“An' so ah said,” recounted Jefra Mae, walking along with her fellow bait, “Me go out with you? Honey, yer about as ugly as a two-way caterpillar.”

The other one, a girl with round sunglasses and an American flag bandana wrapped around her forehead to keep her curtained hair out of her eyes, chuckled. “Haw. That's a good one. Two-way caterpillar. Shit.”

The two cheerleaders were following their instructions well, walking slow enough that Chase would easily be able to follow them, guns firmly in hand. Jefra Mae asked sunnily, “Hey, when Lila Jean shoots that Chase gal, d'you think she'll shoot her through the head?”

The sunglasses girl shrugged. “Hell, I dunno. Why?”

“Ah hope she does. It'd be a shame if she ruined that jacket o' hers by puttin' a bullet hole in it. Ah have mah eyes on it.” Jefra Mae stopped walking and looked around at the trees. “Ain't heard nothin' in a while. You think she took the bait?”

The sunglasses girl stopped as well, then turned around to face her. “Maybe she went after the other group,” she said. She looked up at an old cottonwood tree. “Thank ah should climb on up an' look around?”

“Maht as well.”

So, the sunglasses girl slung her rifle over her shoulder and climbed up. Once she was on a branch about twenty feet off the ground, she stood and checked things out.

“See anything?” Jefra Mae asked.

“Not really, I- Shit!” The sunglasses girl just happened to glance at the ground in time to see Chase sneaking up behind her friend. She pointed the gun at her and whistled loudly to get Chase's attention. “Hey you! Don't you move!”

Jefra Mae whirled around, and with a look of shock at her close call, aimed her gun at the blonde as well. “G-gitcher hands up! An' do it slow! No sudden moves!”

Chase slowly raised her empty hands. “Why didn't Ira Lee pick her off?” wondered Jefra Mae.

“Maybe she didn't see her.”

Chase answered. “Got rid of girl who watch you first. Just you now.”

They both looked a little nervous at that. “Shit,” said the sunglasses girl again, steadying her grip on the rifle.

“Git, git down on the ground. On your stomach. Hands by yer head,” stammered Jefra Mae. Chase complied.

From up in the tree, Chase heard the question, “Should we kill her?”

“Lila Jean prob'ly wants ta do it herself,” Jefra Mae answered. “Let's just cuff her.”

The sunglasses girl unclipped a pair of handcuffs from her skirt. “No problemo,” she said, tossing them down.

The handcuffs glinted in the sunlight as they fell, and the bottle blonde caught them. She told Chase, “Alright, sweetheart. Hands behind yer back.”

Chase was hoping she'd say that. She put her hands behind her, folding them at her lower back where her shirt met her jeans. Through her shirt, she could feel the outline of her weapon pressing against her wrist.

When Jefra Mae knelt down to cuff her, Chase struck.

THOK. She pulled Ira Lee's sock out from under her shirt, a stone about the size of a baseball stuffed in the toe, and whipped it against her would-be captor's temple. Jefra Mae's head snapped to the side, and Chase saw her eyes unfocus before she slumped over, unconscious.

“Shit!” shouted the sunglasses girl, sighting Chase. She fired, but Chase rolled, a plume of dirt geysering up beside her. She rolled into a crouch, facing her enemy. She rapidly twirled the sock a couple times to gain momentum, then let it fly.

It hit the girl squarely on the forehead. She lost her balance and tumbled backwards out of the tree, falling twenty feet and landing hard on her upper back. Her body was still.

Chase's heart was pounding. She couldn't believe it actually worked.

After confirming the fall did not kill the sunglasses girl, Chase cuffed the two cheerleaders together and tossed the key into some bushes. She retrieved her makeshift sock weapon and tucked it into her pocket.

She frisked the two of them. She wasn't expecting much, as they too were wearing their frustratingly pocket-free cheer uniforms. However, to her surprise, she turned up something very useful from Jefra Mae's bra.

