Part 6A

Wednesday, Afternoon

Sam

"You're such a spaz."

"Am not," I protested. I toweled myself dry and tried not to stare at Amelia as she emerged from the shower, dripping wetly. I forced my eyes to study the old shower floor tiles. I still couldn't quite come to terms with what a knockout Amelia actually was. It was like, equivalent to admitting my sister was hot. If, y'know, I had a sister and all.

If she noticed my discomfort she didn't show it. "You like a girl. You want to tell her you like her. Instead, you whine to me about how you want to tell her you like her. For the second day in a row. Either you're a spaz, or you're a wuss."

"Well if you're so savvy on relationships, what would you do?" I grumbled.

Amelia glanced at me and smiled ruefully. "Hide."

"Hide?" I repeated dumbly.

"Yes, hide."

"Hah! And I'm a wuss?" I protested.

Amelia scowled and gave me a light shove. I couldn't help but notice how the rough motion made her perky tits jiggle and bounce. "You're supposed to be the big brave man, moron. My point is, you're the guy. Guys' are supposed to show some back bone and approach the girl first."

I gave her a weird look. "Isn't that kind of an old fashioned and sexist view?"

Amelia shrugged and walked out of the showers and into the locker room. "Maybe. But a lot of girls still have the whole prince charming thing going on. Just because girls are just as likely to approach the guy, and rightly so, doesn't mean they don't still like the idea of a guy wooing them and sweeping them off their feet."

I smirked. "Is that what you want?"

Amelia glared darkly at me. I tried to meet her eyes. "Shut up." She caught me looking and turned red. "And quit looking at me like that!"

I turned as red as she was. "Sorry," I mumbled. I looked up at her and grinned sheepishly. "It's the damn Program. I'm on overload. Can't think straight."

"Yeah, whatever," Amelia mumbled. She cut her eyes at me and then started getting her clothes together. "I'm nothing' to look at anyway."

"That's not true," I said quietly.

"Oh shut up," Amelia snapped and threw a shoe at me. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

" 'S the truth," I muttered.

"I'm going to use the bathroom and then talk to Sensei a bit about the tournament this weekend," Amelia said. "Then I'll see you at lunch and pretend you didn't ogle me so I won't have to kick your ass."

I didn't want us to part on such an uncomfortable, awkward note, so I grinned at her and said, "For a tomboy you sure are sensitive."

Amelia tried to kick me as I ran laughing out of the locker room.

It was a nice day out. I never paid any attention to how the days looked anymore (unless they were crappy, of course). But it was nice... it wasn't too hot, wasn't too cool. The sky was clear except for a few little swirls of pale cotton dotting the soft blue, and the sun was nice and bright, but not too bright. There was a light breeze, which normally would have been nice and refreshing. Being naked made it colder, but I didn't mind overmuch. I had taken the back way around the school, which had it's advantages... there was shade back here, between and behind the buildings, and though there was a path back here leading to the Gym building, no one ever used it, especially during lunch-time.

My musings on the day was completely random, I realized. Maybe this was what happened to people who were in love. Did that mean I was in love? I don't know. All I know is things were great, I was happy, and really looking forward to something for the first time in a good while. And it was all because of Jenna.

I had already decided what I would do... I was going to pull Jenna aside after lunch, and tell her... I liked her? I loved her? I wanted to be more than friends? I wanted to be an item? Okay, so I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to word things, but I had decided to take Amelia's advice and step up to Jenna and try to get a solid relationship started. At least that was something. I had decided firmly when and where I would do it, which was far as I was concerned was a big step. It made me feel like a weight had been lifted. I was still nervous, sure, but my confidence was growing with every step toward the lunch room. I was sure I had finally found the girl I had been looking for since... well, since I had taken notice of girls in the first place.

My thought process shattered as I rounded the corner. George Lenard and another guy I didn't really know but was sure was a jock were approaching Bret Wilson, shooting each other grins and snickering at each other. Bret was standing in front of Jenna, his body pressed against her. One hand fiddled with his belt while the other held her against the wall. His grip looked rough and forcibly tight. Jenna squirmed and struggled, but Bret was one of the biggest guys in the school and had a football players strength, and now, apparently, he had backup. She tried to scream, but George put a hand over her mouth. As the guy whose name I didn't know reached between her legs she managed to throw a leg out and kick him in the groin hard enough to make him stumble back with a curse. She tried to do the same to Bret, but George suddenly grabbed her legs and held them down with his free hand.

