Cassie gripped both straps of her bag, slung over her shoulder as she traversed from one end of the school to the other. Her mind was preoccupied with Alvin, how Wendy had disregarded her threats and proceeded to maim Alvin. It could have been worse but she reasoned  it was no excuse for Wendy’s actions.

 The afternoon sun beat down on her relentlessly, the spring air feeling more like a summer heat but this was a shortcut to the school track from her lab session. She could never understand why the Titan science labs had to be built in one corner of the compound, exposing every Titan to the elements whenever she had to use the place. She had of course asked a teacher but all she got from him was “ Can’t have tonnes of chemicals in the same building as amazons and normals.”

 She didn’t appreciate his attitude either, treating the question as an insult to his intelligence and answered her question in the most condescending manner possible. Although the incident was over a year ago, the incident still rankled her but that rude little man had never been assigned a class she had since.

 Nevertheless, she was feeling upbeat about seeing Alvin again. Even if it meant exposing her sun kissed skin to the unrelenting afternoon sun, she’d risk it. Most of the student body didn’t share her sentiments, retreating to the cooler confines of the classroom.

  The sound of laughter broke her concentration, Cassie’s slender neck twisting to her left. What she saw made her seethe with rage. There was Wendy, head thrown back as she guffawed at Camilla’s joke.

 Cassie’s hands become clenched at the mere sight of them, subconsciously cracking her knuckles as she considered the thought of getting a little payback on behalf of Alvin. Would she have time?

 Cassie glanced at her phone, deftly grabbing it from her back pocket. Her tongue clicked as she the liquid crystal screen displayed the scant amount of time she had before she’d be too late for track practice.

  Still, it didn’t mean she had to pass up such an opportunity. It would be perfect, none of them even noticed her and if Cassie got herself into a chase, her longer gait would more than compensate for any headstart Wendy had.

Screw it, I can be a little late for Alvin, she thought to herself s as she bounded towards Wendy, her legs executing the  order before she even made it conscious.

*******

 “Shit!” Wendy and Camilla exclaimed together as they fled from the advancing form of Cassie.

 Cassie was impossible not to notice once she charged at them, her deafening  threat to string up Wendy had caught their attention. Unwilling to let Cassie close the gap, they took flight, against a foe whose finger could pin and crush them with ease.

  Her shadow had already engulfed them in darkness, Cassie’s umbra shadowing covering them no matter how much they willed themselves to accelerate.

 “ It’s pointless to run little Wendy, I know what you did to Alvin!” Cassie thundered. She reached down to grasp Wendy but the missed, her fingers brushing against Wendy’s maroon top.

 The brush with death only spurred Wendy on but now only a Titan arm’s length away from Cassie and with her legs saturated with lactic acid, her body had reached its bursting point.

 Then, Wendy felt her legs crumple as Cassie’s fingers slammed into her spine, pinning her to the floor. Cassie chuckled as she stood over the pair , Camilla frozen with fear. Her mind blanked as she watched Cassie once again demonstrate the futility of fighting her.

 “ Stop! What the hell have I done to you, you oversized bitch!!!” Wendy cried as Cassie tugged Wendy by the fabric of her top. Her hands dug into the soil, holding on to tufts of grass as she expended whatever energy she had left, pulling out handfuls of dirt as both plant and Amazon lost out to the unstoppable force acting on them.

 “ You know what you did!” Cassie snapped at her. Both girls contemplated what to do next, Wendy praying for a quick one while Cassie deliberated on the most painful punishment she could inflict.

 After spacing out, Camilla finally snapped back to reality upon hearing Cassie’s words and leapt to Wendy’s rescue, punching Cassie’s pointer finger as hard as she could, her jabs like the sting from a bee.

“ Ow!” Cassie yelped, her finger starting to sport deep purple blotches from where Camilla’s blows had land. An Amazon may be weaker than a Titan but they had the muscle power  to bruise and even crack a Titan’s bones in the most extreme cases.

 Cassie flicked her thumb at Camilla, catching her in the stomach and sending her flying back on to the pavement, where she lay still, conscious but with the wind knocked out of her sails.

