The title might be provisionary. If anyone wants to suggest a better title, fire away.
I've been with this idea for about a month now, and if No Bounds wasn't here, I'd be doing this one much more frequently. The idea has been discussed online for awhile now.
Prologue-The Death Of Love: 1715 words (Here)
Chapter 1-Baleful Swan: 2447 words (Here)
Chapter 2-Protonic & Electronic: 2268 words
Chapter 3-Heaven Shines Bright, Yet So Does Fire: 3608 words
Now, without further wait, I present The Price Of Revenge, Prologue and Chapter 1.
And there is the start of The Price Of Revenge. Took me 8 hours to write, so I hope you enjoy it. ~AoH
I've been with this idea for about a month now, and if No Bounds wasn't here, I'd be doing this one much more frequently. The idea has been discussed online for awhile now.
Prologue-The Death Of Love: 1715 words (Here)
Chapter 1-Baleful Swan: 2447 words (Here)
Chapter 2-Protonic & Electronic: 2268 words
Chapter 3-Heaven Shines Bright, Yet So Does Fire: 3608 words
Now, without further wait, I present The Price Of Revenge, Prologue and Chapter 1.
Prologue: The Death of Love
The name, Natalie, meant a great deal. It was a great deal. And yet, there seemed nothing special about it except to one person. Like a stone monument buried deep beneath the vehement pressure of the ocean, it was all but forgotten to anyone except the few stragglers of the evolutionary process who dared to wander those desolate, lost, cryptic ruins.
Kieran knew he meant everything to her. Back when he was a teenager, his sister, nine years the younger of the two, would look up to him for everything. Even though they still had parents, he acted as Natalie's guardian every step of the way.
Kieran meant the world to Natalie. Natalie meant the world to Kieran. But now, as Kieran walked up to the steel podium that was his destination, he knew their bond was being cut apart. Kieran liked to joke with her about this time several years ago, using the term "eviscerated" even though Natalie had no idea of its definition, but now the joking was over. They were using a serrated knife to rip the bond, and it was real.
As his soot-black boots dragged down the aisle, several thoughts about Natalie spun through his head like white waters in a whirlpool. What will Natalie think of my death? Who will she blame? What will she do to her target, if there is any? Is there any reason for her to even live when I'm gone? I hope all of her questions lead to my parents. I hope Natalie takes it out on them too. After all, they signed my execution form.
He found his own thoughts a bit droll and chuckled to himself about it. Natalie was a smart girl, and Kieran had never seen her kill a fly. But the thought itself was very pungent, and he hoped it would become reality. He had hated his parents secretly for several years now. They were way too overprotective of their children for their own good, and it had a negative effect on them. Kieran learned to be hateful of the world around him, and he took great pride in that. Natalie had learned the values of family love, but found it too dilapidating to carry on, and let her love for her parents divagate from them and flow toward Kieran and her friends. Kieran was proud of her, as a big brother should be, and found inspiration in Natalie's attitude toward them more often than not. It was a hard ultimatum to live by, but the Long children had come to cherish it to the point of insanity. It was their only guideline to go by, and the fact that they had had little help in creating it was even more absorbing. A puissant rule, Kieran thought, is made to be set in stone, all too permanent.
His train of thought reached its destination just then, and he did too. Kieran opened his eyes, lifted his head, and glanced at the rows of people in the seats present. His vision caught a few cellmates, some family friends, and a group of prosecutors and his lawyer standing next to the presiding judge. Kieran glared at the prosecutors and mouthed curses at them before being urged forward by the officer on his left. He turned his head oo his lawyer and smiled at him.
Larry Fitzgerald returned the gesture and turned his head the smallest amount of degrees. He radiated nervousness.
Kieran made a quick gesture to the judge and guards and was released on the stand. He cleared his throat blithely and adjusted his gray business suit. Being a prisoner, that was the best they could provide him with for his speech.
"Ladies, gents, and federals of all ages," he began, "I'm very honored to have you in attendance of my," he purposely cleared his throat, ". . . final speech." He paused to watch the judge and prosecutors gulp. Silence. "I have a bit to say, but let's begin with why I'm here. I understand I'm present because of my commiting a murder. Am I right, Judge McDonald?"
McDonald nodded and gave no comment. Kieran grinned on the inside when the sweat became a torrent down the lines tracing McDonald's face.
"In my honest opinion, it was a sad endeavor. Fred Tollich wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. But regardless, I'm more than happy to say that it was well worth it." He shared countless inimical accounts of his late former boss, Frederick Mason Tollich, Jr., and ranted and raved on his complaints for a new boss. He explained how his employer, Tennison-Cook Hardware, declined to grant him the wish to fire his employment manager, William Thomas McCoy, and lowered his rate because of it. The crowd showed little emotion, yet fixed their attention on the man, twenty-one, going about on the stand before them, desultorily and antipathically listing the dangers of hardware stores across the nation.
Towards the end of his speech, Kieran entered bits of his family in the conversation. "All of this nightmare may seem unbearable, but I was able to live through it." A strong gasp from the crowd perked up his pace. Still, he was by no means wanting to be laconic. Afterwards, sighs of ardor were drawn from the audience, and Kieran's eyes began to fill with tears as he continued. "Natalie, I love you, and I know you love me too," he said, raising his hand to the air and grasping it firmly, "but only you have the right to live . . ."
