. "Red wine?" he offered.
"That's cranberry juice." Carly pointed out. The correction did nothing to dampen his sense of superiority
"Civility?" Freddie huffed angrily, "How civil was it for you to ransack my room?"
"Well, what other choice did I have, Benson?" Nevel remarked, undaunted. "You refuse to relinquish a cell phone number to me, you send my e-mails straight to your spam folder and you won't friend me on Splash Face." He pouted with his last accusation. "Am I supposed to resort to carrier pigeons and smoke signals?"
"Nevel," Carly cautiously interrupted, producing a crisp pink sheet of stationary paper with flowery lettering written unto it. "You wrote that Sam was in trouble and the only way we could help her was to go through you." She tossed the folded slip onto his table. "What did you mean by that?"
"It means that I have the upper hand," he bragged. "She's been stashed somewhere safe but inaccessible. This will remain the status quo until I get what I want."
"And what do you want, exactly?" Carly asked irritably. "Because if you can see this guy sitting next to me…" Freddie tilted his head towards her curiously. "He once dated this girl named Magic Malika so he kinda has pull with her. Freddie, tell him who Magic Malika is."
"Oh, just your typical, run-of-the-mill, crazy, gypsy girl who can curse you with a plague that makes your junk fall off."
"Junk. Fall. Off." Carly enunciated, verbally jabbing at Nevel with every syllable.
"Hah! Threats and brutish posturing won't deter me. The stakes are too high," he shot back. Although successfully calling her bluff, one of his hands betrayed his brave front by creeping downward to protect his nether regions. "You must think me to be a fool."
"We think you to be obnoxious as all get-out." Freddie muttered. "He's obviously trying to trick us, Carly."
"I don't think so," Carly protested, siding with Nevel to the shock and awe of both boys. "Nevel doesn't lie… not really. He's paid other people to lie for him and he's omitted the truth before, but if he says he has Sam, I believe him."
"See, she admitted it. I'm a veritable paragon of virtue." Nevel waggled his eyebrows as he flopped down onto the couch next to Carly and stretched suavely to place one arm on the backrest behind her.
"You're going to ask us for something impossible, aren't you?" Carly asked, already knowing how Nevel liked to wheel and deal.
"Impossible? Of course not. Painful and humbling, well that's a given." He crossed one leg over the other in self-satisfaction. "You see, my clients prefer to be anonymous and aren't interested in getting involved with a multi-continential bidding war to pay for your gravity-defying invention. I promised to be the middleman that would deliver it to them in exchange for a software development grant awarded to me when I turn eighteen." He tapped her on the hand, smiling graciously despite his intention to blackmail. "You will get Sam when I deliver the contraption to them."
"What are you talking about? Freddie never inve-"
"I know it exists," Nevel interrupted her. "Photographic evidence doesn't lie."
Freddie coughed quietly and looked to Carly with guarded eyes. Don't expose us, his thought wave traveled to her receptive mind, least of all to Nevel Papperman.
Carly wrapped her fingers around a champagne flute. She needed a drink after all.
"Freddie, will you wait outside for me? There's something I need to discuss with Nevel."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'll call if I need help," she confirmed with him.
Freddie excused himself, but not before giving one last glare of daggers at Nevel.
"A toast?" Carly raised her glass, feeling as though their meeting needed a fresh start.
"To fame," he picked up his own goblet and clinked it against hers.
They both sipped at their drinks, maintaining awkward eye contact.
"I'm going to kiss you now," she proposed, sliding closer to him.
"What?" surprise rang out. "Why?" he asked in distrust.
"Because we'll both get something out of it," she answered truthfully.
"Hmph…" A begrudging tone laced through his words, "I know that my charms aren't easy to resist, but I don't see what's changed between us to rationalize such an adjustment of trajectory in our adversarial relationship."
"Well, if you don't want me to," Carly shrugged and started to move away, but Nevel wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back to him.
"I… I didn't say that." Nevel's voice sounded lower than usual. It was husky for the first time she'd ever heard it, nearly passing for the octave of the average teenage boy. "This is simply an event that has surpassed my scope of what reality has always been."
Carly looked into his eyes.
Nevel was terrified.
And just for once, he wasn't able hide it behind his vanity.
"So?" she tried to keep her composure.
"I consent," he agreed with a sigh, taking her chalice with his and placing them back onto the tray.
Those two words made up the scariest sentence she'd ever heard in her lifetime. She couldn't decide what to do next. Where was she supposed to place her hands? She gathered her thick, dark hair and moved it aside to rest over one shoulder. She let her hand rest on the couch cushion just shy of his thigh.
Nevel closed his eyes and leaned in, expecting to feel her lips brush against his.
Instead she kissed the side of his neck. The unexpected sensation sent a shock through him.
