Justin hated making deliveries to the
local college.
It wasn't just that he had to hand
deliver most of the stock to vending machines crammed into old
buildings with shoddy elevators. That was frustrating enough that he
had long done anything he could to avoid the college but Dave was out
sick and Henrique had taken all the far flung spots Dave normally did
so Justin really didn't have any other choice.
What really made Justin hate it was
the students.
When he had first gotten the job a few
years back, it hadn't been so bad but something had shifted in that
time. Justin wasn't sure if it was that his twenties had gotten
steadily further away or if there was something about Gen Z that made
them extra strange but for the first time in his life he had started
to think of the old MCR song 'Teenagers' as honest rather than
comedic.
Lugging sodas up a narrow flight of
stairs on a handtruck, Justin tugged a little harder on the safety
strap he never used to ensure it was firmly in place. He didn't want
to trip and watch his stock fizzing around the building only to see
it remixed later on Tiktok to some dad rock song kids had just
discovered.
Safely on the second floor of the old
ivy covered academic building, he let out a sigh and went to the
small alcove where the soda machine was. Unlocking it, he was met
with the same surprise he always had on seeing just how depleted it
was. Justin thought of young people these days as pretty health
conscious but that didn't seem to stop them from chugging down sugary
sodas like everybody else.
Thinking about the girls who had
jogged past him on his way in, he wondered if it was easier to drink
lots of soda when you put in as much time at the gym as all young
people seemed to.
Another cruder thought passed through
his head as he thought about the trio of girls again.
“If I were a hell of a lot younger,”
Justin muttered to himself before suddenly feeling a faint blush of
embarrassment come over him.
Not only did he feel a little creepy
for even thinking something like that, Justin also remembered the
other reason he got nervous around college kids and teens and really
any young person these days.
They weren't
merely more health conscious than his generation, they were more
everything conscious. Socially, culturally, racially, and probably
extra self-conscious too.
Filling row after
row of Pepsi and Diet Pepsi, Justin suddenly wondered if they'd
'cancel' him for talking about what he'd do if he were their age.
Hell, he might get in trouble for calling them all girls, after all
they might have been non-binary or gender fluid or something else.
Justin moved on to
the Starry, the new lemon-lime drink Pepsi was pushing, and wondered
when he had lost track of all that kind of stuff. He had never been
the most political guy or hung out with people on the fringes or
anything but he swore he used to know better about what things were
and weren't ok to joke about or say in mixed company. It wasn't like
he had any hate in his heart and he felt like everyone should be
allowed to live their lives the way they wanted without anybody
saying otherwise but one time when he had been a little drunk and
talking about that in a bar, a friend had winced at one or two of the
words he had used.
That had just been
a bummer of a way to learn what wasn't ok to say anymore.
“Fuck, I'm
tired...” Justin muttered to himself.
The
realization that he just wanted to avoid embarrassing himself washed
over him. Sure, he wanted to do the right thing too but he reasoned
it'd be better to just know
what the right thing was rather than make everything awkward for a
moment and then have to walk something back and just hope to do
better next time.
Not that there was
any shame in that, Justin reasoned, it was just dang embarrassing.
Not as
embarrassing as if he dropped a bunch of soda and got caught on
camera though.
Justin
forced himself to chuckle at the idea of such an absurd possibility
since he figured laughing about it would be the only way to get over
it and he needed to make peace with having to do the college route
for as long as Dave was out.
Since if Dave was
sick, that meant either he was the caboose on one of his kids
bringing home a bug or he would be patient zero for everybody else in
the house getting sick. If it was the latter, Justin might have to
make more than a few trips to the college and run the risk of seeing
himself on Tiktok running after a bunch sputtering Pepsi bottles to
Fleetwood Mac or Bon Jovi.
Or maybe someone
would make a whole little song of his grunts and curses.
That might be fun.
“... that one?”
“Yeah, looks
good.”
Justin had been so
wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn't even noticed that there
had been students in the hallway. He had thankfully timed his visit
late enough in the day that most classes were done and it was well
before any of the kids were using the academic buildings for club
meetings. Glancing over his shoulder, he expected to see someone
standing there waiting for him to finish stocking the machine.
