Rocket

-XVIII-

It was evident the day wasn't going to get any warmer and Fiona appreciated the breeze and calming light. English class ended on an upbeat tone leaving Kain and herself with no homework due to the outstanding essay grades.

She smiled holding her face with relief that nothing horrible had happened to her as she foolishly imagined. Crossing her legs, she waited patiently at a white iron table for her boyfriend to return with hot chocolate.

As the wind blew, pale green blades from a nearby tree tumbled in the wind and Fiona watched them absentmindedly. She grinned spotting a poor passerby get pelted in the face by the pointed leaves but dropped the amusement altogether noticing three loitering girls staring at her like statues.

"Crap." She mumbled just as Kain approached the table.

"Now I know you're not big on marshmallows but these are covered in chocolate." He sat across from Fiona cheerfully and his eyebrows fell knowing all too well the look of distress his girlfriend was displaying. "What is it?"

Fiona casually played with the large marshmallow in front of her. "Don't turn around but there's these three girls glaring at me."

"Do they look familiar?"

"I can't tell."

Kain suddenly felt antsy. He wanted to turn around and ask the mystery females what the hell they were looking at but for Fiona's sake he did as he was told. Fiona sighed heavily.

"God, I knew today wasn't going to go well."

"Relax. It's not like they're coming over here."

"Let's just go home. I can skip math class. I don't even like math."

Kain tapped his fingers on the table and decided on taking a chance to look directly at the girls. They were still there staring but produced a fleet of warm smiles as they advanced towards the couple.

"Kain." Fiona's voice squeaked. "Why did you look at them?"

"Because they looked at you. Fiona, if anyone has a problem with you I'm going to address them."

" Oh God." The dancer held her head just as the girls reached their table. They exchanged greetings with her boyfriend and without permission joined the table after barrowing a few chairs from nearby.

Kain knew who these girls were automatically recognizing them as Rose's friends from the birthday party. They wore matching outfits of plaid, blue and pink with ribbons in their hair. Kain never liked girls that deliberately tried to look cute and innocent. It was like an invitation for everything opposite to come and look.

"Hi Fiona." One girl finally acknowledged the dancer figuring she had to because she was sitting right next to her.

"Hey."

"Before you start anything, you mind telling me what the hell you three are doing here?" Kain wasn't patient enough to hear a reply. He had their attention and that was all that mattered. "Because I know that you don't go to this school."

The girl sitting closest to Fiona rolled her eyes. "Look, we just came here to tour the school. We actually didn't know you two went here."

"So I'm supposed to believe this is all a coincidence?"

"Yes. If you think we support this whole revenge thing we don't."

"Totally." The other two girls agreed in unison.

Fiona lifted her head. "Wait? What revenge thing?"

"Well of course you wouldn't know but Henry and these other guys are planning on avenging Rose for what you did."

"I didn't do anything!"

"Yeah we know that." said one girl.

"But it's like three of us versus everybody else. You better watch your back, girl."

Fiona blinked at the Asian girl and her exaggerated eyebrows. " Oh my God. I'm going to be killed." The dancer dug her fingers into her thick hair. "I'm going to die for no reason at all."

Kain snapped the plastic stirrer that occupied his left hand and eyed the girl next to him. "So what are you guys going to do? Since you know oh so much about how wrong this is? Sit on the sidelines?"

The girl with the jeaned hat folded her arms on the table. "Well, yes. But we may change our minds if Fiona does us a favor."

"What favor?" The high-eyebrows one asked.

"Yeah what favor?" Kain repeated.

The girl with the hat rose from her seat next to Kain and approached Fiona with all the sophistication of a Valley Girl. She rested one hand on her hip and the other on the back of the black girl's chair.

"We'll promise to be advocates for your innocence only and only if you get us a job at your strip club."

The other two girls grinned at each other. "Oh yeah. Mina that's a great idea!"

Kain couldn't believe what he was hearing and looked to his girlfriend for guidance. Fiona had straightened her posture and stared at the girl before her with unwavering eyes.

"If I get you three that job, will you promise to hold your end of the bargain?"

Mina held up two fingers. "Scout's honor."

"Okay. I agree."

"Awesome!" Mina clapped her hands and pulled out a Hello Kitty notepad from her purse. "Here are our phone numbers."

"I'll call you when the time is right. Till then, you just keep spreading the truth about how everything really went down. Okay?"

"Got it."

Kain watched the conversation in front of him in astonishment. His hot chocolate was lukewarm and brought it to his lips trying to appear unfazed by the scene. When the girls left, he finally spoke.

"What the hell are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking about saving my ass."

"Do you know how desperate this is? How can you even trust them?"

"I can't but I don't have anyone else to turn to."

Kain slapped his forehead. "You have me."

"No offense Kain, but it can't just be you. Maybe you can protect me from Mickee or Henry but not an entire gang."

The boy stared at her long and hard as if trying to convey his truest of feelings about the situation but all Fiona got was hurt. She reached across the table and grabbed his hand.

"Kain-"

"You're making a stupid mistake." Pulling her up with him, Kain announced that they were going to skip the math class and go home.

-

The ride home was annoyingly quiet and Fiona wanted so bad to apologize. She wanted to believe that Kain was wrong and that Rose's friends had nothing but good intentions. From what she could remember they were against Rose's idea of "eliminating" the competition. They just had to be on her side. But how was Fiona going to make Kain see that.