Kieran outstretched his other hand, waiting. McDonald looked around in confusion, then shook his head. "Mr. Long, what in blazes are you doing?" He did not ask another question, as, out of the corner of his left eye, Larry Fitzgerald answered him.
A gunmetal pistol zipped through the air and landed in Kieran's open palm. As soon as it touched his skin, his eyes came alive, blazing with comminatory hatred. He sneered, a frightening specimen, then whipped around and silenced a prosecutor, a Mr. Henry Tollich.
Panic exploded in the chamber as federals and prisoners alike amalgamated in a mass diaspora out of the doors. Judge McDonald tussled through the crowd to the podium, threw his weight on it and rocked Kieran's footing away as the tile flooring they stood on toppled off the highrise and flew down the aisle. Kieran fell into a seat and whacked his head on another's back, dropping the gun to the ground beneath him. McDonald slid halfway down the floor, gripping a seat's arm and pulling himself up.
"Kieran!"
McDonald and Kieran, out of his mentally anulled state just enough to listen, jerked their heads in the voice's direction. Fitzgerald stood at the exit to the chamber, waving a hand to Kieran and yelling to get out of the building.
"Forget it, Fitzgerald! His hide is as good as mine!" McDonald yelled. He was a rather athletic man for his size, and, even wearing a tuxedo, he beat Kieran to the exit. A sidearm then swung straight at Kieran's jaw.
Kieran stumbled back, clutching his mouth in pain. Dollops of blood dropped from his chin to the flooring. He glared at McDonald, but did not curse him out. He did not even flinch. He just took his body backwards, one step at a time, until he hit the wall. Grimacing, Kieran ripped a shoe off and launched it at McDonald with his free hand but missed by a mile. He hurled the other, but the end result was even worse. McDonald had caught it.
McDonald sauntered towards him, tearing his suit off as he walked. He threw it into the aisle closest to him, raised the hand with Kieran's hiking boot in it, and stopped a few feet away. His arm still poised to destroy Kieran's neck, McDonald grinned. In the crepuscular light, he could not see Lawrence Fitzgerald creep up behind him and raise a suitcase high above their heads.
***
The suitcase and Judge Matthias McDonald, all of forty-three years, clattered to the ground juxtapositioned at the feet of Kieran Long, who could just smirk at the sight. "Nice job there. I guess I was hitting all sevens when I hired you," he said. Fitzgerald walked out of the darkness beneath a catwalk and took his suitcase from the bloody head of Judge McDonald.
"No problem. I rigged the lottery," Fitzgerald said. He stifled a short burst of laughter.
Kieran walked towards the aisle with his blood on it, reached down, and came back with Fitzgerald's pistol. "Here. Thanks for pulling me out."
Fitzgerald rolled his eyes and stuffed the gun in his case. "No comment. Now then, " he said, pulling up his belt, "what do we do with this?"
Kieran looked at him with flaccid hope in his eyes. "Son of a gun, Larry! Why couldn't you plan this ahead of time?!" he screamed, but Fitzgerald put an arm around him.
"Relax, man, relax. I was just kidding. I've hired a newspaper editor to botch the story and make it sound like the execution actually went through. They'll never know what happened here!" Fitzgerald applauded himself, then continued. "I've got friends in high places, Kieran. They'll erase all signs of this undertaking AND get rid of McDonald and Tollich for us. Huh, huh?" He nudged Kieran, who could just smile weakly. He was too engaged with the thought of how this spiritual cicatrix would bode for him. He could not bear many more murder burdens.
"Yeah, that's fine," he said, trying to get Fitzgerald off his back. "Just make sure it works, okay?"
"Alright. Just one question," he proposed. "Where are we going to hide you?"
Kieran cursed out loud, then yanked the suitcase out of Fitzgerald's hands. He pulled out the pistol from a pocket behind some files. "Hide my shell, you mean." Kieran kissed the barrel, then pulled it right up to the side of his head. "Don't try to stop me, Larry. You can't do anything now. I will admit this though - clients need you," he said, then tightened his grip on the trigger.
He tightened it till it popped. Had Natalie been there, she might have witnessed the death of love.
***
The name, Natalie, meant a great deal. It was a great deal. And yet, there seemed nothing special about it except to one person. Like a stone monument buried deep beneath the vehement pressure of the ocean, it was all but forgotten to anyone except the few stragglers of the evolutionary process who dared to wander those desolate, lost, cryptic ruins.
Kieran knew he meant everything to her. Back when he was a teenager, his sister, nine years the younger of the two, would look up to him for everything. Even though they still had parents, he acted as Natalie's guardian every step of the way.
Kieran meant the world to Natalie. Natalie meant the world to Kieran. But now, as Kieran walked up to the steel podium that was his destination, he knew their bond was being cut apart. Kieran liked to joke with her about this time several years ago, using the term "eviscerated" even though Natalie had no idea of its definition, but now the joking was over. They were using a serrated knife to rip the bond, and it was real.
As his soot-black boots dragged down the aisle, several thoughts about Natalie spun through his head like white waters in a whirlpool. What will Natalie think of my death? Who will she blame? What will she do to her target, if there is any? Is there any reason for her to even live when I'm gone? I hope all of her questions lead to my parents. I hope Natalie takes it out on them too. After all, they signed my execution form.