Instead there were
three young men walking toward him from down the hall and there was
something about the way they carried themselves that set him on edge.
They all clearly
worked out, though based on the slight beer belly one of them sported
Justin doubted any of them were on anything beyond an intramural
team. All three of them were dressed casually, two in jeans with a
hoodie and a polo differentiating them and the third in sweatpants
and a hoodie. All of them wore nice sneakers on their feet, the kind
of limited edition collabs that Justin occasionally thought about
buying before deciding it wouldn't be worth the money because he
wouldn't even know where to wear them.
Even though they
were walking right toward him, Justin pushed the strange discomfort
out of his head by telling himself that they must have been scouting
out classrooms for a study group and turned back to work.
Then he felt a
sharp flick to the back of his ear followed by a chorus of immature
laughter.
Justin couldn't
stop the shout that left his lips at the surprising pain and he
immediately whirled around to confront the three boys. He felt like
he was in slow motion as he went, the world spinning and wavering
around him as he stood to his feet.
Then everything
snapped back as he gruffly said, “Hey, what's the big idea, pal...”
Justin was well
over six feet tall and a solid two dollars and change in the weight
department but he found all three of the young college guys looming
over him, which made him suddenly wonder if he had misjudged them and
they were all on the basketball team.
“Big idea,”
the one in a t-shirt with the beer belly slapped his knee while he
laughed.
“I can't get
over the fact he just said 'pal',” chuckled the darker skinned guy
in sweat pants.
The third one
stood there with a smug smirk on his blocky face. His square jaw and
thick brow were offset by soft brown hair flecked with blonde that
fell down to his floppy looking ears. He reminded Justin of bullies
in movies or tv shows about high school; rough and mean looking while
still being handsome.
All of that would
have been strange and frightening enough but as Justin stood there
staring up at the trio, he couldn't help but notice that they were
getting larger and larger. He craned his neck back and expected to
see the ceiling breaking above them but instead he noticed that the
ceiling was getting further and further away too.
“What the
fuck?!” His voice cracked in fear and surprise as their voices grew
deeper and louder, their laughter making his ears ring as he
literally shrank down.
He found himself
even with the middle guy's shin when a shudder went through his body
and he stumbled.
“Damn, bro,”
the chubbier of the three leaned forward, casting Justin in shadow
while his blue eyes narrowed to take him in, “How did you get him
down to the perfect size with one touch?”
The silent young
man in the center shrugged his shoulders and then stepped forward.
Justin shouted in
terror as the toe of the soft purple-and-green sneaker rushed toward
him, which provoked another rumble of dark laughter above him. The
sneaker crashed down beside him and he stared at the N sitting in the
center, a little lower than his hip. He tried to shout but all that
Justin could do was pant from the fear that gripped his chest.
Massive fingers
wrapped around his body, pressing his clothes painfully tight against
his skin before he was suddenly being hauled into the sky toward a
backpack that looked like it could hold a couple of SUVs inside it.
The sudden
disorientation made Justin want to vomit but he held the bile in
check so he could smack his hands against the huge fingers and shout,
“Stop this! Put me down! Let go of me!”
His frantic pleas
only made the enormous giants laugh louder while he was held in front
of the huge backpack. The Jansport logo had a patch stitched over it
that bore the letters AXP that left Justin wondering what the hell
'axp' meant.
As he was shoved
deep into the shadowy confines of the backpack though, it finally hit
him.
They were Greek
letters.
Alpha Chi Rho.
He had just been
shrunk down and kidnapped by three fraternity brothers.
*
Kendall huffed as
she sped from the law campus to the main campus.
She had been proud
to go directly from undergrad to L1 until the first time she had to
go the college's main library and been mistaken for a lost freshman
by a friendly sophomore. It was better than someone thinking she was
a high school kid who had wandered off from a tour but not by enough.