A phone!

Alicia had been trying to teach her how to use one. Chase still wasn't good at it, but she thought she could at least make a phone call to save her life, which fortunately was exactly what she needed. She could call for help! But who should she call?

She thought about it. Who COULD she call? She didn't know the number for the police. Alicia? Caitlin? Lindsey? They didn't know how to fight. And the scary thing was they wouldn't let that stop them. They'd show up to help Chase regardless of the danger. If Chase called them, she'd just be needlessly putting them at risk of getting hurt or killed. Who else did she know?

She thought of one of her other squadmates. Melissa C...

Melissa C. was strong. Stronger than Chase, even. She would have nothing to fear from these girls and their guns. But Chase couldn't call her. Melissa C. was living a peaceful, quiet life as an ordinary, albeit physically dense high schooler, a tranquility which Chase had fought hard and nearly died to give her. She couldn't let Melissa C. know what she was, couldn't invite her to fight again, couldn't risk dredging up a past Melissa C. had all but begged Chase to erase.

Chase stood, and tossed the phone on the girl's stomach. It was useless after all. She saw she had no choice but to handle this herself.

As she took a step to leave, her knee buckled, surprising her. She forced herself upright. Blood trickled down her leg, the soaked scrunchie unable to hold any more. She limped away from the scene. If she didn't finish this quickly, she might not finish it at all.

........

“You're sure you're okay?” asked Kirk, patting Alicia gently and supportively on the back.

“Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine,” said Alicia, resting her head on his chest. They were standing in his kitchen, sharing a tender, emotional hug. “It's just...the way one of the Party Bros got a one-dimensionally mean and controlling new girlfriend, and how she was all stuck up and disapproved of his partying lifestyle and his partying friends, and the way he sided with her and forgot about bros before hoes...” She blew her nose. “I knew Party Bros would make me laugh, but I didn't expect it to make me feel.”

“Well, you'll see it all works out in the end,” he reassured her. “Wanna go back and finish it?”

Alicia smiled and separated from him. “Yeah. Thanks, Kirk. I have to go to the bathroom though, so keep it paused for a second.”

Kirk told her the way to the bathroom, and they split up, Kirk heading back to the living room.

The sky was darkening outside, so Alicia tested a couple light switches until one illuminated the hallway he pointed her towards. Then, she headed down it until she found the bathroom.

While in the bathroom, she checked her makeup and thought about taking advantage of the privacy to update Lindsey and Caitlin on what was happening. She decided against it. There wasn't much to report, and she didn't want another scolding. She was still trying, but it somehow seemed...harder to find an opening now. The chance she had before just seemed SO perfect, but they were already two-thirds through the next movie and Alicia hadn't been able to turn up any opportunities.

Maybe she was looking too hard? Maybe she needed to take a step back, calm down, and just let things happen. That was how the first opportunity came about.

When she opened the door to leave, still lost in thought, she found the hall light was off again.

She looked around. “Kirk?” she asked uncertainly. Coming from the light of the bathroom into the darkened hallway, she could barely see. She put a hand on the wall and tried to feel her way back to the living room.

Slowly, her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. Just as they did, though, she felt something heavy and hard hit her on the back of the head, and everything went black again.

…................

When Alicia reopened her eyes, she discovered she couldn't move. Her arms and legs were tied. She tried to scream, but she was tightly gagged.

She thrashed around in the hopes of freeing herself. She banged her knee on a wall, then the back of her head on another. Pain rattled around her skull, and her vision tunneled. She forced herself to stay conscious. She had hit herself on the exact same spot her attacker had, and her head was still extremely tender.

Judging from the proximity of the walls, she was in a small, enclosed space. A closet?

“Hey, shut up,” said a familiar voice. “You don't stop makin' a ruckus ah'll whack ya again.”