  With that settled, Cassie wasted no time in stuffing Wendy into a side compartment of her bag, the polyester walls containing her.  Wendy landed on top of a beaten green stress ball as large as she was before Cassie zipped up the roof of her new prison.

 “ Don’t feel too bad Camilla, that’s your name right?” Cassie addressed the defeated girl.

 Camilla glowered wordlessly  at Cassie as she lay prone on her back.

 “ I’ve got nothing against you but your friend on the other hand…” She gave the bag a vigorous shake, the bag rattling as her books, phone and stationary banged against each other. Somewhere inside, Wendy was getting tossed about like a tugboat in a hurricane. Cassie relished that thought.

  “ I’ve got a bone to pick with her,” Cassie flipped her bag over and slotted her arm through the slot, all of her moves overly dramatic.

 ***********

   Wendy tumbled out of the compartment, her body hitting the ceramic floor hard. She no time to catch her breath as Cassie set her bag against the door.

  FDR High was one of the few schools  that had a handicapped stall for Titans, distinct from the main lavatories. It was perfect for Titans who were in need of it and here, it was the perfect place for Cassie’s plan.

 This particular stall was well-maintained, a blessing for both girls. The floor and wall tiles were enamel white and opposite the cistern was the sink, complete with a mirror encompassed by coal black mildew but that was filthy as it got.

 “ I’d take a  deep breath if I were you,” Cassie advised Wendy as she sat down on the porcelain throne. Titan facilities were no different from their smaller counterparts, most of just a scaled up version to handle the strains of the Titan physique but most of the materials were far more advanced than the standard set used in construction.

 Cassie untied one of her sneakers and set it aside while she removed her sock. Wendy was trying to crawl away, inching forward on her hands and knees but Cassie kept her within her peripherals. There was no where for her to run..

 “ Where do you think you’re going?”

Cassie held her sock in one hand and leaned forward. It was almost too easy, Cassie thought as she pulled Wendy by her legs.

 “ Let me go!” Wendy tried to kick out at Cassie but found her legs clamped shut by her captor’s fingers.

 “ Not yet,” Cassie answered sternly.

She held Wendy twenty feet above her sock, one hundred and twenty feet if you added Cassie’s natural elevation.

 It was high enough to make the Amazon teen squeamish but low enough to survive a misaligned fall . Wendy expected a sudden drop soon enough, she knew where this was going. Yet for a while, Cassie did nothing but observe Wendy’s struggles, as if expected something to happen.

 Wendy was too distraught for to notice this but as the seconds ticked by and Cassie hadn’t let go of her, she too picked up on the oddity of the situation.

 “ What are you-AAAAHHHH!!!!” Cassie suddenly released her and Wendy fell until Cassie’s sock safety net caught her.

  “ Sorry, I shouldn’t delay this. I’ve got places to be and you’ve got a lesson you need to learn,” Cassie rambled as she closed the opening of the sock.

 “ I don’t know if you can hear me but if you can, kick my sock,” Cassie instructed. She didn’t expect anything but a quick prod from the inside said enough for her.

 “ Good.”

“ I heard what you did to Alvin.”

Cassie gave the sock a little jerk, it spun in a hundred and two degree arc before falling back to its equilibrium position, as gravity intended for it to be.

 “ If he had been less dextrous, I think he would be in the ER, all thanks to you.”

Cassie jerked harder and the sock did a vertical one hundred and eighty. This time, Cassie could hear muffled screams through the cotton.

 “ I want you to know that I don’t enjoy this. But it has to be done, for your good and for Alvin. ”

The sock remained still and silent.

“ When I saw you and Camilla, I thought of letting you be but it worries me how you treat your brother. He’ll be dead before graduation if you keep this up.”

Cassie dropped the sock and just before it hit the ground, she grabbed its mouth. It stretched slightly as Wendy’s inertia caused a tiny sag at the bottom.

