***
Ten
***
Robin
Despite the noise and tea around what happened over the weekend and how much Jemma was tied up in it, it was a relief to be in school Monday.
The previous night at the house had been a bit tense, at least for me. I'd gone on my computer to game to try to take my mind off of what I knew was happening with Kathleen and Rhia. They weren't loud per se, but Rhia was energetic and the house wasn't that big or soundproofed. And Kathleen's bed frame wasn't oiled.
After that it had all been my own head betraying me.
First I'd heard the shower running, and some banging and squeaking sounds that suggested there was more than one person in it. Then Kathleen had poked her head into my room and said she was ordering Thai for dinner. She'd been wearing a bathrobe, but it had been a thinner one that only came down to just below her ass. I only realized after she'd left that my eyes had stayed glued to the seam of the robe, waiting or, if I was being honest
hoping
it would fall open and show something off.
Kathleen had left a little while later to pick Jemma up and get the food. I had been ashamed to realize I hadn't even noticed she was gone. They came back with the food and we ate, though Jemma was quiet and withdrawn, worse than I'd ever seen her. She had on a huge hooded sweatshirt and baggy pajama pants, which was a huge departure from what she usually wore. I'd wanted to ask her a hundred different questions, and still did, but she looked like she'd break.
I'd made it to sleep somehow but was awoken by a random sound and then my bladder had made it clear I wasn't going to sleep unless I addressed that. Coming back from the bathroom, I saw Jemma dash down the hallway to her mother's room. She opened the door and darted in. I followed a moment later and caught a waft of smell that had seeped out of the room.
I'd barely stopped myself when my hand was on the door. I'd known Jemma was going in there to be in bed with Rhia and have the enormous woman hold her. I'd only realized once I stopped that calm cuddling had not been on my mind at all.
"Hey lab mouse, something growing in your locker?"
I felt my lip curl as I heard one of the Hammersly twins' voices. Based on the tone and what was said, I assumed it was Ruby. I turned.
The two girls were there. Ruby had undone her uniform shirt to the top of her vest, showing off the line of cleavage whatever bra she wore was making of her tits. She'd also opted for nylons beneath her socks. It was within dress code to do that, but she'd also pulled her uniform skirt up a bit to show off more thigh.
Her sister hadn't bothered with any sort of creative alterations to her uniform, but of course, seeing Ruby made it easy to imagine the same thing on Amber.
"What do you want?" I asked sharply.
They both looked shocked and then almost glared at me. I was confused until I remembered every other time they'd confronted me; I'd always just stood and waited for them to speak again.
"We're looking for Jemma," Amber said.
"Yeah, well she's not looking for you. Find someone else to hold down for the football team to rape," I said.
I saw Ruby's eyes narrow and she went to say something, but Amber held her back. "We're her friends, we're worried about her," Amber said.
"Sure," I said, "You were so worried you started accusing her of putting half the team in the hospital. Those are some fucking thoughts and prayers."
This time Ruby stepped toward me. I was surprised when I simply stood there and let her, rather than shrinking back. I couldn't help looking up at her because she was still taller than me, but for some reason it didn't feel like it.
"You shouldn't be talking shit about things you don't know about," Ruby hissed.
"Oh I know enough," I said.
"Like what, bitch?" Ruby challenged.
"Wouldn't you like to know," I said.
"Miss Carter!"
The three of us and a few students who'd slowed down to see if the confrontation was going to escalate all turned to Assistant Principal Beckenridge. He was almost a textbook stereotype; middle aged man who probably used to play on high school or even college teams in his youth, but was losing whatever muscle he had to time and age and expected his assigned title to get him the respect he no longer commanded. Still, the fact that he was over six feet tall and not all of his muscle was gone made many students hesitant to cross him.
"Please come with me to the office," he said.
With some students, a mid-hallway summons to the office would have prompted a chorus of "oooooh"s from the students, but my reputation meant everyone probably assumed I was signing off on club forms or getting paperwork for some kind of award or scholarship I was up for.