Alicia looked in the direction of the voice, just as a light clicked on above her. There was a bare bulb mounted in the ceiling, with a dangling pull chain. A hand was wrapped around the chain. Her eyes flitted from the hand to its owner, and her eyes widened.

“That's better,” Mary Rose said, letting go of the chain. Alicia felt a jolt of panic. Mary Rose?! What was she doing here?! What was she going to do to her?!

The blonde's other hand gripped the handle of a shiny golf club, which was resting on her shoulder. Alicia had to assume this was the object that struck her. She felt herself tremble in its presence. If Mary Rose decided to swing it again, while Alicia was bound like this, she would be helpless to stop it from hitting her anywhere it liked. “Ain't no cause for you to get excited, darlin'. Ah'm sure you think ah'm here ta give ya a mighty fine face-wallopin', but ah actually don't intends to hurt ya. No more'n ah already did, at least.”

Blazers and coats hung above Alicia, casting shadows across her from the overhead light source. Mary Rose, on the other hand, was fully illuminated, standing tall and confident in the closet's glow. “Ah'm just here to have mah fun with that man o' yours...without you havin' the chance ta interfere.”

At first, Alicia didn't understand. She wanted to steal Kirk? She'd go to these kinds of lengths for that? Was she crazy?

Mary Rose went on: “Then when ah'm done, ah'll let ya go, an' if ya still want him,” she smirked, “ah guess you can try yer damnedest to convince him to forget about me.”

Once Alicia wrapped her head around what Mary Rose was saying, she felt dumbfounded. Did she really think this would work? Kirk didn't even know her. Could this girl really...seduce him? Kirk wouldn't do that, would he? He liked Alicia, didn't he?

Upon asking herself these questions, she felt herself begin to panic as the doubts and insecurities she had forgotten over the course of the date returned in full force. She tested the ropes again and found them incredibly tight. The rural girl knew her way around knots. All Alicia could do was plead wordlessly with her captor, nebulous sounds straining against her gag. Mary Rose smiled at these whines. “Don't see how you'll do it, though. You're a good-lookin' gal, but good-lookin'-er ones than you have tried. No man ever forgets me. What ah'm about ta do to him, an' what he's about ta do to ME, he'll carry with him th' rest o' his natcheral life.”

She slipped the club down off of her shoulder and nudged Alicia's cheek with the end of it, pushing her head to the side. Alicia fell silent, quivering in fear. “Now, you just sit right here, an' don't try anything stupid. Up 'til now, ah have resisted the temptation ta kill you, so ah'd love it if ya didn't give me a good excuse. Ah'd purfer you to at least live long enough so you can see that ah'm better'n you. Ain't much point in me takin' your man if you don't know about it.”

Alicia didn't understand. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Mary Rose continued, “That surprise you? Whah else would ah be doin' this? Ah sure don't want him cuz ah lahk him any special amount. He might mean a lot ta you, but guess what? He don't mean nothin' to me. He's just another fling.”

At these words, Alicia's helplessness was overcome by a sense of anger. She thrashed against her ropes once more, but they held as strong as if she was in handcuffs.

Watching Alicia's futile struggle, Mary Rose just laughed. Of course, with the statement she'd just made, a rise was exactly the thing she had been hoping to get out of her opponent. She was poking the bear, so to speak. She conceded, “Sure, he's good-lookin'. You got some good taste in men, ah won't deny it. But ah can get any good-lookin' guy ah want. Ah don't want him for his looks. Ah only want him cuz he's yours. An' also, cuz ah want you to know you ain't as special as you think you are. You ain't better'n me like you think you are. You can love him with everythin' you got, but if ah decide on a whim ta take him away from you, ah can do it. Cuz that's the make o' woman ah am, an that's the make o' woman you are.”

With that, she clicked the light out, plunging Alicia back into darkness. “Ah'll just let ya think about that for a little while.” Alicia heard the closet door squeak. Before it closed, Mary Rose added, “See ya soon. This shouldn't take long.”