"Bitch," Bret growled.

Jenna met my eyes. My stomach lurched at the desperation I saw in them. Jenna bit George's hand, hard. George pulled his hand away and joined his buddy in cursing.

"Sam!" Jenna cried.

Bret spun to face me, a shocked look on his face. "Peterson! What the fuck are you doing back here! Get the fuck out of here you little shit!"

I was walking toward them without even realizing it.

"Let her go," I commanded. My voice was even and my hands steady. I was beyond the kind of anger that made you shake, into a much more dangerous level of anger. I tried not to let it overwhelm me and make me do something stupid.

Bret didn't let his grip on Jenna go. Instead, he snarled at me. I could tell he was legitimately pissed beyond belief. He also apparently couldn't believe I was still standing around.

"What a dumbass," George laughed.

"Kid wants his ass kicked," George's friend agreed.

"I told you to get the fuck out of here, Peterson. Do it or I'm going to kill you, I swear to God."

"And I said," I replied cooly, "Let her go. All three of you leave, now. Last chance before I make you leave."

Bret nodded to George and the third guy, and they grabbed Jenna to keep her from getting away. Bret's long legs were quickly closing the distance between us. His eyes burned with outrage and violence and his hands clenched tightly.

"You're fuckin' dead," he said bluntly, then lunged for me.

He threw a punch, the wide, looping hook that people threw when they didn't really know what they were doing in a fight. It was all power and no skill, an attack that would have probably dropped me completely if it had had any hope of actually connecting. I skipped backward and the hook whistled well short of coming close to me. I still felt the wind coming off it and was glad I was faster than him. I was a whole lot stronger than I looked, but I had no delusions about who was the stronger between the two of us.

Bret seemed unperturbed by the miss and drove on, throwing another huge hook that missed, but came closer than the first. He was coming on with a football jock's mentality; that instinct they all had to drive and drive till they'd gone straight through whatever stood in front of them. I was going to get stomped in a few more strides.

I threw an arm up and blocked the next punch, stopping it dead and pushing his arm upward. Bret looked shocked that I had absorbed the blow without flinching. He attacked again with his free hand, which I blocked again. This time I grabbed his wrist, squeezed down on it and kept it immobilized. My other arm came up and wrapped around the back of his head, drawing him into a clench. I pulled him downward as my knee shot up and forward to drive into his belly hard enough to make his body lift from the ground and double over. His head dropped low as he instinctively grabbed at his belly.

The tip of my elbow cut across his brow, catching his right eyebrow. Elbows generally didn't knock someone out, but that didn't matter. What it did to was open a nasty cut across Bret's eyebrow that began to bleed down across his eyes and made his head swim in pain. My left hand -my power hand, with my being left handed- came across in a hook, catching him on the corner of his jaw in a slightly upward angle, just as I had wanted. The force of the blow sent vibrations radiating violently along his jaw and up into his skull. The skull took up the vibrating effect and began to shake and vibrate violently around the brain. The sensation was too intense for the brain to cope with, and it momentarily 'shut down', causing Bret to black out. I knew the science and events behind a knockout, but this was the first time I had ever applied them in a real situation. I was surprised by how easily it all happened.

"Shit!" George shouted as Bret went down in a heap. "Get him, Frank!"

George and 'Frank' dropped Jenna and rushed me. Jenna sagged to the ground. She was staring at me with wide eyes. I didn't have time to see if she was okay at that moment.

I knew George had been in some fights before, all of them off-campus so he hadn't been kicked out of school. Yet. Frank had the look of a thug about him, someone who looked for fights. I dimly recalled hearing about someone on the football team being transferred to Monroe after having been kicked out of several other schools in the area for fighting and just barely being accepted into the school based on his ability on the field. Looking at Frank, I could definitely see him being that jock.

Neither George nor Frank were as big as Bret, but they were still bigger and meaner than me. But I was stronger than they thought I was, and I knew more about fighting than they would probably ever know.

Frank came at me from my left, George from my right. With the odds in their favor I couldn't be on the defensive for this little exchange or the two of them would overwhelm me. I lunged at Frank and ducked under his first punch. I grabbed his arm and pushed it up over his head which made his ribs spread and open. I slammed a punch into his side, digging my knuckles into the soft tissue between his ribs. Before he had even yelped I drove a second punch into the mass of sensitive nerve clusters in his armpit. I struck the nerve cluster in his pit a second time and his arm dropped limp to his side, numb and completely deadened by pain.

