Alicia had no idea what she was in for, but once the movie got going, she found herself getting a lot of stupid laughs out of it. Those laughs loosened her up, relieving some of her tension. She snuggled against Kirk, a move which he didn't seem to be expecting. He responded by putting an arm around her shoulders.

When the movie was over, Kirk asked her what she thought, and she had to admit it was hilarious. “So? Part 2, then?” he asked.

“Yeah, that sounds great!” said Alicia. The mood felt so right, SHE felt so right, nestled in his strength, she could have sat and laughed with him forever. She wanted to kiss him. Bad enough to do it.

Kirk grinned. “Sweet. I'm gonna go get us some chips or something first, though. I'm starving.”

He started to get up, but Alicia put her hand on his arm. “Uh, just a second,” she said. She looked up at him, and they stared into each other's eyes awkwardly. Alicia wasn't sure what to say.

“C-Can I have a soda, too?” she finally blurted.

“Oh yeah, sure!” Kirk said obliviously, untangling himself from her and standing up. “Cherry Coke okay?”

“Yeah,” said Alicia, feeling like an idiot. “Cherry Coke's fine.”

Alicia was still kicking herself when Kirk was out of the room, rummaging in the kitchen. She decided to distract herself with her phone.

She really wanted to text Chase, but Chase didn't have a phone. So, she decided to go for Lindsey instead.

Alicia: [I'm at Kirk's.]

It was a few seconds before she got a response.

Lindsey: [Really? I thought u guys were at the movies with Chase and Torey??]

Alicia: [Change of plans.]

Lindsey: [His parents there]

Lindsey: [?]

Alicia felt the excitement of holding a bomb to drop.

Alicia: [No.]

Lindsey: [YOOOOOOOO]

Lindsey: [Leash smash]

Grinning to herself, Alicia quickly shut that down.

Alicia: [Yeah right!]

Lindsey: [Lame]

Lindsey: [Wut u guys doing?]

Alicia: [Watching movies]

Alicia: [He put his arm around me]

She waited eagerly for Lindsey's thoughts on this development.

Lindsey: [More]

Alicia: [That's it]

Lindsey: [Alicia]

Lindsey: [DEPRESSING]

Alicia: [It is not!]

Lindsey: [You guys are alone]

Lindsey: [No parents]

Lindsey: [I want fireworks!]

Alicia: [I'm working on it...]

Lindsey: [His parents are gone so its the perfect time to strike]

Lindsey: [This is a golden opportunity]

Lindsey: [To give me details]

Alicia: [Hah]

Alicia: [Yeah yeah]

It was kind of what she expected from Lindsey. She could always count on Lindsey to embolden her to let her inhibitions slacken a little bit. But at the same time, she still felt uncertain. She knew this was a golden opportunity to advance their relationship, but it felt so nice to just be here with Kirk, watching movies with him. It felt risky to add a new element, to try and improve something that was already working so well for her.

She decided to text Caitlin next. Caitlin always had some good inhibition-cinching advice to give, she'd quell these dangerous ideas.

Alicia: [What are you doing?]

Caitlin: [Homework.]

Alicia: [Fun]

Alicia told Caitlin the same thing she told Lindsey, finishing with the juicy news about Kirk putting his arm around her.

Caitlin: [Yawn, well, back to algebra.]

Alicia: [Noooo!]

Caitlin: [Haha, Lindsey actually told me all this already.]

Already? Damn, Lindsey was almost as big a gossip monger as Victoria.

Alicia: [I don't know what to do]

Caitlin: [I think you should at least try and kiss him or something.]

Caitlin: [I mean, if you don't, you know you're gonna be kicking yourself tomorrow.]

That was probably true. While they were on the subject, Alicia told her about her aborted kiss.

Caitlin: [Aww!]

Alicia: [Should I try again???]

Caitlin: [Yes!]

Caitlin: [You've wanted something like this to happen for a long time!]

Alicia: [You don't think I should take it slow?]

Caitlin: [Whaaat?]

