| Chapter Six |
| Mandy managed a slight smile as Justin continued poking at her side with his finger, "J, quit. C'mon, Justin, I wanna..." "Wanna rock with you. Gonna gonna make it true. I wanna, wanna...." Justin quit singing when Mandy punched him hard in his stomach. "Dear God. What was that for?" "Payback's a bitch, baby. What goes around comes around. And all that jazz." She suddenly pulled him close, and he put his comforting arms around her. "Mandy? Please talk to me. Tell me what happened with Kyle last night. We can help you. We want to help you." "How do you know about Kyle?" "We all know. Last I saw of him, he was catching hell from Danay in the cafeteria. What did he want Mandy? What did he say to you last night?" She wiped her tears on his shirt, "Take a wild guess. Dammit, why can't he just leave me the hell alone?" She was racked with sobs now, and was leaning on Justin just to remain standing. "Shhh, its okay. Listen to me." He knocked her chin up with his hand, "You are too amazing, too strong, and too beautiful to get knocked down by that little rat. Don't you give in to him, Mandy. Don't you dare." He kissed the top of her head, "We're here for you." Mandy nodded and hugged him even tighter to her for a moment. "Thank you so much, Justin. Thank you so much." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Justin? What did you get out of her?" "Sit down, Nik nak. Look, I did talk to Mandy." He paused a moment, and recalled how upset his friend had been, and his heart broke in half, "She's upset, and I mean upset. She knows we're here for her... but you've seen what Kyle can do, and you've seen his aftermath." "Oh I've seen it all right. Hell, I've lived it. I don't like him one little bit, Justin. He's done so much damage already. Can't he live well enough alone?" She poured herself a glass of water and walked to the window. "He reminds me of someone, you know that?" "Who?" "Its the reason I'm so scared of him. He reminds me..."She took a deep breath, "He reminds me so much of what he was...." "Nikki, who?" "Take a stab at it." She walked out of the room, leaving him sitting on the bed, staring after her in disbelief. "Oh, she's going to explain that one later." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Oh my God. What do you want?" Nikki stared in disgust at the man sitting on the floor outside her door. "What's the matter, sweetheart? Not glad to see me?" "About as glad as I was the last thousand times you've stalked me." "Stalked you? Oh please." He smiled at her as she stared at him with defient eyes. "You're cocky, Nikki. That much hasn't changed about you, at least. But plenty of other things have." "How would you......." She trailed off as she watched JC walk out of his room. "You okay Nikki?" He ran his fingers through her hair. "Uh... yeah. I'm just taking out the garbage." She looked pointedly at Kyle. "So would the garbage please get out of my face so I can talk to my friend..... alone?" Kyle grinned at her. It was a cold, evil grin, "I guess that's my cue. See you later Nikki. We still have quite a few matters to discuss. Bye baby." He rubbed her shoulder as he walked by. She jerked away from him so violenty that JC had to hold her arms to steady her. "Whoa, slow down girl. What the hell did he want?" Nikki rested her head against his chest. "He wanted to be a jackass. Which he suceeded at. Now, can we go inside please? I really don't want to talk about him." They stepped inside her room, and heard a faint clicking behind them. JC turned to her, "Did you hear that?" "Hear what?" |