He found his own thoughts a bit droll and chuckled to himself about it. Natalie was a smart girl, and Kieran had never seen her kill a fly. But the thought itself was very pungent, and he hoped it would become reality. He had hated his parents secretly for several years now. They were way too overprotective of their children for their own good, and it had a negative effect on them. Kieran learned to be hateful of the world around him, and he took great pride in that. Natalie had learned the values of family love, but found it too dilapidating to carry on, and let her love for her parents divagate from them and flow toward Kieran and her friends. Kieran was proud of her, as a big brother should be, and found inspiration in Natalie's attitude toward them more often than not. It was a hard ultimatum to live by, but the Long children had come to cherish it to the point of insanity. It was their only guideline to go by, and the fact that they had had little help in creating it was even more absorbing. A puissant rule, Kieran thought, is made to be set in stone, all too permanent.
His train of thought reached its destination just then, and he did too. Kieran opened his eyes, lifted his head, and glanced at the rows of people in the seats present. His vision caught a few cellmates, some family friends, and a group of prosecutors and his lawyer standing next to the presiding judge. Kieran glared at the prosecutors and mouthed curses at them before being urged forward by the officer on his left. He turned his head oo his lawyer and smiled at him.
Larry Fitzgerald returned the gesture and turned his head the smallest amount of degrees. He radiated nervousness.
Kieran made a quick gesture to the judge and guards and was released on the stand. He cleared his throat blithely and adjusted his gray business suit. Being a prisoner, that was the best they could provide him with for his speech.
"Ladies, gents, and federals of all ages," he began, "I'm very honored to have you in attendance of my," he purposely cleared his throat, ". . . final speech." He paused to watch the judge and prosecutors gulp. Silence. "I have a bit to say, but let's begin with why I'm here. I understand I'm present because of my commiting a murder. Am I right, Judge McDonald?"
McDonald nodded and gave no comment. Kieran grinned on the inside when the sweat became a torrent down the lines tracing McDonald's face.
"In my honest opinion, it was a sad endeavor. Fred Tollich wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. But regardless, I'm more than happy to say that it was well worth it." He shared countless inimical accounts of his late former boss, Frederick Mason Tollich, Jr., and ranted and raved on his complaints for a new boss. He explained how his employer, Tennison-Cook Hardware, declined to grant him the wish to fire his employment manager, William Thomas McCoy, and lowered his rate because of it. The crowd showed little emotion, yet fixed their attention on the man, twenty-one, going about on the stand before them, desultorily and antipathically listing the dangers of hardware stores across the nation.
Towards the end of his speech, Kieran entered bits of his family in the conversation. "All of this nightmare may seem unbearable, but I was able to live through it." A strong gasp from the crowd perked up his pace. Still, he was by no means wanting to be laconic. Afterwards, sighs of ardor were drawn from the audience, and Kieran's eyes began to fill with tears as he continued. "Natalie, I love you, and I know you love me too," he said, raising his hand to the air and grasping it firmly, "but only you have the right to live . . ."
Kieran outstretched his other hand, waiting. McDonald looked around in confusion, then shook his head. "Mr. Long, what in blazes are you doing?" He did not ask another question, as, out of the corner of his left eye, Larry Fitzgerald answered him.
A gunmetal pistol zipped through the air and landed in Kieran's open palm. As soon as it touched his skin, his eyes came alive, blazing with comminatory hatred. He sneered, a frightening specimen, then whipped around and silenced a prosecutor, a Mr. Henry Tollich.
Panic exploded in the chamber as federals and prisoners alike amalgamated in a mass diaspora out of the doors. Judge McDonald tussled through the crowd to the podium, threw his weight on it and rocked Kieran's footing away as the tile flooring they stood on toppled off the highrise and flew down the aisle. Kieran fell into a seat and whacked his head on another's back, dropping the gun to the ground beneath him. McDonald slid halfway down the floor, gripping a seat's arm and pulling himself up.
"Kieran!"
McDonald and Kieran, out of his mentally anulled state just enough to listen, jerked their heads in the voice's direction. Fitzgerald stood at the exit to the chamber, waving a hand to Kieran and yelling to get out of the building.
"Forget it, Fitzgerald! His hide is as good as mine!" McDonald yelled. He was a rather athletic man for his size, and, even wearing a tuxedo, he beat Kieran to the exit. A sidearm then swung straight at Kieran's jaw.
Kieran stumbled back, clutching his mouth in pain. Dollops of blood dropped from his chin to the flooring. He glared at McDonald, but did not curse him out. He did not even flinch. He just took his body backwards, one step at a time, until he hit the wall. Grimacing, Kieran ripped a shoe off and launched it at McDonald with his free hand but missed by a mile. He hurled the other, but the end result was even worse. McDonald had caught it.
McDonald sauntered towards him, tearing his suit off as he walked. He threw it into the aisle closest to him, raised the hand with Kieran's hiking boot in it, and stopped a few feet away. His arm still poised to destroy Kieran's neck, McDonald grinned. In the crepuscular light, he could not see Lawrence Fitzgerald creep up behind him and raise a suitcase high above their heads.
