9

Summary:

Little shorter than usual, originally update 14

Chapter Text

MON FEB 14

The walk did me a world of good, letting me calm down and hope that things were well and truly patched up from the shower incident... yeah, no. Not calling it that. I couldn't help the chuckle. At least I was feeling better.

When I made it to the industrial park, I stopped before I got close to the intersection Cass wanted me to meet her at. I'd told Amy I wasn't going to be stupid about this, and I wanted to hold to that. The whole place was fairly deserted- there was the odd person in an alleyway, the rare car passing through, but on a day like today most people were already where they were heading which cut down traffic, or they had no reason to be here, turning the place into a bit of a ghost town. Sure, some of the people might be homeless and passing through, but they wouldn't stay. You learned to stay out of these areas pretty quick in this town; even I'd heard about the bands of young white thugs scouring their territory for people who wouldn't be missed that they can make disappear. It was more likely in my mind that they were dealers with nothing better to do today than fall back on standing orders. I certainly wasn't going to cry for their lack of business.

I could feel someone at the intersection, though. The right shape and height to be Cass, wearing a backpack full of gear I wasn't familiar enough with to make out. One of the buildings on the corner- an old, mostly stripped out office building- had a few people rummaging around in it. They were digging through packs of their own, or setting things up around the building, though the why still eluded me.

It didn't... seem like a trap, at any rate. So I continued my walk towards her, finding her waiting under a lit lamppost, checking her watch and rustling her gear. She wasn't wearing the same clothes she went to school in; these being a bit rattier, torn up jeans and a worn, paint-speckled hoodie. I hadn't taken her for an artist, but maybe I was missing something. She finally caught sight of me and waved me over.

"Good! You showed up." She started leading me toward the office building. "I'd get bitched at if I couldn't keep the teams even."

"So, what are we doing?" I asked, nervously.

"Y'ever shoot someone, before?"

I stopped, sputtered, and screeched. "What!?"

She stopped, looked back at me, visibly thought back to what she'd said, and scoffed. Still, she dropped her bag and ripped into it pretty quickly, showing off some thin body armor vests and guns, complete with 'this is a fake' orange tips on the barrels. "It's paintball. Paintball. Not real shit."

I could tell she felt a bit nervous, but wasn't lying.

"O...kay?" I muttered. "You wanted to... shoot me?"

She groaned, rolling her eyes. "I want to have fun splattering assholes with paint going fast enough to bruise their pasty asscheeks." She packed things up just enough to sling it over her shoulder. "Look, I'm sorry. I said it weird, and you took it bad. That's on me." She started towards the building. "Now do you wanna hang out, or not?"

Hesitantly, I followed behind her. The door opened to a decent sized room with hallways off to the side, and a secretary's nook missing its desk and chair, but retaining the hook-ups for phone and computer lines, as well as likely-permanent scuffs and dents in the carpet where they used to be. She kept right on without slowing, heading straight through another set of doors that led into a large foyer area lined with offices. I could picture it divvied up into cubicles for low-ranking office clerks, or used as a communal space, maybe a break room. Now though, it was speckled with colored splotches along parts of the wall, and piled up with mobile cubicle dividers, planks and boards, and bits of large, solid-looking detritus that looked more thoroughly painted.

Cass brought her hand up to her mouth, stuck fingers in, and let out a shrill scream of a whistle that had me covering my ears.

"Oww?" I whined into the quiet that followed.

Cass just laughed. "Get over it, wuss." She turned to watch the doors, and sucked on her lips for a moment in thought. "Then again, if you can't handle a little noise, you might be a bit dainty for paintball?"

She was trying to give me an out, phrasing it like a question. I shook my head. "Nah, I'll be fine." I was a lot tougher than I looked, after all. I'm pretty sure I wasn't bulletproof, but for all I knew I might be paintball-proof.

The people filing into the room were a surprising bunch, given who'd gathered them. Six other teenagers, only three of them white. "Alright, listen up!" Cass shouted needlessly. "This here's Taylor. She's new, and I'm bringing her in, so she's gonna be on my team. These assholes are Matt," Baby-faced and black-haired, but otherwise fairly average. "Jeremy," Thin, narrow faced, angular features, sandy-blond. "and Tim," Brown hair, fairly average, seemed a little shy. It didn't escape my notice that she'd introduced the white teens first. "Tim's uncle works for the bank that owns the building, so they'll ignore little shit like paint everywhere, as long as we don't knock any walls down." She didn't mention windows, but I got the feeling she didn't actually care about wrecking the place. She pointed at the other three, standing a bit away from them. "This is Carlos," He was big and Latino, with long hair up in a ponytail and a face that could never be pretty, but was handsome in a rugged sort of way. He had the look of someone who got shit done. He'd been looking fairly neutral the whole time I'd seen him, but his eyes never strayed far from Cass, sparing me an assessing look, a few glances at the others, and going back to watching her. "Jakob," Tall lanky beanpole of a black teen, "And Sarah." The only other girl of the group, though I could hardly tell at a glance. She was a short, thin Asian girl with short-cropped black hair, her hips and bust hidden entirely by her slightly baggy clothes.