Caitlin: [I thought that's what you were doing...]

Caitlin: [Haha]

Caitlin: [I mean you've only had a crush on him since Freshman year.]

She had a point there. It would be extremely difficult to take things much slower than that.

Caitlin: [Chances like this don't come around that often.]

Alicia: [Yeah, I guess you're right.]

At that moment, Kirk returned with the snacks, so Alicia offered Caitlin a quick [He's back~!] by way of goodbye.

Kirk handed her a Cherry Coke as she put her phone back in her purse. “Who was that?”

“Lindsey and Caitlin. Wondering what I'm doing,” said Alicia.

Kirk swapped out the DVDs and returned to his seat next to her. “What did you tell them?”

“Well...” she said uncertainly. Then, whether it was because of her friends' encouragement or not, she suddenly felt emboldened. She flicked her green eyes up at Kirk and gave him a playful smile. “I just said I'm watching movies with a cute guy.”

Kirk looked surprised, then returned his usual earnest, lovable grin. “What, are you trying to hide me from them?” he joked.

Alicia giggled and smacked him. “Yes.” He placed his arm back around her, and they settled in for Party Bros 2: Wasted Time.

….........

Chase ran. She wasn't sure why the Swallered Opossum cheerleaders were giving her the chance to do so, but if they were going to let her to relocate their showdown to the woods, where Chase was most at home, where the advantage would be hers, she was happy to do so.

It occurred to her, as she entered the woods and her surroundings darkened, that perhaps they thought they would have the advantage there as well. These girls were not like Alicia, Caitlin, and Lindsey. They were not so civilized, not so softened and domesticated by modern life. They were closer to what Chase was, to what she had been working to redefine herself away from: A creature of the forest, a wild beast.

Thirty seconds had passed. They would be coming in after her now. Chase found a tree and climbed it. She perched on a high branch, shaded and hidden by evergreen needles. They'd have to look very close to see her here. She wished she had a bow and arrow. Then she would really feel comfortable. Any weapon at all other than her fists would have been nice, going up against seven experienced gunmen. All she had to do was get close enough to them to incapacitate them without getting herself shot. She'd done it with armed opponents before. But if these girls knew the woods like Chase did, knew how to use them, that could complicate things.

Then, she spotted one, all by herself, slowly sneaking through the woods. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail with a bright red scrunchie. Her rifle was ready for action: barrel up, stock firmly planted against her shoulder, finger on the trigger.

Did they split up to cover more ground? What luck. Chase wouldn't get another chance like this. The girl carefully meandered around, skirt ruffling in the cool forest air. Chase bided her time, waiting for the girl to get close. Then, when she was about fifteen feet away, her back facing the tree, Chase dropped down and dashed at her.

But before she could reach the cheerleader, Chase's left calf exploded in pain. She stumbled, mid-stride, to the needle-strewn forest floor.

Her mind was firing thoughts through her faster than she could process them. What? Shot? Run.

She forced herself up to her feet, but another bite of pain made her left knee buckle, and she fell to it. Her calf was oozing blood from two round holes on either side: an entry wound and an exit wound. Shot. But she hadn't heard a sound. Could they silence their guns? She didn't know that was possible.

The girl she'd tried to ambush turned around. She smiled at Chase and pointed her rifle at her. Chase realized she was the one who'd been ambushed. This cheerleader was bait, intended to draw Chase out into the open.

There was about twenty feet of distance still between them. Charge her, or run?

Neither. She wasn't close enough, or far enough, to do either and live.

She looked around for a rock to throw. There wasn't one. She picked up a pinecone and hurled it at the girl. The redneck tried to block it, but it hit her in the cheek, right below her eye.

This served as enough of a distraction that by the time she had her gun aimed again, Chase had disappeared into the trees. She lowered the gun, annoyed.

“Shoot,” said Louise, a few hundred feet away. “If y'd aimed just a little bit up you coulda had her. Ah ain't ever seen you miss, Lila Jean.”