***
The suitcase and Judge Matthias McDonald, all of forty-three years, clattered to the ground juxtapositioned at the feet of Kieran Long, who could just smirk at the sight. "Nice job there. I guess I was hitting all sevens when I hired you," he said. Fitzgerald walked out of the darkness beneath a catwalk and took his suitcase from the bloody head of Judge McDonald.
"No problem. I rigged the lottery," Fitzgerald said. He stifled a short burst of laughter.
Kieran walked towards the aisle with his blood on it, reached down, and came back with Fitzgerald's pistol. "Here. Thanks for pulling me out."
Fitzgerald rolled his eyes and stuffed the gun in his case. "No comment. Now then, " he said, pulling up his belt, "what do we do with this?"
Kieran looked at him with flaccid hope in his eyes. "Son of a gun, Larry! Why couldn't you plan this ahead of time?!" he screamed, but Fitzgerald put an arm around him.
"Relax, man, relax. I was just kidding. I've hired a newspaper editor to botch the story and make it sound like the execution actually went through. They'll never know what happened here!" Fitzgerald applauded himself, then continued. "I've got friends in high places, Kieran. They'll erase all signs of this undertaking AND get rid of McDonald and Tollich for us. Huh, huh?" He nudged Kieran, who could just smile weakly. He was too engaged with the thought of how this spiritual cicatrix would bode for him. He could not bear many more murder burdens.
"Yeah, that's fine," he said, trying to get Fitzgerald off his back. "Just make sure it works, okay?"
"Alright. Just one question," he proposed. "Where are we going to hide you?"
Kieran cursed out loud, then yanked the suitcase out of Fitzgerald's hands. He pulled out the pistol from a pocket behind some files. "Hide my shell, you mean." Kieran kissed the barrel, then pulled it right up to the side of his head. "Don't try to stop me, Larry. You can't do anything now. I will admit this though - clients need you," he said, then tightened his grip on the trigger.
He tightened it till it popped. Had Natalie been there, she might have witnessed the death of love.
***
Chapter 1: Baleful Swan
Crass cries of mercy. Churlish cheers of no relent. Natalie could not take it anymore. The bestial savagery had to end. Let torrent the wrath of Natalie Allison Long.
"Little stinker!" Another harmful punch, followed by a shove to little Edward Miller's midsection, and he was lying face-down in the mud, just as always. No one had dared to help him. Everyone was too scared of Johnny Massey's group of musclebound morons. If they snitched, they would more or less die by his hand. Everyone just figured that they could not beat him. They joined him instead.
Eddy Miller was a new kid, and as everyone at Hampton Intermediate knows, new kids are just bait for the Masseykids, as they have come to be called. The saga has endured for four whole years thanks to the fact that Hampton is a fifth-to-eighth grade school. Johnny is the oldest one, at fourteen-going-on-fifteen, and he just does not think that highly of younger kids. Natalie is just twelve, but as far as the Masseykid rules are concerned, she has to be left alone. Why: she is a girl.
Everyone has a secret in them, as legend has it at Hampton, and Natalie's was one of the best-kept. Her little clandestine operative was to get involved with the Masseykids. Just on the opposing side. So, when Eddy Miller was the latest to get the axe from Johnny, she just had to jump in.
Johnny cursed Eddy out, much to the satisfaction of his regime. "Die already! Die!" Johnny kicked Eddy's shins, took off his shoes, and chucked them at his head. Luckily for Eddy, Johnny was not a very good aim. He grunted, and his troop mimicked him. They tried to please Johnny as much as he did to them. "Alright," Johnny said, "who wants to be the next one to kick the Miller kid's butt?" A big cheer echoed from his crowd. "Sisson, you seem able enough. Show us what you got!"
"My pleasure." A chunky boy waddled out of the crowd and pumped his fists. He was none too smart, but he weighed about a hundred-and-fifty. It was rumored that Sisson's parents trained him by using junkyard cars as punching bags, so Johnny figured he had a good arm.
As Sisson stepped up the hill to Johnny, an outsider dashed out from the left and kneed Sisson's chest. Sisson flipped and rolled, bowling over several skinny kids from the outcrops of the pack before hitting the slide with his head.
Johnny froze and pointed frightfully at the one who knocked Sisson out. "A-a girl?" he sputtered.
Her smooth, flowing blond hair was wrapped in a loose ponytail at the back with a thin tuft of it on the right side of her forehead. A dark pink tee shirt lay underneath a neon blue jacket that ended at the mid-forearm. She also wore short blue pants that ended halfway below her kneecaps. White Nikes just further accented her tomboyish demeanor. Aside from her ears, adorned with a normal-sized diamond earring followed by a smaller stud on both lobes, she was all tomboy. This was Natalie Long.
"Out barrel butt goes," Natalie said. She folded her arms behind her head and turned towards Johnny. "Hey, Sassy. I'd suggest getting some new guys for this 'group' of yours."
Johnny ran down the hill with a fist held up, but went right into a trap. Natalie tossed her head sideways, Johnny's punch swooping over her head, and met his forehead with a clothesline. He smacked her arm and slid down the hill on his back, heels scraping the concrete before coming to a halt at the hands of his followers. His right-hand man, Toby Denton, helped him upright and dusted his shirt off.
Johnny smirked, then tightened the bandanna on his head. "Toby, get Randall out here. I think we've got a challenger."
"Aye, sir," Toby yelped, saluting Johnny and diving into the crowd once again.