I wanted to believe that was the case, but I wasn't aware of anything like that. I followed Beckenridge to the office, past the two secretaries and a few teachers, all of whom ignored me in the rush of prepping for the start of the school day. When I got into Beckenridge's office, though, I stopped at the doorway.
Two police officers waited in there. Both looked young. One I didn't recognize, but the other I most certainly remembered.
"Have a seat Miss Carter," Mr. Beckenridge said, "These officers have some questions for you."
"What about?" I asked cautiously as I slid into one of the padded wood-frame chairs in front of Beckenridge's desk.
The officer who'd been to my house said, "Miss Carter, I'm Officer James. I want to ask you some questions about what happened Friday night at the Hammersly residence."
My guard went up immediately. "What questions?" I asked.
"Mostly about what you saw," Officer James said.
"I saw how upset my sister was, and how much of a mess she still is. You know she's not in school today because of what happened?" I challenged them. Again, this was new for me; faced with two police officers and the assistant principal my instinct would have been to shrink back. Not today, apparently.
"Miss Carter, you were at the house," Officer James said, "We want to know what you saw there."
I felt my heart racing, and it felt like it had jumped up between my ears. I tried to take a deep breath and think. "I don't want to talk about that," I said.
"Miss Carter, these are the police, you answer their questions," Beckenridge said.
"No," I said, "I'm still uncomfortable with that night and what happened."
"Uncomfortable" tended to get school administrators to back off because of harassment and anti-bullying efforts and noise that had been made over the past couple of years, but Beckenridge not-so-secretly believed that everyone "whining" about that stuff needed to toughen up, and it didn't seem to faze Officer James. His partner looked nervous, though.
"Look, we can talk here, or I can take you down to the station," Officer James said.
That seemed to even make Beckenridge pause, so I decided to call his bluff. "Fine, take me down to the station then."
James's eyes narrowed. "Then I trust you won't make trouble."
I didn't, standing and leading the way out the door. I had brief, paranoid thoughts about being led out of school and disappeared without anyone noticing, but I didn't have to worry. Someone was walking by the office, either late to get to their class or possibly doing a "first thing bathroom trip", but they saw me and their fingers were a blur on their phone a second later. Then heads and people started slowly filtering out of classes. By the time we got to the front door it may as well have been a perp-walk past reporters with the number of phone cameras flashing and people talking trying to make a clip to post on socials.
I looked for any friends in the crowd. The Hammersly twins made themselves easy to find, both of them wearing almost identical smug smirks as I walked in front of the officers. I did see Brad back in the crowd through the gaps between people. He had his phone out like most of them but unlike the others he seemed to actually be calling someone.
About the time I reached the school's doors, Beckenridge's booming voice threatened academic doom if people didn't get back in their classrooms. I rolled my eyes; he'd had more than enough time to intervene earlier, but he wasn't my biggest fan. He was in his 40s and had an old-school jock mentality; I wasn't one of the girls dressing in skirts to cheer on our athletes, nor was I a budding brown noser sucking up to him in student government, and I didn't look hot enough to fantasize about, so he had little use for me.
I paused again. I would not have allowed myself to think that harshly of an administrator in the past.
I was tucked in the back of an aging black and white with the metal grille between myself and the front of the car, then the two officers got in, James driving. Out of the public eye for the first time, his partner immediately spoke up.
"James, are you sure about this? The school's going to tell her parents and-"
"Beckenridge is cool, he won't call anybody," James assured his partner.
To his credit, the partner didn't exactly look relieved by that. "This isn't the big city, man-"
"I've never been a cop in a big city," James snapped.
"Well it's not the fucking sandbox either, where we can haul in whoever we want and get shielded. I don't know if you read the news but the blue wall's got a lot of holes in it, and this is white suburbia," the partner insisted.
"Zane, her mom's a drunk and this one isn't even her kid. She was fucking his dad until he got taken out on a deployment. Chill out."
I felt a surge of anger and resisted the urge to kick the grating or shout at the officer. I wasn't a sign-carrying future union boss but I'll admit a lot of the stuff I read online for news would be classified as "left of center," so I knew there were a whole host of things the police could hold me on if I gave them the slightest provocation and James, at least, seemed eager to find some.