“ So I am going to give you your punishment now and we’ll both be done,” Cassie said as she began to spin the sock horizontally. She imagined it as simply another baton to rotate or ribbon to twirl, a far more tranquil thought. Cassie controlled its spin, keeping it slow and comfortable, no faster than the average carousel.

 She spun silently but found the silence too eerie. She considered taunting Wendy but it would have contradicted her stand on the issue.

 “ I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Cassie started, her reflection staring right back at her as she began her story.

 “ When I was young, I wanted to be an astronaut. Why? I loved the idea of flying off into space, going to exotic worlds within our star system.I thought I would be the first to meet an alien, didn’t matter where it came from. The Moon, Mars, even Titan would be fine,” Cassie gushed.

 As she spoke, she began to lose focus on the object in her hand but quickly imparted enough energy to keep the momentum constant. Still, no noise from within. Cassie wasn’t bothered by it,she didn’t care if Wendy chose to suffer in silence or wail the whole way.

  “ Then a friend told me they didn’t send Titans into space, it was too expensive to build a ship big enough to fit a Titan.”

 Cassie snorted derisively, “ I wished that I knew sooner. I was thirteen when I found out.”

 She spun  faster, the sock’s velocity now beyond the realm of carousel.  

 “ I did all the training a kid could do, even sitting on the roundabout at the playground and letting my friends spin me around until I got too nearly puked,” Cassie stopped, the memory eliciting a chuckle from her previously stone faced expression.

 Like the roundabout, Wendy and her prison now moved as fast as one. Like the younger Cassie, she also felt a need to regurgitate her last meal.

“ Although I tried my best to recreate a centrifuge, it doesn’t even come close to the real thing. Not even if I spin you really hard.”

 True to her word, Cassie went full throttle, the sock revolving on its axis in seconds while she rambled on, spinning like the interior of a washing machine.

 “ I’m serious Wendy, the g-forces you’re feeling are nothing compared to what the crew of Apollo 11 got. Most men and women would faint after 5Gs but you’re an Amazon, you could probably take at least 8, maybe even 11 or 12 without training.”

Cassie stopped spinning the sock, not because she thought Wendy had had enough but she needed to go.

 Opening the sock, she overturned it and caught Wendy as she tumbled out, the latter dazed and confused from her spin cycle.

*******

 Wendy hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on when Cassie began her monologue. She didn’t care about her hopes and dream but it was a surprise to learn that someone like Cassie harboured a fairy tale like dream.

 She did know that Cassie’s fetid sock was already stomach churning enough. Making it surprising that Cassie owned the smelliest pair of feet Wendy knew of. Either through coincidence or out of spite, Wendy seemed to only get this when Cassie’s feet were ripe.

  When the sock began its revolution, she began to understand where it was going but she vowed not to scream, Cassie would probably want that. A moment of weakness, before she was accustomed to the movement of her prison was the only concession she made.

 Not even she was pressed the walls of the sock, her nose receiving the full power of Cassie’s perspiration and g forces strong enough to restrict Wendy’s own breathing did Wendy cry out for an end to the pain.

 The end did come and when she found herself in Cassie’s arm and being let down, she took it as dignified as she could. Her stumbling around, as if she were walking on jelly dampened the effect she wanted but she was determined to finish it.

******

 “ I hope you learned your lesson,” Cassie said as she got up and walked ahead of Wendy. Wendy wasn’t going anywhere unless Cassie opened the door for her.

 “ Just….stay...out...of my life,” Wendy answered through gritted teeth, her hair a tangled mess from the sock spin and her brain still adjusting to a world that revolved much more slowly than before.

 “ I promise you that the day you stop picking on Alvin, I’ll leave you alone. Unless you want to be friends,” Cassie promised her.

 While she couldn’t see herself walking hand in hand with Wendy, especially after what she knew of her, she would not rule the possibility of a redeemed Wendy befriending her.

“ Whatever,” Wendy muttered under her breath as she stumbled out like a drunkard, away from Cassie.

 Cassie didn’t bother to check on Wendy after that, she was risking the chance to watch Alvin’s track practice if she didn’t leave now.