Natalie stepped off the hill and onto the concrete, eyeing Toby as his stout body effaced into the bodies of the Masseykids. She knew each of them now had a grudge on her just as Johnny did. "So, how big are we talking?" she asked, sizing up the Masseykids. "Fifty to a hundred?" She asked no one in particular this time around.
Greenway Jones, a tall, slim boy whose breath smelled of cigarettes, spoke this time. "Hundred-and-forty-six last time I counted," he said.
Natalie knew he could not count. Greenway was dumber than a doorknob. "I'll take my own word for it, thank you." She flexed her fingers, rolled her shoulders, and swayed her neck in a colubrine fashion. "Who's first?"
Johnny smiled connivingly, then motioned his hands outwards. The colonnade of boys shifted slightly and cleared way as Toby tugged along Randall Hodges, an eighth-grader who looked twice as big as Sisson. "Here he . . . is," Toby grunted, then sat his butt on the concrete, tired from the lag of Randall.
Johnny ripped a wheat stalk from the grass and dehisced wide to chomp on it. He twirled it around in his mouth, then folded his arms behind his back. "Let the fight begin." He walked up the hill, kicked Eddy down again, and sat on a swing. Natalie smiled at his audacity, then sat on the concrete.
"What's the point of fighting if you only watch? Don't you have to be in the fight to enjoy it?" Natalie asked the Masseykids, Toby in particular. She took advantage of the cessation and tried to think up a plan that would not hurt anyone. She may have hated Johnny for all he had done, but she was at least compassionate enough to try to implant some reason into her enemies before battle . . . except for the fact that this was not reason.
Greenway looked at her. An odd look crossed him. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Isn't Johnny holding all of you back from what you enjoy most? Fighting? Okay, how many of you think it's the best thing in the world?" Natalie's question made almost every hand raise to the highest heaven. "How many would like to be in every fight you saw?" Only three hands went down. "Do you agree now that Johnny's not letting you participate?" Now every hand, even that of Greenway and Toby, was up.
Natalie stood up, holding her arm out toward Johnny. "Then fight for your rights!" she screamed. The entire group blitzed up the hill, avoiding Natalie and, surprisingly, Eddy Miller, who had cleaned the mud off himself and was running to catch up to Natalie. Both of them walked on towards the school's back door before Eddy jumped in front of Natalie.
"Look, Natalie!" Eddy yelped, catching her off guard. She realized who it was, suppressed a sigh, and turned to where the fifth grader pointed. The Masseykids had become the Longboys as Johnny Massey was beaten and thrown in the air by the Judas clones. Natalie laughed aloud, her eyes bursting with joyous tears.
"Are you okay?" Eddy asked. Natalie rested on the wall of the school, realizing that her laughter was very exaggerated. Eddy dropped to his knees and felt her head for a couple seconds.
"Relax, Eddy. I'm fine," she answered, wiping the unneeded water from her face. Eddy relapsed his worry and set his back on the wall too.
"I'm sorry," he admitted, though with humorous intentions.
"Okay, okay. Can we stop with the seriousness? We're just waiting for the bell."
Eddy obeyed, somewhat amused with how cogent Natalie was. He folded his arms and just stared at her face. " . . . Your ponytail looks beautiful."
Natalie almost blushed, but a rancorous tintinnabulation concealed her soft side from those prying eyes.
***
And bang, it was another ten-minute questionnaire of a car ride.
"So, how was school?" Natalie's mother, Petra, asked.
Natalie rolled her eyes and smiled with fifty-percent effort, fifty-percent routine happiness. "Fine, mom. Do you always have to ask?"
"I'm just doing my job, Natalie. Show some respect," she said as she drove the regular route home. Natalie leaned her head on the window and agreed to show some respect if she had any. Right now, she did not. Right now, autarchy was with her parents, and she was just a subject in a court she was reluctant to be in.
Petra ran a hand through her brown hair, which was somewhat sordid. "Did you eat all of your lunch?" The questions came like gunfire, rapid and blunt. Natalie replied yes, but had thrown it away.
"Do your homework?" Did not have any.
"Talk to friends?" Was she dumb?
"Make a friend?" The Masseykids-turned-Longboys were just a fan club.
And so on. Natalie tired of it, but they arrived home then. "Finally," she said, sighing with relief as she slung her backpack over her shoulders and closed the door of the blue Civic.
The Long family house was not a mansion but a nice two-story domicile in the semi-wealthy neighborhoods of Hampton, Tennessee. The home itself was about thirty years old and had never had a renovation. Sure, there had been a pest outbreak and a tornado or two for the first owner, but, from Natalie's recent memory, the house was spic-and-span year-round. The bricks were like most others, except the cement holding them together was much thicker than most homes'. There were little paint peelings in the frame, inside and outside, and the furnishings were almost all relics of their time. Yes, the Long family just liked the house as it was and rarely changed anything. Even Natalie liked the old-time feel.
Walking in the front door, Natalie was just able to drop off her backpack before being snatched up by her father, Carlos, and carried into the living room. She somewhat loathed her mother, but did like her dad when it came to play time. However, this was ridiculous.
"Come on, dad! Stop it!" Natalie yelled, but to no avail. She was one of those people whose parents actually knew her ticklish areas, but Natalie decided that bit was apprised with discretion, so that shall be left out.
