Boseman High School Shenanigans: Episode 1

Too late Emily watches the scene unfold as if it's in slow motion. Her hair is dripping wet, her glasses now askew from the unsuccessful attempt at grabbing Freddie and she swears she can hear a crack when he makes contact with Marco. Then Lilly screams and appears to be losing her shit.

"The cops are coming." The scene was too surreal with the rain and the blood and Freddie and Marco fighting and Rosie and a bloody pool cue. "Are you okay Freddie? You really gave him the business. Should I call an ambulance? I better call an ambulance."

Punching 911 into her phone for a second time today she tells the dispatcher that a man is injured and unresponsive as far as she can tell from her view in the rain.

When Wendy grabs the pool cue, Emily sees her chance to slide in next to Freddie. With things becoming less traumatic, and cops and ambulances hopefully on the way, Emily relaxes a bit and grips Freddie's arm. Looking smokin' hot, dripping wet as he is, she is reminded of their kiss by the river and decides she wouldn't mind doing that again sometime soon.

"That was pretty brave the way you stood up for your sister." The only reason she doesn't bat her eyelashes at him is the incessant rain.

"You could have just asked," Zach tells Rose, rubbing her arm. "Though you wouldn't have liked our party. We were doing nerd stuff." With that, he bends down over Marco to check him over and see if there's anything he can do until the ambulance arrives. He's taken a basic first aid course some time ago, but he's not sure how much of it stuck.Zach remembers the cracking noise he heard when Fred rammed into Marco and he notices the raspy, troubled breathing of the older boy, so he decides to check his chest. He opens Marco's jacket and pulls up the boy's shirt. There is a nasty bruise forming on his chest. It looks like it hurts. Unfortunately, Zach has no idea what to do about it. If Marco was bleeding, maybe he could put a bandage on, but this... He has no idea. He does, to his dismay, notice, however, that Marco's chest looks really good. As much as Zach dislikes the older boy, he does look in pretty good shape. Pretending to be inspecting the bruise, he lightly lets a hand brush over Marco's chest before catching himself and pulling back. He pulls the shirt back down and looks up at his sister.
As he does, he notices that Aaron has approached as well by now and he's standing right next to Rose. It worries him a bit, considering he did namedrop Aaron as someone he finds cute to Rose recently. "I'm not sure what to do," he tells them both. "It looks pretty bad, but I think we'll just have to wait for the actual paramedics."

Zach's cheeks immediately flush bright red. "What?" he asks her. "I don't know what you're talking about!" His eyes dart between Aaron, Rose and Marco. Of course she would embarrass him like this in front of his crush. But did she really just out him as gay in front of Marco? Zach clears his throat, having no idea how to react to this situation. "Well, uhm, this is Aaron," he says to her awkwardly before turning to him. "Aaron, this is Rose, my little sister."

"You saw her, didn’t you?" Lily says, with pleading eyes as she looks at Wendy. Her nose is wettening, and she sniffles heavily.

Then, she looks back to the scene. Anger begins to bubble in place of fear.

"Why was she out here?" she asks Wendy, sudden hardness in her voice.

"I was scared for you, and I just hit them."

She relives the whack in her mind for a moment. She feels the weight of the blow, and the animal instinct that was driving her.

Freddie acts like he's surprised that this all happened so fast. He stares daggers at Lily, but in his mind, he sees only Marco dragging Debby into the darkness to predate on her like he does Rose. Rose seems to be willing, even into it, but Debby is different for so many reasons. "Fucking child rapist come to my house, to mess with my sisters? Give me that cue, Lily, let me finish him off." He struggles to get away from Emily, just not too hard.

And Lily, how does he even process that?

"They created this mess, Lily. Dialed it up to 11, and you reacted. It was an accident, wasn't it?"

He blinks the rain and tears from his eyes, and feels his stomach revolt. Puking into the bushes, he sees his father go through the windscreen, dying instantly. In the rain. So much blood. Blood in the rain.

"Debby!?" he bawls.

Emily tries to keep Freddie with her, settle him down. Truth be told his devotion surprises her, and in a warm and fuzzy way. But she loses her grip on him after he halfheartedly tries to shake her off but then the barf attack happens and she lets him go. He's been triggered, and suddenly he's vulnerable, making her want to soothe him even more, but after he brushes his teeth.

She does go to him though.