Lila Jean lowered her still-smoking gun and cracked her neck from side to side. “An' ya never will. Ah slowed her down, just the way ah wanted. Reckon it wouldn't be a fun Campbell-killin' if it ended with the first shot.”

The bait girl returned, pushing her way through the brush. “Ah don't know which way she went. Sorry.”

Lila Jean accepted her apology with a spit. “That's okay. We got plenty of time.”

.....

Once her initial burst of speed wore off, Chase found herself limping along very slowly. She needed to find somewhere safe to stop and take care of her wound.

There. A tree with branches low enough to the ground that she could hide under them without being seen.

She dragged herself under the tree, rolled up the bloodied leg of her jeans, and inspected the wound. At least, the shot went clean through; she didn't have to worry about trying to dig a bullet out of herself with her bare fingers. But this also meant the wound was pouring out blood from two places. Already, Chase was feeling lightheaded. She had to stop the bleeding somehow. Squeezing her calf with her hands, she looked around desperately. Of course, there was nothing.

She was about to rip a piece of fabric off the bottom of her shirt, when she heard footsteps. She fell silent and dropped low to the ground, peering out from under the low-hanging branches.

Two pairs of legs slowly, cautiously, walked by. Chase watched them pass. She considered the fact that their backs were now towards her. She probably could have taken them. But she now knew better than to try it. Surely, this was another trap. Somebody was watching them, waiting for Chase to make a move.

If someone was watching them, that meant once the bait moved out of range, the watcher would have to move as well. Chase waited. She had no reason to rush this. Well, aside from the possibility of bleeding out before her enemies had the chance to finish her off themselves.

Then, she saw it. As the sound of the two girls' footsteps crunching on dead pine needles faded in the distance, Chase spotted movement. A cheerleader darted forward from the direction the two girls had come from, keeping her rifle up and her head down low. She took cover behind a tree near Chase, surveyed her surroundings, then advanced again, following the girls away from Chase's hiding spot until she dropped to one knee behind a bush.

This was Chase's chance. Perhaps the only one she'd live to see if she didn't take it. As quietly as she could, she slid out from under the tree on her stomach, and pushed herself up to her feet.

It was the one with the ponytail. Chase's idea was to creep up behind the girl and take her out silently before she even realized she was under attack. But with her leg in the shape it was, Chase wasn't feeling very stealthy.

She got about twenty feet away from the Swallered Opossum cheerleader before the girl suddenly glanced over her shoulder. Chase took a gamble and broke into a dash, while the girl swung the barrel of the gun around.

Too slowly.

Chase whipped her bloody leg upwards and kicked the gun out of her enemy's hands. It spun up into the air. The girl gasped, jumped up to her feet, and reached for the falling weapon, groping wildly for it as it fell.

But Chase was just slightly taller. Her fingers closed around the barrel, and she brought the firearm down like a hammer. The hard wood stock smashed against the teen's head with a heavy crack. The girl swayed for a moment, then fell forward into Chase's arms, unconscious.

Chase winced in pain as she knelt, laying her foe down to the forest floor. Chase put the back of her hand to the girl's mouth to make sure she was still breathing. Though Chase knew her enemies would not hold back against her, would not think twice about killing her, Chase still could not bring herself to kill a fellow cheerleader. It was difficult enough to have to hurt one.

Did this girl have any other weapons? Chase patted her down, looking for anything usable. She supposed she could take the gun, if it came to that. It was a rather heavy instrument: She could at least use it as a club.

However, the girl had her cheer uniform on, and as Chase knew from experience, cheer uniforms didn't have much in the way of pockets. There was nothing to find.

One thing the unconscious teen did have, however, was a scrunchie in her hair. Chase took it and slid it onto her bloody calf. It was tight enough to put consistent pressure on the wound and slow the bleeding. She rolled her pant leg back down and stood. When she did, her left leg felt a little more stable.

She was about to pick up the gun and go, when the scrunchie gave her an idea. Chase tossed the gun into the bush, then stooped down once again. Quickly, excitedly, she unlaced the unconscious girl's shoe.