Carlos let her relax after about ten seconds of supererogation. They sat on the couch, quiet, before Natalie shifted over to give her dad a hug. He accepted, then let Natalie off his plaid shirt and sent her upstairs to do her thing.
"Ahem," Petra grunted, a small smile upon her, to which Carlos just rubbed his dark brown scalp and gave a nervous smile in return. He just loved it when she was left out of things on accident.
"Sorry, dear. Just had too much play on the brain," Carlos explained, to which he was slapped on the cheek.
Petra forgave him, gave him a hug, and went into the kitchen to get dinner started. As she turned the dial of the stove, Natalie called down, "Turkey!" Petra also heard clapping and whooping from upstairs.
"Kids," she sighed, and both parents began to wonder how she guessed.
***
"Alright, where are you? . . . Ah, here we go!" Natalie pulled out a MAD magazine from her comic pile and laid it out in front of her. She had persuaded her dad to get a two-year subscription awhile back, and her mother did not care. It was either that or she did not know. Regardless, she had not been bothered by Petra once.
She hopped on her bed and started admiring the demarcated designs on the covers. Curling flowers lined the top sheet at every angle, as purple converged with pink, red connected with purple, and pink intertwined with red upon the petals. She traced the stems with her index finger repeatedly while reading MAD, skimming through the pages until she found the "MAD look at" section, her favorite part.
"And today we look at . . ." she announced, glancing at the title, "murder." She made a pretend cackle.
"Panel one, the guy thinks about murdering his wife..." she started. "Two, the guy decides to shove her off cliff . . . Three, execution . . ." Natalie paused to think about how that might actually work out and chuckled once it formulated in her head. "Four. The guy misses as his wife ducks. And he falls off!" She laughed more at her own voice than the comic itself.
Natalie liked to do play-by-plays on comics no matter what kind. It was if she had a special talent with broadcasting that had her effervesced every time she worked her magic. Often times, Carlos compared her talents to that late Boston Celtics broadcaster, Johnny Most. She resented comparisons to a man. The nerve.
Reading the next few, she decided to take some time to herself and read through without her soliloquies to interrupt her. They featured many bizarre murder cases that Natalie had not thought possible until she saw them here with her own eyes.
Finally, after about ten minutes worth of badinage with MAD, she flipped the book over and stacked it on the pile once again. "I'll see you later, Alfred," she said, then rolled over and took her iPhone off the bookshelf. A few quick touches got her to the song page, and she looked through her Rihanna list. She had liked a few of her old ones but "Only Girl", which for a tomboy was an odd pick, was the big one. Natalie Long was a deviant, and no one can blame her. She grew up and lived by the "puissant rule", as described by Kieran.
Let love divagate from the ones that seek you the most, and let love flow to the ones that love you the most.
There is a big difference between "seeking" and "loving". As Natalie puts it, "seeking" is amorous or sentimental pursuit, whereas "loving" is showing that you truly care about them. Kieran had also said that, and the thought of it had Natalie down. But right now, she was Natalie Long, not some overanxious little sister, and she wanted nothing to stop her time as herself.
She started playing "Only Girl", the only Rihanna song that actually had any real value to her. It taught her the true value of Kieran's teachings, as she was the only girl in her own world.
Now listening to the opening chords, Natalie took great interest in the song of her choice, letting the music infuse her being with essence and purpose once again. She smiled warmly to herself, shoved Kieran into place as the one thought in her mind, and started to sing with the power of the one girl who could master this dirge. That was herself, and herself alone.
***
Crass cries of mercy. Churlish cheers of no relent. Natalie could not take it anymore. The bestial savagery had to end. Let torrent the wrath of Natalie Allison Long.
"Little stinker!" Another harmful punch, followed by a shove to little Edward Miller's midsection, and he was lying face-down in the mud, just as always. No one had dared to help him. Everyone was too scared of Johnny Massey's group of musclebound morons. If they snitched, they would more or less die by his hand. Everyone just figured that they could not beat him. They joined him instead.
Eddy Miller was a new kid, and as everyone at Hampton Intermediate knows, new kids are just bait for the Masseykids, as they have come to be called. The saga has endured for four whole years thanks to the fact that Hampton is a fifth-to-eighth grade school. Johnny is the oldest one, at fourteen-going-on-fifteen, and he just does not think that highly of younger kids. Natalie is just twelve, but as far as the Masseykid rules are concerned, she has to be left alone. Why: she is a girl.
Everyone has a secret in them, as legend has it at Hampton, and Natalie's was one of the best-kept. Her little clandestine operative was to get involved with the Masseykids. Just on the opposing side. So, when Eddy Miller was the latest to get the axe from Johnny, she just had to jump in.
Johnny cursed Eddy out, much to the satisfaction of his regime. "Die already! Die!" Johnny kicked Eddy's shins, took off his shoes, and chucked them at his head. Luckily for Eddy, Johnny was not a very good aim. He grunted, and his troop mimicked him. They tried to please Johnny as much as he did to them. "Alright," Johnny said, "who wants to be the next one to kick the Miller kid's butt?" A big cheer echoed from his crowd. "Sisson, you seem able enough. Show us what you got!"