It
didn't seem to matter how professionally she dressed for class
either, if she got turned around on the sprawling main campus,
someone would inevitably approach her and ask how she was enjoying
her first year. Even when Kendall took it in stride and said
something along the lines of 'I am really enjoying my first year of
law school' the person would
just politely nod like they hadn't heard her before giving her
directions and reminding her about the campus's blue light app.
She wondered if a
few years working in the real world would have changed anything.
Pictures she had
seen of her mom and aunts in their late twenties looked little
different than when they were teenagers though. None of them had
really aged until they had kids and her youngest aunt who never had
them was a testament to that fact; she was fifty-one and barely
looked a day over thirty.
So there really
had been no hope for her. If she hadn't wanted to not look like a
freshman when she entered law school, she'd have had to wait until
her late thirties or forties like some of her classmates had done. Of
course, seeing how difficult it had been for some of them to get back
into the rhythm of marathon study sessions, Kendall felt the
indignity of being mistaken for someone too young to drink was
probably worth it.
Especially since
she was staring down her second all nighter for the week.
Torts was kicking
her ass like no class ever had in her entire education and of course
the one book that she desperately needed was already checked out of
the law library. The librarian had told her she was in luck though,
since it was published by a faculty member that meant there was a
copy in the main campus branch's special collections.
It meant she'd be
locked up in the same room where people used white gloves to handle
centuries old books with only a few legal pads to work with but that
was better than nothing.
Having
already done this frustrating dance twice before, she knew that she
wouldn't be allowed to bring any liquid into the room, which meant
she needed to pound as much caffeine as her petite frame could handle
on the way there. Her thumb was already shaking slightly from the Red
Bull but she didn't care as she tapped in an order for an iced venti
red eye with four shots into the Starbucks app. Kendall needed to be
able to read and write as quickly as she could until they kicked her
out of special collections and still have the energy to type
everything up when she got back to her apartment.
Her order was
confirmed and the ETA lined up perfectly with when she would arrive
at the Starbucks that sat just opposite the undergraduate campus's
library. Humming to herself, she hustled down the unfamiliar pathways
as fast as she could with a backpack full of legal texts weighing her
down.
Stepping into the
bustling coffee shop, she rolled her eyes at the handful of people
who were standing in the slow moving line and looking around as if
they hadn't been to a Starbucks in the past four or five years before
heading toward the mobile pick up area. Grabbing her towering cup
from where it sat amid the PSLs and frappes, Kendall slammed a green
straw into it and rushed out to an unoccupied table outside.
She barely
registered the taste on her tongue as she sipped her coffee, her eyes
were locked on the immense library across the street and her mind was
already racing through the arguments and case studies that she would
need to focus on if she wanted to get her paper done by morning.
“What I really
need is, like, a tutor?”
“Oh my God, yes,
that's such a good idea?”
The mixture of
vocal fry and uptalking that came from the table next to Kendall
rattled her caffeinated brain in a way she was certain no one could
get used to. Glancing over, she saw two girls sitting beside her,
swirling their straws through the deflating whipped cream that sat
atop their drinks.
The girl with her
back to her had long inky black hair tied up in a high ponytail with
bright pink acrylics on her fingers that complemented the baby blue
pastel hoodie she wore. Her long legs were wrapped in dark cargo
pants that sagged down around a pair of pristine all white Air Force
1s with a slight lift to them.
Kendall glanced
from the girl's Forces to her own, which had long ago become dirtied
and tired looking in comparison. Even though she told herself it was
because of law school that she hadn't found the time to clean them
recently, she realized that she had barely touched up any of her
shoes since before her LSAT prep. The sudden thought made her grimace
as she realized how badly some of her boots and heels needed to be
polished.
“Do you think
anyone in the house is, like, good with this stuff?” The warbling
fried sound of the other girl's voice drew Kendall's gaze back to the
adjoining table.