"It's Serei, actually." The girl said, her voice much more obviously feminine than the rest of her. "But nobody calls me by my real name." She'd turned to Jakob, who I'd just realized had been hovering rather close to the girl this whole time, and said her words with a cutting pointedness that lead me to believe there was a story, there.

"It was one time..." He whined.

"And now I'm stuck being Sarah." She groused. She didn't seem mad, just poking at her... friend?

"You two gonna fuck, or are you actually here to play ball?" Cassie snarked.

Gonna guess boyfriend, then. Jakob sputtered and blushed, even through his dark skin, while Serei slapped his arm and flipped off Cass.

"What about Taylor's gear?" Carlos asked, quirking an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

Cass shrugged. "I brought spares, I'll sort her out in a sec." she grinned. "Since I picked her first, why don't you go, pendejo?"

Oh wow I hoped she was mispronouncing that on purpose, otherwise her Spanish was atrocious. From Carlos' grin- all teeth, like a polite snarl- and middle finger, I figured this was a regular thing with them. I was starting to think they weren't even friends, but then why would he be here?

Either way, he picked Serei, who gave an excited giggle and started rummaging through her gear. Cass picked Matt, who was already mostly suited up. Carlos grabbed Jakob next, then Jeremy went to our side, and Tim was left to the other side. He seemed incredibly disappointed with this, and I was starting to get the feeling he was only here because he had a thing for Cassie. I couldn't help but feel a little bad for him.

She flipped a coin,. and Carlos called it. "Alright, you're setting up, up top. You've got fifteen before we come in after you." Cass said, which got a nod and a wave to follow from him.

"So," She said, turning to me. "It's good you're wearing crap," I didn't think it was that bad... I'd actually thought this was one of my best hoodies... but I was due for new ones, probably... "You want the mask, or the helmet?" She'd dug a large biker-esque helmet out of her bag, and pulled a mostly-rigid facemask out of it. It looked sort of like a set of ski goggles with an angular plastic protrusion under it to block down to the chin and around the cheeks, with some thin slits for air and talking.

"Mask is fine." And my head was probably harder than hers, anyway.

"Neat. We can pull up your hood to keep paint off your hair, then strap the mask on over it." She pulled some more gear out and started sorting it. "Not that anyone should be aiming for your head, but shit happens." She fiddled with one of the padding vests. "Speaking of, no head shots, dick shots, or..." She'd started slipping it over my head, when she snorted. "was gonna say no tit shots, but it's not like Sarah has any."

That was... actually pretty mean, I thought. I frowned and kept silent, though. Better to see how the group actually interacted for now, since I had no idea what 'normal' was for them. Maybe this was normal? It sure sounded like something the trio would've said about another girl, if they were up to something like this. I couldn't help but hate that the first girls I thought of when trying to compare social interactions were still them. Toxic as they might have been, they'd left a huge impact on me.

I almost missed Cassie talking, I was so focused on trying to stifle the thoughts.

"Rules are pretty simple, today. You keep going until you're body-shot." She patted my now-padded torso with the back of her hand. "Then you're 'dead'. You're dead? You come back here and sit things out." She started doing up her own gear. "Last team standing wins. Usually we'd do something like capture the flag, hold the base, three or four team skirmish, but we don't have as many people today." Next she started helping me with the mask, hair bundled in my hood, having me hold the edges of it out of my line of sight while she strapped the thing on. "First person out keeps time, if they're out for fifteen minutes and the game's still going, we'll call it. Most people up wins."

"And how..." Oh wow my voice sounded weird. Loud and slightly echo-ey. "How long are we going for?"

She shrugged. "Don't think we have the ammo for more than an hour or two." She dug out a few red scarves and handed me one. "Tie that somewhere. Other team's blue. Take it off if you're dead." She handed out a few more to the guys, then knelt down to cinch her wound-up scarf tightly around her thigh. That actually looked a little uncomfortable, and I didn't think I could tie mine around my bicep by myself, so I settled for tying it around my neck, assuming it was fine. The boys seemed used to this process, but were helping each other when they needed it, like Cass had with me.

Then she got out the guns, showed me how to shoot, reload, and shot me in the leg so I'd know what to expect. It stung a bit, but I didn't think it'd leave a welt like I'd heard they were supposed to. Was really hoping my brute package came with tougher skin, at least. I still didn't have anything I could point to as clear evidence for it yet, just a feeling that I could take more than I used to.