"My pleasure." A chunky boy waddled out of the crowd and pumped his fists. He was none too smart, but he weighed about a hundred-and-fifty. It was rumored that Sisson's parents trained him by using junkyard cars as punching bags, so Johnny figured he had a good arm.
As Sisson stepped up the hill to Johnny, an outsider dashed out from the left and kneed Sisson's chest. Sisson flipped and rolled, bowling over several skinny kids from the outcrops of the pack before hitting the slide with his head.
Johnny froze and pointed frightfully at the one who knocked Sisson out. "A-a girl?" he sputtered.
Her smooth, flowing blond hair was wrapped in a loose ponytail at the back with a thin tuft of it on the right side of her forehead. A dark pink tee shirt lay underneath a neon blue jacket that ended at the mid-forearm. She also wore short blue pants that ended halfway below her kneecaps. White Nikes just further accented her tomboyish demeanor. Aside from her ears, adorned with a normal-sized diamond earring followed by a smaller stud on both lobes, she was all tomboy. This was Natalie Long.
"Out barrel butt goes," Natalie said. She folded her arms behind her head and turned towards Johnny. "Hey, Sassy. I'd suggest getting some new guys for this 'group' of yours."
Johnny ran down the hill with a fist held up, but went right into a trap. Natalie tossed her head sideways, Johnny's punch swooping over her head, and met his forehead with a clothesline. He smacked her arm and slid down the hill on his back, heels scraping the concrete before coming to a halt at the hands of his followers. His right-hand man, Toby Denton, helped him upright and dusted his shirt off.
Johnny smirked, then tightened the bandanna on his head. "Toby, get Randall out here. I think we've got a challenger."
"Aye, sir," Toby yelped, saluting Johnny and diving into the crowd once again.
Natalie stepped off the hill and onto the concrete, eyeing Toby as his stout body effaced into the bodies of the Masseykids. She knew each of them now had a grudge on her just as Johnny did. "So, how big are we talking?" she asked, sizing up the Masseykids. "Fifty to a hundred?" She asked no one in particular this time around.
Greenway Jones, a tall, slim boy whose breath smelled of cigarettes, spoke this time. "Hundred-and-forty-six last time I counted," he said.
Natalie knew he could not count. Greenway was dumber than a doorknob. "I'll take my own word for it, thank you." She flexed her fingers, rolled her shoulders, and swayed her neck in a colubrine fashion. "Who's first?"
Johnny smiled connivingly, then motioned his hands outwards. The colonnade of boys shifted slightly and cleared way as Toby tugged along Randall Hodges, an eighth-grader who looked twice as big as Sisson. "Here he . . . is," Toby grunted, then sat his butt on the concrete, tired from the lag of Randall.
Johnny ripped a wheat stalk from the grass and dehisced wide to chomp on it. He twirled it around in his mouth, then folded his arms behind his back. "Let the fight begin." He walked up the hill, kicked Eddy down again, and sat on a swing. Natalie smiled at his audacity, then sat on the concrete.
"What's the point of fighting if you only watch? Don't you have to be in the fight to enjoy it?" Natalie asked the Masseykids, Toby in particular. She took advantage of the cessation and tried to think up a plan that would not hurt anyone. She may have hated Johnny for all he had done, but she was at least compassionate enough to try to implant some reason into her enemies before battle . . . except for the fact that this was not reason.
Greenway looked at her. An odd look crossed him. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Isn't Johnny holding all of you back from what you enjoy most? Fighting? Okay, how many of you think it's the best thing in the world?" Natalie's question made almost every hand raise to the highest heaven. "How many would like to be in every fight you saw?" Only three hands went down. "Do you agree now that Johnny's not letting you participate?" Now every hand, even that of Greenway and Toby, was up.
Natalie stood up, holding her arm out toward Johnny. "Then fight for your rights!" she screamed. The entire group blitzed up the hill, avoiding Natalie and, surprisingly, Eddy Miller, who had cleaned the mud off himself and was running to catch up to Natalie. Both of them walked on towards the school's back door before Eddy jumped in front of Natalie.
"Look, Natalie!" Eddy yelped, catching her off guard. She realized who it was, suppressed a sigh, and turned to where the fifth grader pointed. The Masseykids had become the Longboys as Johnny Massey was beaten and thrown in the air by the Judas clones. Natalie laughed aloud, her eyes bursting with joyous tears.
"Are you okay?" Eddy asked. Natalie rested on the wall of the school, realizing that her laughter was very exaggerated. Eddy dropped to his knees and felt her head for a couple seconds.
"Relax, Eddy. I'm fine," she answered, wiping the unneeded water from her face. Eddy relapsed his worry and set his back on the wall too.
"I'm sorry," he admitted, though with humorous intentions.
"Okay, okay. Can we stop with the seriousness? We're just waiting for the bell."
Eddy obeyed, somewhat amused with how cogent Natalie was. He folded his arms and just stared at her face. " . . . Your ponytail looks beautiful."
Natalie almost blushed, but a rancorous tintinnabulation concealed her soft side from those prying eyes.
***
And bang, it was another ten-minute questionnaire of a car ride.
"So, how was school?" Natalie's mother, Petra, asked.
Natalie rolled her eyes and smiled with fifty-percent effort, fifty-percent routine happiness. "Fine, mom. Do you always have to ask?"