The first unbidden
thought that came to Kendall's mind was that the girl's glossy pink
lips were too plump to not have any filler in them. The rest of her
face was contoured enough to present a camera ready image to the
world that she almost wished she had the time for. The girl's hair
was also amazing, a perfect wet look that created a curtain of dark
blonde ringlets that fell out of a black bucket hat and down across a
sleek motorcycle racing jacket that was slightly too big to create a
boxy look. The simple white tee and denim skirt beneath it came just
to the edge of clashing with the jacket to create the kind of unique
'who gives a shit' style that made Kendall think of friends who had
moved to New York City or Los Angeles. A pair of tall black cowboy
boots with red and white trim that matched her motorcycle jacket were
inexplicably the right pair of shoes to go with the whole outfit.
“No, probably
not,” despite her dark haired friend's seemingly definitive
response, she pitched her voice up just enough that it left room for
interpretation.
The blonde let out
a faint huff of annoyance before she angrily sipped on her drink and
then her big dark green eyes looked up and caught Kendall watching
the pair.
Sudden
embarrassment over how much Kendall had been eavesdropping on the
pair's conversation and judging them filled her petite frame. Turning
her attention to her phone, she began to furiously study the stupid
notifications that she rarely looked at it in an attempt to appear
busy and disinterested.
Of course, no
amount of pretending not to notice or care could combat the blonde's
grating voice, “What about her? She looks smart.”
“Who?”
Kendall could hear
the girl's weight shift in the seat before she giggled.
“I think she
looks perfect.”
“Definitely.”
Sitting there,
keeping her attention on her phone, she watched as dark shadows fell
over her from the pair surrounding her table. Kendall definitely felt
like a freshman again though not a freshman in college but a freshman
in high school, hiding in the bathroom stall from the mean seniors
who were smoking cigarettes outside while she was trying to take the
quietest pee known to humankind.
“Hey, I know you
were listening,” the blonde purred and her warm sunkissed fingers
rubbed against Kendall's shoulder in an oddly comforting way, “It's
ok...”
“Yeah, we just
wanted to ask you a question.”
“Huh, oh,”
Kendall felt suddenly lightheaded when she looked up from her phone,
“Sorry, I...”
The blonde's plump
lips were spread in a wide grin that showed her too-white teeth and
her Asian friend stood beside her, her own grin covered by her hand
as she giggled. Another wave of dizziness hit Kendall but when she
tried to brace herself against the table, her hand missed it by a
solid foot.
“What,” her
voice cracked, “What's going on?”
The already tall
girls were growing larger and larger in Kendall's vision while the
seat she was on seemed to be stretching out in every direction.
Stumbling about, Kendall barely managed to get to her feet when an
enormous hand stretched across the sky to grip the back of the chair.
Everything
shuddered and a great metallic clatter made her cover her ears in
fright.
Both girls stood
like skyscrapers over the chair, so incomprehensibly large that
Kendall had difficulty processing that they were actual living beings
and not strange statues. She pivoted from the enormous blonde whose
soft looking tanned hand was stretching down toward her to the other
girl who was watching the scene while swirling the straw of her
frappe.
When the girl
lifted her drink to her own plump red lips, Kendall got a clear view
of the bright pink letters that were stretched across her chest:
Gamma Phi Beta.
White acrylic
nails pinched her by the back of her law school hoodie and Kendall
screamed as her limbs flailed wildly in the open air.
“Goodbye,
academic probation,” the blonde announced as she swung Kendall over
an enormous cream colored Telfar bag, “And hello to my first
slave...”
“Let's hope this
little freshman is as smart as she looks,” the other girl boomed
while Kendall descended into the dark depths of the fashionable bag.
Landing astride an
enormous tampon, she cried out, “I'm in law school!”
But the bag's
walls simply closed in above her and then there was a sharp
thunderclap as the same white acrylics that had just plucked her up
snapped a button into place.
*
“Guys
like you are going to kill it in college,” Grant bitterly whispered
to himself as he dumped the dirty mop water into the slop sink.
No
matter how hard he had tried or begged, Grant had found himself
slotted back into dining hall janitorial for his work-study again. He
had hoped that it was a job that only unlucky freshman ended up with
due to some arcane interview process but as it turned out, just like
in the real world the best work-study positions were all about who
you knew. Everyone he met who had an on campus job that didn't leave
them reeking of chemicals and the sickly melange of unfinished dining
hall fare had ended up with the gig thanks to a friend.