George's arms closed around me from behind and pinned my arms to my side in a bear hug. It didn't surprise me; a guy his size usually thought he could crush a guy my size right out with a bear hug. He was partially right, too. He lifted me off my feet and began to squeeze as he roared aggressively in my ear. I wasn't about to let him use that kind of strength against me.

I brought my legs up, scrunching them in tight, then kicked out. Both feet planted on Franks chest and pushed with enough force to make George stumbled back. With me in his arms and unable to see behind him, his feet inevitably tripped up and he toppled onto his back.

To George's credit, he held on to me and continued to squeeze. Now, however, his head was braced against the concrete walkway with nowhere to go. I dug a sharp elbow into his side and managed to wiggled my body to the side enough so that a second elbow dug his solar plexus and drove the air from him. At the same time I tucked my chin against my chest and then snapped my head back in a sharp, whip-like motion. My skull smashed into his face twice, and the third time I felt his nose shatter and blood spatter warmly in my hair. He released me, screaming loudly as he grabbed at his nose. His fingers dripped with the overflowing blood. I was sure I had broken it in more than one place. George was now far more concerned with the pain that was nearly drowning him than coming after me again.

I tried to scramble to my feet, but Frank was already on top of me. I just barely got a hand up in time to take away some of the force of the kick he planted in my face. I allowed the kick to force me back and rolled backward with the momentum, coming up in a crouch. The coppery taste of blood dripped into my mouth.

Frank kicked out at me again, but this time I was ready for it. I came to my feet and sidestepped, letting the kick slide past me. I grabbed his leg with one arm before he could pull it back. I stepped in and struck with my right leg, swiftly sweeping the leg Frank stood on as I struck him sharply in the chest, open palmed, with my free hand. I kicked into his heel so hard with my sweep that his leg kicked up nearly to his waist, completely out from under him. With the added force of my push, he came crashing down onto the back of his head and his neck. He would probably have a mild concussion from the fall. Had I put more force behind the sweep and the push, he could have quite easily broken his neck.

Frank didn't pass out, but his eyes wouldn't focus, he was having trouble lifting his head, and he wasn't moving beyond the weak attempt at a squirm here and there. A light groan escaped him, but he was otherwise silent.

I glanced over at George, who was rolling on the ground and clutching at his broken nose. I was surprised he hadn't gotten back up, but I guess a broken nose was enough to make him think twice about the whole business. Bret was still napping.

My blood was hot. My hands itched to hit them again. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to show them what it felt like, to make them suffer. I knew I could do it; I was hardly even breathing hard, and I hadn't even begun to draw upon the full extent of years of training for exactly this kind of thing. I was used to hour long practice sessions, sparing and fighting over and over until I was too exhausted to continue. This seemed to have ended far too quickly in comparison. I wanted to pay them back tenfold for all the suffering and bullying and grief they had caused... the suffering they'd caused me... the suffering they'd caused so many students they had deemed too little and weak... the suffering they'd caused Jenna.

Jenna.

Suddenly all the fight went out of me. I glanced at Frank to be sure he was staying down, then ran to Jenna.

She hadn't moved. She was still trembling, and tears wetted her cheeks. Her arms were wrapped around herself and she had curled into a tight little ball against the wall. I could see the redness on her breast and wrist where Bret had squeezed and groped her.

"Jenna?" I said softly. I swallowed a lump in my throat and crouched down beside her. I reached a hand toward her, but she shied back, trembling more violently than before.

"Jenna... it's me," I said gently. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's Sam."

She looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes. Then she blinked, once, twice, and her gaze seemed to come into focus. "S-Sam?"

"It's ok. No one is going to hurt you. I promise no one is going to hurt you."

She gazed at me for several moments, then lunged forward and buried her face into my chest. She sobbed heavily and her hot tears slid down my bare skin. I put my arms gently around her, trying to move slowly and lightly so I wouldn't scare her any more than she already was. I was glad her head was on my shoulder, though. I could feel the tightness in my face, the grimace of outrage returning as the rage I felt began to build hot and sure all over again. I was vaguely aware that my lips were pressed into a tight line to prevent them from curling into a snarl. My whole face felt tight. It took an effort to keep the tension and boiling anger out of my arms so that they wouldn't tighten around Jenna. I was pissed as hell over this. I couldn't believe Brett and George and Frank... or whatever the fuck his name was... would be so brazen. I itched to make them pay.