She kept her eyes open to stare down at his shoulder, mentally talking her way through it. Carly felt as though she was walking on a tightrope, one slow and careful foot over the other. If she was grateful of anything, it was the meticulousness of his hygiene.
His hands moved to her waist and pulled her tighter against him.
She completely detached herself from the experience as she pressed her lips against his neck again. Her heart weighed down with guilt as she felt a tremor go through him.
Carly kissed her way up to his earlobe, "I. Know. Everything." she whispered.
His heart was thudding crazily as she pulled back and removed his arm from her waist, folding it back into his lap. "You are going to leave us alone forever." She explained it to him in the nicest way she was able to, "Forever Nevel, because I know every password to every account you have online. I know every password you'd change it to if you felt like you needed to and I know all about how you've been financing the electronic equipment you have in your computer lab."
Nevel blinked several times in confusion, stunned into silence.
"How would you mother react if she found out that she has six credit cards in her name that she's never heard of?" Carly smiled sadly as she picked the ransom note up and handed it back to him. "And most important of all, I know where Sam is. You've lost Nevel."
"What?" He stood up, feigning a haughty yet nervous chuckle, "No, that's impossible. The things you're saying are… well, they're…"
"Painful and humbling," she finished for him, standing up and walking out the door.
Despite her eyes being closed, Sam could tell exactly how many orderlies entered the room. Is it sonar? I knew it... I'm a freaking bat. Sam swallowed in an attempt to moisten her scratchy, parched throat with spit. A wary eyelid opened to a slit, taking a peek at a redheaded woman in a labcoat and three male nurses in scrubs standing four feet away from her. They were turned away, engrossed in sterilizing their medical instruments and preparing a pallet of beakers full of mysterious serums.
The shortest nurse tapped at a syringe, releasing all the air bubbles before swinging around to approach her. He asked in a heavy Finnish accent, "Will one of you undo her left hand for me? I've got to get a vein." Another male practitioner stepped around her and cut the double knot with a pair of scissors. As relieved as she was that her hand was free, she couldn't be less aware of the hypodermic needle. The most satisfying thing she could've done would've been to grab the guy by his face and teach him how soft his skull was compared to the concrete wall behind him. Not yet, she disciplined herself.
Sam felt a flicker of electricity in her veins: the prefight spark.
She stayed limp as though she was still asleep and ignorant to the world as he extended her arm out, positioning himself over her to inoculate her. Her nose crinkled. He smelled like chewing gum and disinfectant.
As he leaned in closer, Sam opened her eyes and cocked her head back.
Perfect. Stay right there. She drew a mental X on his face.
Sam launched her head forward like a slingshot when he pierced the skin, connecting dead center with the front of his skull. He screamed and dropped the needle, head snapping back like a crash test dummy's as his whole body flew back about three feet, landing with an ear-shattering collision into the steel cart of surgical equipment .
Sam flew to her feet as the orderly who had untied her hand stepped forward and threw a punch straight at her face. She laughed. She couldn't help it. It was just so absurd. The fist whizzed with an inch of Sam's face as she stepped back. Too slow. She whipped around the aluminum chair her right wrist was still bound to and used it as a nunchuck to uppercut him with. Blood sprayed onto her shoulder as his nose snapped. She caught the chair in her hands as it fell back down and used it to slam against his ribs, effectively cracking them and pinning him against a wall as she dealt with the third orderly barreling towards her from behind.
With her arms occupied, she unleashed on him a vicious kick combination. First a sidekick straight to his gut and then a sweeping roundhouse kick to his jaw, rocking his entire body into the far wall before he slid down into a heap on the floor. The electric current was singing now, pumping through Sam's veins.
Her gaze automatically flashed to the first man who tried to inject her as he recovered from her headbutt. He wiped at his ear with a muscular arm and found it stained with crimson blood. He came right at her, throwing a punch with his left arm. It was another telegraphed strike, easy to deflect. She shifted to the right and dropped the chair, grabbing the guy's arm, simultaneously kicking his shin with a swift toe strike. The force of his own momentum instantly flipped him in midair.
"No-"
His skull struck the sterile tile first, hitting it with a sickening THWOK before the rest of him rolled over with a groan.
A strange combination of weariness and adrenaline coursed through her veins. What was… what was in the needle? She approached the last person in the room, a redhead female who had been supervising the treatment. She clutched a clipboard to herself, backing away against the wall, putting the fallen cart in between her and the blonde captive.
"Hey Doc…" Sam grimaced as she began trudging forward, dragging the chair behind her. She gulped down another painful, dry swallow. "You wouldn't happen to have a peppy cola for me, would you?"
She made it three whole steps before the drug kicked in and the ground jumped up, giving her a hard slap in the face.