I studiously ignored the little thought in the back of my head, that every stupid teenager thought they were invincible.

"Alright, we don't know for sure where they're set up, but Carlos likes the offices in the southeast corner, third floor, so that's probably where they're at." Actually, I could tell they weren't, but I wasn't about to out myself over a stupid game. "Taylor, you hang back this run, get a feel for things. We'll take point."

The rest of the time was spent milling about or checking phones for a couple minutes, before Cass had us start down one of the hallways towards a flight of stairs. We headed straight for the top floor, passing by Carlos' group on the second. They were camped out in some of the rooms near the stairs, and I thought I saw what was coming next. We made it to the third floor landing, and Cass made some gestures with her hand, causing the group to fan out and start searching rooms.

Sure enough, when we were halfway down the hall, the group downstairs started for the stairs. I didn't want to seem too prescient, so I just waited by the door to one of the little offices, and just 'happened' to be looking back at the stairs to catch a glimpse of the group setting up their ambush. I'm pretty sure I locked eyes with the biggest guy, probably Carlos judging by build, his head covered by a helmet and a blue scarf tied over the lower facemask part like a bandit mask. He started raising his weapon and I ducked into the room.

"Cass! Behind us!"

Then it was chaos. Jeremy got laid out by half a dozen rounds from three different guns. Cass got tagged in the shoulder, but kept firing back. Matt managed to dodge the shots at him. I just waited and 'watched' the patterns of exchanging fire, those first few moments of combat.

I fired a few ranging shots from cover to check my gun's aim, doing a passable job of also being suppressing fire. When I was confident I had the aim down, I waited. When Carlos started leaning out from behind the doorframe into the stairwell to take his shots, I fired.

I didn't mean for the shot to land in the actual doorframe, but that turned out to my advantage. The paint splattered onto his visor, doing a better job startling him than just the shot near his head I'd planned. His momentum carried him forward naturally through his stumble, and I tagged him in the side while his arms were up to try and catch his balance.

He rolled with the blow, ripped the scarf off his mask as he got up, cursed a few times in Spanish, and started down the stairs. By the time I'd finished watching him go, Cass had tagged Tim while he was watching the spectacle. Now we were three against two, had routed the ambush, and had the upper hand.

I couldn't keep the grin off my face.

---

"Did you bring a fucking shark?" Carlos snapped when we all got to the main room. We'd won- Cass got tagged out before we did, but she'd stuck around to watch the rest of the fight, just me and Matt left up. I could tell from his grin and pulse that he wasn't really mad, but I think he had to play it up because it was Cass.

"Don't need it to kick your ass." She spat back, smirking.

Carlos shook his head and chuckled on his way over to me. "This really your first time?"

Should a boy really be asking a girl that? I pushed down the traitorous part of my brain that'd thought that, fighting down my blush. I wasn't sure I was successful. "Yeah, never done anything like this before."

I could see him grinning under his helmet. "Well you're a good shot for a first-timer." He paused for a second. "Also helps you got lucky with the ambush."

I shrugged. "I've been dodging ambushes at Winslow for years. Kinda' habit at this point." He made a 'yeah, sure' sort of grunt that had me wondering if he'd spent a year or two there, himself.

"Alright, enough of that." Cass called. "Five minutes to round two. Call it!"

We spent the next hour or so like that, going back and forth on which team had the initiative, before we ran out of ammo, and drive to continue.

"Some of these assholes have late-night dates to get to." Cass said, when we were packing up.

"This kinda' was our date." Jakob said, hugging Serei into his side, the short girl winding up lodged under his arm, causing her to grumble and slap playfully at him. "But it might be nice to catch dinner or something, too." Serei shook her head with a smile, going back to packing up gear, which she handed to him to lug back to their car.

"I'll lock up." Cass told Tim after everyone said their goodbyes. "I'll get the keys back to you at school."

He looked a bit uncomfortable at that, but caved. I think it said something that Cass already had the keys, to let her insist on keeping them. I couldn't help but feel a bit bad for him. "You know he likes you, right?" I said when they'd gone.

She rolled her eyes. "I know that, and he knows I don't like him that way." She started for the roof, and I followed. "I give him all the tools to say no, not my fault if he doesn't." That... sounded pretty skeevy, honestly. It wasn't my problem and I'd already said something, though. I'd see if I could talk to him about it later.

We made it to the roof, which was littered with more debris that could be moved inside for cover, along with some slabs of asphalt and concrete piled up around the area. Cass tossed her bag down to lay against it, looking up at the dark sky. There were never many stars out, we had to deal with light pollution from not just our city, but Boston and the rest of the nearby cities, too. The Protectorate's rig glowing out in the bay at all hours of the day wasn't helping either. It was pretty impressive that we could still see any stars, at all.