"You'll be okay, Freddie. Come on. Let's get you into the house and get you dried off," she suggests, offering a hand. "The cops will be here any minute."

Freddie falls to his knees beside his sister, and resists pulling her into his arms -- never move the injured if you suspect a spine or head injury. He pulls his shirt off, and holds it to her bleeding head to staunch the bloodflow. "Debby, stay with me!" he pleads.

"She'll be ok." Emily has seen worse but she wasn't going to mention that.

"Hear that? Help is on the way." She is now down on her knees beside Freddie rubbing his back.

"I think she'll be fine. You guys being hysterical won't help though," she says, glancing up at Wendy and Lilly.

Seeing that there's nothing Zach can figure out to help Marco anymore and that he has Rose to look out for him, Zach now takes a moment around. Wendy is working to calm down Lily, Emily is comforting Freddy, so he heads over to Sarah, who is by herself, crying in shock over her injured sister. He doesn't actually know the girl, beyond those few minutes she and Debby hung out in the basement with them earlier, but he puts a hand on her shoulder. "She's going to be alright. Head injuries always look worse than they are," he says, trying to reassure her a bit. He takes a breath, then, trying to remove her from the scene to give her a chance to calm down, he suggests, "Maybe we should go get your mom."

Emily looks over to see the hard face of Lily watching the downed sister.

Does she look… disheveled?…

Lily wonders, thinking back to the strangely violent tendencies of the disheveled teachers at school.

Then, as Wendy speaks, Lily gives in to the softness… the reassurance. She allows herself to sink into Wendy for a moment, as the adrenaline of it all starts to taper away. She doesn’t want to break the silence of it, but she does wonder:

Should we call our parents?…

"It's not devil-worshipping," Zach says defensively. He blinks in surprise at this strange start to the investigation. He's heard of those types of accusations, but thought they fell out of fashion thirty years or so ago. "It's more like a boardgame." He clears his throat. That's not important right now anyway. "Well, we - that's me, Emily, Lily, Wendy and Freddy - usually play boardgames at school, during lunch. But today, we got interrupted and didn't get to, so we decided to meet up at Freddy's place to do it instead."

Fred is shirtless, his (one and only) dragon-themed shirt having been tossed somewhere by a paramedic when they treated Debby. He feels vulnerable, and the rage he had felt is gone. Until he thinks of Marco coming to his house when Debby and Sarah are out. Those girls are still healing, intensely vulnerable, and the images Marco planted in him of Rose giving him head and more immediately get his blood boiling. The holding room is cool, but he just goes with it, remembering swimming the chilly river. That was cold, this is nothing.

The sheriff has asked him something. He looks at the cop, eyes swimming with barely controlled ire. "Sorry, did you just ask me about a board game? Are you were serious. Look, there's no such thing as magic you fucktard, so why don't you go chain that pedophile to the hospital bed so he doesn't sneak down to the kiddie ward and spoil all your best marks!"

Okay, Fred, that was a bit much.

He switches his voice to a poor mockery of southern yokel-speak. "Pizza and soda, just like at Salem. Jesus H. Christ, Earl, it's a God Damned cult is what it is!"

That was definitely too far. Think of something softer.

Emily. What had she whispered, when the cops rolled up? Something like, "Let's meet at the river after this." The river, where they had almost made out, an unexpected kiss, not rebuked. Until she did rebuke him and went off with Rose, giving him dark looks. They hadn't talked seriously since then.

"Sorry, I was busy thinking about Jesus' love. Could you repeat that?"

Emily is pretty tough when it comes to cops and isn't intimidated. With all the family has been up to she's seen and heard things and fancies a career in less than legal undertakings. This particular cop is annoying and disgusting with his lips smacking gum chewing and his concealed eyes behind those ridiculous sunglasses.

A detective wanna-be no doubt.

"Don't I get a glass of water or something?"

"I haven't ever played the Dungeons' and Dragons, officer. Besides it was Pathfinder. I know how you guys like to be accurate. I've seen it on TV." She smiles sweetly like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Her wet hair is still dripping though, which is makes a little dark spot on the thighs of her jeans. "Um, what was I doing there? That's easy. I was playing Pathfinder."

She knows what that cop is doing with his Freddie comment and decides to have a little fun with it.

"Freddie is a nice guy. Yeah, he kinda promised me something. We arranged to meet at the river and finish what we started." She leaves that dangling.