"I'm just doing my job, Natalie. Show some respect," she said as she drove the regular route home. Natalie leaned her head on the window and agreed to show some respect if she had any. Right now, she did not. Right now, autarchy was with her parents, and she was just a subject in a court she was reluctant to be in.
Petra ran a hand through her brown hair, which was somewhat sordid. "Did you eat all of your lunch?" The questions came like gunfire, rapid and blunt. Natalie replied yes, but had thrown it away.
"Do your homework?" Did not have any.
"Talk to friends?" Was she dumb?
"Make a friend?" The Masseykids-turned-Longboys were just a fan club.
And so on. Natalie tired of it, but they arrived home then. "Finally," she said, sighing with relief as she slung her backpack over her shoulders and closed the door of the blue Civic.
The Long family house was not a mansion but a nice two-story domicile in the semi-wealthy neighborhoods of Hampton, Tennessee. The home itself was about thirty years old and had never had a renovation. Sure, there had been a pest outbreak and a tornado or two for the first owner, but, from Natalie's recent memory, the house was spic-and-span year-round. The bricks were like most others, except the cement holding them together was much thicker than most homes'. There were little paint peelings in the frame, inside and outside, and the furnishings were almost all relics of their time. Yes, the Long family just liked the house as it was and rarely changed anything. Even Natalie liked the old-time feel.
Walking in the front door, Natalie was just able to drop off her backpack before being snatched up by her father, Carlos, and carried into the living room. She somewhat loathed her mother, but did like her dad when it came to play time. However, this was ridiculous.
"Come on, dad! Stop it!" Natalie yelled, but to no avail. She was one of those people whose parents actually knew her ticklish areas, but Natalie decided that bit was apprised with discretion, so that shall be left out.
Carlos let her relax after about ten seconds of supererogation. They sat on the couch, quiet, before Natalie shifted over to give her dad a hug. He accepted, then let Natalie off his plaid shirt and sent her upstairs to do her thing.
"Ahem," Petra grunted, a small smile upon her, to which Carlos just rubbed his dark brown scalp and gave a nervous smile in return. He just loved it when she was left out of things on accident.
"Sorry, dear. Just had too much play on the brain," Carlos explained, to which he was slapped on the cheek.
Petra forgave him, gave him a hug, and went into the kitchen to get dinner started. As she turned the dial of the stove, Natalie called down, "Turkey!" Petra also heard clapping and whooping from upstairs.
"Kids," she sighed, and both parents began to wonder how she guessed.
***
"Alright, where are you? . . . Ah, here we go!" Natalie pulled out a MAD magazine from her comic pile and laid it out in front of her. She had persuaded her dad to get a two-year subscription awhile back, and her mother did not care. It was either that or she did not know. Regardless, she had not been bothered by Petra once.
She hopped on her bed and started admiring the demarcated designs on the covers. Curling flowers lined the top sheet at every angle, as purple converged with pink, red connected with purple, and pink intertwined with red upon the petals. She traced the stems with her index finger repeatedly while reading MAD, skimming through the pages until she found the "MAD look at" section, her favorite part.
"And today we look at . . ." she announced, glancing at the title, "murder." She made a pretend cackle.
"Panel one, the guy thinks about murdering his wife..." she started. "Two, the guy decides to shove her off cliff . . . Three, execution . . ." Natalie paused to think about how that might actually work out and chuckled once it formulated in her head. "Four. The guy misses as his wife ducks. And he falls off!" She laughed more at her own voice than the comic itself.
Natalie liked to do play-by-plays on comics no matter what kind. It was if she had a special talent with broadcasting that had her effervesced every time she worked her magic. Often times, Carlos compared her talents to that late Boston Celtics broadcaster, Johnny Most. She resented comparisons to a man. The nerve.
Reading the next few, she decided to take some time to herself and read through without her soliloquies to interrupt her. They featured many bizarre murder cases that Natalie had not thought possible until she saw them here with her own eyes.
Finally, after about ten minutes worth of badinage with MAD, she flipped the book over and stacked it on the pile once again. "I'll see you later, Alfred," she said, then rolled over and took her iPhone off the bookshelf. A few quick touches got her to the song page, and she looked through her Rihanna list. She had liked a few of her old ones but "Only Girl", which for a tomboy was an odd pick, was the big one. Natalie Long was a deviant, and no one can blame her. She grew up and lived by the "puissant rule", as described by Kieran.
Let love divagate from the ones that seek you the most, and let love flow to the ones that love you the most.
There is a big difference between "seeking" and "loving". As Natalie puts it, "seeking" is amorous or sentimental pursuit, whereas "loving" is showing that you truly care about them. Kieran had also said that, and the thought of it had Natalie down. But right now, she was Natalie Long, not some overanxious little sister, and she wanted nothing to stop her time as herself.
She started playing "Only Girl", the only Rihanna song that actually had any real value to her. It taught her the true value of Kieran's teachings, as she was the only girl in her own world.
Now listening to the opening chords, Natalie took great interest in the song of her choice, letting the music infuse her being with essence and purpose once again. She smiled warmly to herself, shoved Kieran into place as the one thought in her mind, and started to sing with the power of the one girl who could master this dirge. That was herself, and herself alone.
***
And there is the start of The Price Of Revenge. Took me 8 hours to write, so I hope you enjoy it. ~AoH
Liking the vivid description.