CHAPTER 14

The moment is a good one but I'm here with a purpose. Once we all calm down I get my game face on and inform Johnny of how things are really going at school.

"This little moral majority group isn't going away without a fight or a loss of leadership," I start in," you need to either keep your people from carrying a while, find different runners or just make sure they get smarter cause if you don't you're going to be the first one they name when questioned."

"Man you don't understand, I need the profits so I can get things moving around here," Johnny tells me with a little desperation," You could have your people help mine with the running."

No sooner do the words leave Johnny's lips that my mood goes from not happy and informative to near volcanic rage. Kori is the first one to act getting in front of me and making sure I stay back before turning to Johnny.

"Now you know better than to ask something like that from him," Kori says, holding my arm.

"I know girl, I'm sorry Guy it was stupid but I'm desperate here man," Johnny apologizes," Rent is coming due here and while the other spots are abandoned this one is legal and I need to make sure my payments are in advance for a while. I got behind in the summer."

I step out to let Kori and Johnny talk a little and to get myself some fresh air. I wander back towards my bike a little when I get that fucking being watched feeling again and see that the fucker from this morning in the white shirt is watching me from a while some of the punks point and stare. Once he knows I made him I see him start to reconsider whatever he was planning and start to walk away but my body language is giving off the orders for me as the punks box this fucker in so I can get my pound of flesh or two cents. I can see his skin is a little darker than normal which puts him in either the Samoan or native American categories for heritage, but considering he's only six feet tall like me I'm going to go with the latter. His hair is done nice and proper but I'm tired of being spied on by Heather and figure one broken messenger is a good way to start.

"I'm really tired of being spied on so let's just get the formalities out of the way and since you know me pretty well by now you know what comes next," I tell the guy as he drops his bag.

"Wait a minute, I'm not spying on you," He says, putting up his hands in a defensive stance I've never seen before.

I throw a quick front kick and feel him push me off balance; I catch my footing and turn to face him. He knows what he's doing but I've got a lot more in my tool bag of tricks than a simple front kick. I walk up to him keeping my arms at my sides like I'm not going to take a shot, I can see he's confused and that lets me snake a quick jab at him but it gets deflected and I turn to see he's maneuvered on me again.

"So Heather found someone who can at least give me warm up," I say moving into striking range again.

"Heather who, I don't know any Heather," He says looking quickly for a way out before refocusing on me.

I duck and lunge in to bring three quick shots at his body but watch him back up and block the shots before maneuvering again to the side. It takes me a minute to figure out his movements, but I get up close and as soon as I feel his hands deflect a jab I duck down and plant my shoulder in his gut and lift him up before twisting my hips and slamming him down to the dirt. I get into a top mount and I can see a bad ground defense as I grab his left hand with my right and pull it to the side so he can see my left as I start to bring it down to his face. It's the familiar screaming of Kori that makes me freeze and hop off of him and start looking to find her. Thankfully she's close and nothing is wrong.

"Guy what the fuck are you doing," Kori yells at me.

"Fucker has been watching me for days, Heather must have sent him around to keep tabs on me and I'm gonna kick his ass," I tell her starting to turn but Kori stops me by grabbing my arm.

"He transferred into our school this year and he's been helping me a little in my social studies class," Kori explains," I told him to hang around and maybe you'd try to talk to him about possibly letting him join up."

"Wait, you've had him just wandering around doing fuck all and making me god damn paranoid just so I could recruit him," I say frustrated.

"Kori, your boyfriend is crazy. I know you said he was intense but this guy is fucking psycho," the guy says getting up from the ground.

"Well since you two didn't want to use words I guess I have to do everything," Kori says, dragging me by the arm over to her friend," Guy, I want you to meet Ben Morgan. He's in the school glee club and his father is like your dad. Ben this is Guy, as you can see he's really not big on surprises when he's angry."

I watch Ben extend his hand and I just stare at him for a few moments before taking it and gesturing for him to get his bag. Kori is beaming with a little bit of pride from where she thinks she found a new member but I stop them on that thought once we're back at my bike.

"First off I don't know you and I certainly don't trust your ass thanks to the fact that you dress like one of those fucker's my ex keeps around," I tell Ben with a little venom," Secondly if you want to be a part of this you need to know what it's like to be shamed and then fucking deal with it. Everyone does and you have till 2nd lunch tomorrow to find your shame and then deal with it or you can fuck off back to the glee club."

Both Kori and Ben are silent and I get onto my bike as I watch Kori walk Ben to his car before coming back up to me with a 'not too happy girlfriend' expression on her face. She doesn't say anything now but I know I'm going to hear it from her when we get to her house as I speed off to take her home. Sure enough once we're at Kori's place and parked she drags me off my bike and into the house past her mother and Carl before stomping her way up to her bedroom and sits me down on her bed before slamming the door.

"Ben is a really nice guy, I didn't ask for his help he volunteered and when I learned a little more about him I thought he'd at least get a decent chance to make a case for himself to you," Kori starts in building her anger," But now you nearly take his head off and tell him that he has to answer to you on your time table when he doesn't even have 2nd lunch. So what do you want him to skip out of class just to present himself to you?"

"Are you done Kori," I ask plainly," No I need to know because I'm going to explain this again and I need for you to listen to me. You wanted me in charge, I am. You wanted me to start doing something, and I am. You even wanted me to start recruiting people, I am working on it. But I told you it's my way, I'll listen to some advice but it's my way and that's it."

"But he's a good guy and since he's a junior he's the same age as us and….," I watch her freeze for a moment and sit down.

"You two had sex," I say quietly sitting down in her chair," you fucked him and now you want him around."

My words have the subtlety of throwing a cinder block into a duck pond. Kori freezes and I see the anger in her face turn to fear.

"We had a thing for like a month freshman year but honey it's not like that again I swear," Kori says trying to keep her composure," When he transferred over he said he was a little interested but I told him that I had you and he said he wanted to meet. Then we talked and he asked if he could get lessons on how to not be such a nice guy and fast forward to today where you nearly take his head off."