At their small home, Fiona kicked off her shoes as Kain stomped upstairs. She had no idea what he was intending on doing up there but she figured it was nothing too important and raided the fridge for pie.

It wasn't until forty minutes had passed that Kain came back downstairs. He was still wearing his boots but his shirt was missing and he was carrying what looked like a roll of tape. Fiona was sitting on the kitchen counter and gently placed her fork into the bowl on her lap.

"Kain?"

The boy glared at her momentarily as he made his way to the front door. As soon as the first long strip of black tape was pulled, Fiona put two and two together. She hopped off the counter.

" Kain. What the hell are you doing?"

He was just about finished by the time she approached him and he swiftly turned around dropping the heavy roll of tape. His cheeks were pink and his hair had been messed with. If Fiona wasn't so pissed about the door, she would have kissed the handsome devil.

"You have completely lost your mind."

"I don't want you hanging with those girls."

"What happened to you telling me to relax?"

"I also told you to do everything I said but apparently listening to my directions if too hard for you."

"You can't do this to me Kain. I understand you're scared. I'm scared too but I'm not going to hide when someone is offering me a little bit of help."

Kain rubbed the back of his head clearly irritated. "They're Rose's friends."

"But they don't act like Rose. Kain please." Fiona embraced him as best she could. He felt so rigid against her. "We need help. Plus it's just a stupid job opportunity, what could possibly go wrong?"

"An trap."

"In a place where I reign supreme?" She looked up at him feeling wandering hands slide down her back.

"Well if I remember correctly, it was rather easy to breach your so-called fortress."

"They won't. So take the tape off the door."

Kain sighed releasing the dancer and turned back to the door. "What a waste of tape. " He mumbled to himself and looked over his shoulder. Fiona was back in the kitchen eating pie again. Taking a few strips behind his back, he approached her barely containing the smirk on his face. "Fiona?"

"What?" The dancer licked her fork.

"Let me see your hands for a minute."

-

"No." Henry shook his head after hearing the last thing he wanted to hear. Reconsider. Before him stood three of Rose's best friends Mina, Maybelle, and Seiko. They fettled with their skirts clearly intimidated by the boy who carried himself like a king. He was surrounded by other boys like him including a bored looking Jin and Mickee who was more serious than usual. Kenji was nowhere to be found.

"But that's not fair Henry. Fiona is completely innocent and you know it. Just because you have some bad crush on her doesn't mean Fiona is your sworn enemy now."

Henry removed his glasses. "You shut your fucking mouth. You and everyone else here know that is not the case."

Mina looked around her at the many eyes glaring her down. The people she once saw as her friends were now seeing her as a traitor. The group resided outside an old diner that didn't open until 11 but that didn't stop the posse from crowding the weathered benches and tables.

Henry cleared his throat. "I want all of you to disregard what this bitch just said. She was never a friend of Rose and only wants to ruin the bound that we all worked so hard to maintain. Rose was simply keeping the group free of outsiders and some ugly little piece of shit decides to come in and do whatever she wants. She stole one of our best friends and framed Rose when in actuality she was acting in self-defense. Fiona is an enemy of us all and we cannot allow her to run free after everything she has done."

A few heads nodded and Henry went back to looking at Mina. "I don't ever want to see you three again unless you are ready to start thinking normally." He placed a hand on Mina's cheek and pinched it. "And if you ever speak to me like that again, I'll start treat you even worse than Fiona."

On the verge of tears, Mina smacked his hand away and stormed off with Maybelle and Seiko close behind. Seiko fixed the ribbons in her hair and struggled in her heels to keep up with her friend.

"What do we do now, Mina?"

The girl sniffed. "Continue forward."

-

"Don't find me. Please don't find me." Fiona whispered in the darkness of a hallway closet. She held her knees to her chest as best she could with her arms propped above them. Her wrists and ankles had been bound with tape much to her boyfriend's sick amusement.

His original thought was to keep the girl from meeting Rose's friends again but being the kind of guy he was, something else became more interesting. He chuckled in an almost adorable manner playing a rather one sided version of hide and seek. Kain could kick himself for letting her out of his site.

"Come on Fiona, I'm not going to do anything dirty to you." He poked his head into the bathroom. "Yet." Figuring she couldn't be anywhere upstairs, the last place to look was the hallway closet. Relishing in the moment, he swatted in his dark jeans and pressed his ear against the door pleased to hear Fiona's breathy ramblings.

"Don't find me. Don't find me."

Kain grinned like a cat. "I know you're in there, Fee." His voice sounded methodical and deep.

Fiona watched as the door knob slowly turned and she scrambled for the darkest corner of the closet. Her strategy didn't matter when the door swung open revealing her amused boyfriend and the orange glow of the bathroom across the hall.

He spotted her instantly but instead of dragging her out like he planned; Kain closed the door behind him. "I think it'll be a lot more fun if I feel around for you."

"Kain, don't."

"Shh. Don't talk. You'll make it easy for me."

It wasn't long before Kain found the dancer's legs, hips, chest and arms. As expected Fiona tried to crawl away but that only exposed her to new sensations and tickles that she found herself wanting to be a part of. Kain had no idea why she was still telling him to stop seeing as she wasn't even trying to get away from him anymore. So he kept at it touching here and there until he felt something he hadn't felt since his days as a player.

"Kain." Fiona whispered feeling Kain unwrap the tape from her wrists.

"Yes, baby."

"I, um. I need to go to the bathroom."

"Whatever for?"

Fiona sighed. She could just see him smiling at her. "Don't make me say it."