I'd let the silence hang too long, though. So I asked, "Why aren't you heading home?"

She scoffed, and stayed quiet for a bit longer. "Don't wanna talk about it."

"I can't help if I don't know." The words slipped out quietly.

The silence grew slightly tense, and I could tell even in the dark, looking away from me, that she was scowling. "Home hasn't been great, lately." I leaned against the short wall around the roof, and waited patiently. "You know how my family's 'Empire', right?" I could hear the air quotes, and hesitantly agreed. "They're really not. You can look up my family online and find enough if you dig a little. We're mostly based down south a bit, Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas... about all we've got is manpower, though. So they send me up here, with a few dozen 'cousins' to buff up the empire numbers."

I was starting to worry that I was diving a little too deeply into gang politics, just listening to this. Still, nothing she said pinged 'untrue', so I assumed I really could have found all this online if I'd bothered digging.

She heaved a sigh. "Butter up the Empire, who've got everything we don't. Shitting fucktons of money, guns, and connections with the bigger groups in Europe and out west." She made vague gestures in directions I didn't think matched the directions at all, but she didn't care. "Get them to share the wealth. All that means is, I'm stuck here in this shithole city, living with people happy to be here, waiting to go home." Which she... didn't actually sound thrilled with.

"What's wrong about going home?"

She bristled at that, and glared at me through the gloom. She huffed a couple quiet deep breaths, and said, "That's family business." Before flopping her weight back down on the bag. It really couldn't be that comfortable...

I shook my head and tried to change my mental gears, "So what, some mafia 'marry into the family' thing?"

From the way she tensed and stopped breathing for a few seconds, I'd hit the nail on the head. "I'm not gonna press," I added. "Not interested in the gang stuff, no matter which gang you're really in."

The tension bled out of her, slowly. We sat in less-uncomfortable silence for a bit, she seemed lost in her own little world, so I struggled to find something to talk about. "So... paintball?"

"Yeah?" She nearly snapped.

"You just... don't seem the type, at school." She really didn't. Preppy social circles, expensive clothes, long hair, delicately thin body and features... today was really a surprise all around.

She scoffed. "Yeah, you keep up on those assumptions, I'm sure I'll cry at your funeral."

I sighed and muttered, "Anyone ever tell you you're kind of a bitch?"

She chuckled. "Only about half the damn city."

I shook my head with a small smile. "So why paintball?"

"I dunno." Cass shrugged, looking straight up into the sky while I waited. "Just... nice to cut loose, I guess? Go around hurting people, knowing you can't really hurt anyone..." Sounded pretty contradictory to me. "It's just fun." She finished with a shrug. "Some of the people aren't great, though. Tim's a doormat, a couple of the guys are Empire and heckle whatever colored friends I bring along, and Carlos won't leave me alone..." She hushed up after that, realizing she'd said too much."

"What's wrong with Carlos?" I didn't have any problem with him, and while they were a bit antagonistic, they didn't seem like they couldn't get along.

She sighed. "He's a spic and I'm a 'Nazi'. Pretty self-explanatory." I didn't miss that she'd only bothered with air quotes for her, but she was opening up, so I let her have it. "He keeps inviting himself along to whatever he can, keeping an eye on me." she simpered the last part mockingly. "He's just polite enough not to say he's making sure I'm not out lynching street trash."

"And here I was, hoping it was just some unresolved sexual tension, or something." I muttered.

"What? No. Eww, no." She shuddered, and I could feel her gagging. The physical revulsion surprised me, like I'd just suggested she fornicate with the beloved family dog, rather than a relatively handsome teenager.

"Is it boys, or...?" I'd met a surprising number of not-straight girls lately, one more wouldn't be surprising, though the circumstances would be hilarious... and more than a little sad.

She gave one last grossed out throaty noise, before she replied. "Nah, I like dick, I just have preferences." She hopped to her feet and grabbed her bag. "And with that, I think I'd prefer going home over talking about my sex life." She made a shooing motion, and herded me toward the door.

I let her usher me outside. "Thanks for the games?" I asked, not sure if I was saying it right. 'Thanks for the sports' will never be a thing I actually say out loud.

She smirked, leaning against the frame of the big entrance double-doors. "Yeah, sure. See you at school, tomorrow."

"See ya." I shot back, and she shut and locked the door. I stood there awkwardly, watching her putter about the building for a bit, before I started towards the bus stop.

I was caught up thinking about how weird today had been, and it took me a couple blocks to realize I couldn't feel Cassie anymore. I searched the nearby blocks with my senses, and even gave in to the instinctual urge to look around, even though I knew it wouldn't help. In the end, I shrugged. She must have gotten picked up or something.