Carly Shay was totally on drugs. Except she wasn't. She wasn't the kind of girl that did drugs. Freddie couldn't think of any other explanation though. He'd seen the exhaustion in her eyes. It was like looking into a mirror. He couldn't even define the feeling anymore. His thoughts were slippery fish. If he tried to grab one, it would wiggle from his grasp. All he knew was that there was something wrong. "Let's just go get Sam, okay?" she asked quietly, her eyes averting his. Freddie tried to tip her chin up to look in her eyes, but she backed away from his touch and crossed her arms. It was the clearest piece of body language in the world. Translation: Don't touch me.
Seeing Freddie's face had basically braided Carly's guts together. She just hadn't been prepared for it. Don't even look at him, she told herself. The problem with looking at him was knowing that she wasn't going to be able to walk away without feeling like a horrible human being.
"I kissed Nevel."
Lightning must have struck Freddie a second time. He was dizzy and unsure, but he also felt weirdly clear. "….You what? Nevel? This is a joke right? Ha ha ha?"
She didn't say anything.
"Did he push himself on you? Why didn't you call out my name? You know I was on stand-by. We can walk back right now and I'll force-choke the rodent." His fingers curled together on their own accord like a vice.
Carly's head dropped straight down toward the sidewalk, every hair on her beautiful head hanging over her face. "No. It was my choice. Don't expect so much from me Freddie," she insisted. Was she insisting or pleading? Freddie couldn't even tell. Especially without seeing her face. Her voice sounded so tight, like she was forcing every sound from her tonsils. "I had my reasons and I don't think I always need to explain myself to you."
He was so taken back that he couldn't do anything but scoff.
The words came out of him like an eruptive volcano. "You willingly locked lips with him. The scum of the Earth? First Sam and now... Nevel couldn't PAY a girl to kiss him." Freddie's voice began to rise in decibel, "Who are you? Are you just making out with everyone who takes a number and gets in line? HOW CHEAP ARE YOUR AFFECTIONS?"
Carly flinched and stepped back. There was so much distance between them now. He had wounded her. He wanted to feel bad but instead he felt vindicated. If he was hurting this much, why shouldn't she? It was, after all, her fault. How could she commit such… such treachery?
Freddie's eyes cloaked over darkly and he looked upwards, squinting at a spot of empty space, concentrating on reigning in his emotions. His arms began shaking as anger overwhelmed him.
Above him, the sky began to darken. Clouds had gathered above them and were spiraling like a wooden top around a mysterious center of gravity. It began drizzling, soft at first before the crashing clouds released a blanket of rain on them in big wet drops. Steam rose from the surrounding pavement. Goose bumps pricked up and down Carly's arms. Freddie's hair flattened against his forehead as he looked at her. Not silently, impatiently demanding her next explanation, like she would expect. Just looking. Looking for something. Rain dotted her eyelashes with diamonds forming rivers down her cheeks. Her eyes had taken his and he couldn't look away
"Fredward Benson, you're a chump!"
"I'm a… chump?" Freddie repeated. He'd never been so offended in his life.
"Yes. How can you be so brilliant and clueless as the same time?"
"This is the thing Carly, you and I- well- we're-" water was dripping off Freddie's chin in waves.
She didn't want to hear another word of it. "You big dumb sack of dumbness! You don't need to spell it out anymore! I know how you feel. I do. You want me." Carly balled her hand up and punched him in the chest, her fist bouncing off him harmlessly. "What you don't realize is that you ALREADY HAVE me. We're best friends you jerk and we have been for years!"
Carly pushed her wet, sopping hair back behind her ear and shouted at him through the wild storm. Nearby trees had turned sideways, their leaves rustling together was drowning out her voice. "You, you OAF, have been marked in my life by this…" she searched for the words,"like... social highlighter. Do you realize that every time I enter a crowded room, you may be the first person I instinctively look for? And when you're not nearby, you're always in the back of my mind?"
He took a step closer, straining to hear her as a terrible tightness began seizing at his throat.
Carly's eyes were red and swollen, "I have always valued our friendship! Why do you keep hurting what we have by taking it for granted in the hopes of something more? Why can't you just accept me for the way I am? And for the way we are? I may not love you in the way you've always want me to, but it's there Freddie! My affection and concern for you exists and it's absolute... Why will that never be ENOUGH for you?"
The raging storm above had been a blessing is disguise to her as Carly confessed her soul to Freddie. The rain camouflaged the tears running down her face; the thunder smothered the sound of her stifled crying. She spun on her heel and slogged through the rain, saying one last time, "You're a chump, Fredward Benson."
Author's Note: HelloOo Carvel. I am as shocked as the rest of you about the kiss. I didn't realize I was going to write it until it was written. It just... it needed to happen. o_o I don't like it either. Creddie-angst was as realistic as I could do. "Chump," was the worst word I could imagine Carly calling him.
Welcome to my insane world, SeddieLover36 and thank you for your insulting comment, Hovels.
To encourage me to write more, Review and tell me what you thought of this last chapter! Good and bad. FLAME ME, actually.