Thankfully
it was his early day and that meant that he didn't need to do the
post-dinner deep clean that left him bone tired and reeking of
ammonia. He gave the bucket a quick rinse in the slop sink, wiped
down a few patches of dirty water that had managed to splash over the
sink's lip, and then wheeled the mop back into its proper place.
The
dining hall's lead janitor, a heavy set guy with a pushbroom mustache
and graying hair, gave him a thumbs up when he waved goodbye on his
way to the back. Grant did wonder, considering how much the man had
complimented him the previous year, if he had ended up back in the
job at Armando's suggestion. He had even told the freshman when they
started that they should be like Grant who was a 'good boy' and a
'diligent worker' which had made two girls, who had quit after the
first and third weeks of the semester respectively, giggle in a very
unflattering way.
It was
bad enough being the guy who had to clean up crap spilled by hungover
frat bros, it was somehow worse to be the best guy at.
Grant
scrubbed himself as clean as the thin pink soap, which had been the
standard at every school he had ever attended, would allow while
doing his best to push the thoughts from his head.
His
father had always told him that there were no small jobs, just small
people.
Of
course, when he asked his father if he had taken an on-campus job
while in college, his dad had gone on about how great it had been to
be a secretary in the admissions office, which was one of the first
places at his university in the deep south to get air conditioning.
When Grant had asked how he had managed that, his dad had sat there
for a moment before snapping his fingers and announcing that it was
thanks to a girl he had dated in his Freshman year. She had got him
out of the misery of landscaping, which had basically meant hacking
away at the kudzu invading campus.
Stepping
out into the late afternoon sun, Grant fumbled with his vape pen and
sighed.
He
would have killed for a landscaping gig but apparently some alumni
who made it rich thanks to green energy had donated a lot of money to
ensure the campus would switch as much space over as possible to
native flora that could grow wildly.
It made
the campus a bright place that smelled of wildflowers and was filled
with the faint buzzing of insects, which attracted birds and other
creatures that cut down on pest species, but it meant that the
landscaping was contracted out to a serious company that could
maintain the prized rose garden and immaculate great lawn.
Not
students like Grant driving around in a little cart filled with
fertilizer and tulip bulbs.
Jobs
off campus were even tougher and they didn't have to give a crap
about your class schedule either. Taking another drag off his vape,
Grant let the pleasant taste of smokeless weed roll across his tongue
and fill his lungs.
Checking
his phone, he realized that it was about time for the only silver
lining about his job at the dining hall. Glancing west down the wide
path that circled the older parts of campus, he caught sight of the
same three sorority girls that he always saw running in the
afternoon.
And
thankfully it was still warm enough that their clothing was barely
existent.
The
biggest part of the lie that his life would really begin in college
was that all the girls who wouldn't give him time of day in high
school would suddenly be interested in him three months later when
they arrived at the hallowed halls of some college campus.
Thinking
about it now, he wondered how he could have really believed that
because nothing magically changed about him either.
Grant
was still just as awkward and uncoordinated as he had always been. He
was still more interested in talking about his favorite Twitch
streamers and D&D actual plays than whatever else was going on in
the world. And no matter how many muscles he packed on between the
gym and pushing a mop around, he was still pale with a touch of acne
and curly hair that turned into a poofy unmanageable mess in any
humidity, which meant every time he worked in the dining hall it
turned into a curly cloud atop his head.
He
had hoped that maybe the obvious life of success he was being set up
for through his computer science major might make him look better but
the tech industry had become so volatile over the past few years that
he was wondering if it was the golden ticket he had been raised to
believe. Besides, only the other guys in his computer science major
seemed to care about how he got such high marks and what he might be
planning to do after school. The girls he had met in the program were
either already doing work as good as him and didn't want to hear from
him or they were doing worse and definitely didn't
want to hear from him.
So that
meant all he really had in terms of a love life was the same thing he
had in high school; watching girls go by and wishing he was the guy
they were complaining about.
The
three sorority girls he saw were almost always talking one girl
through her latest fight with a guy, though Grant had no idea if it
was the same guy or a different one week to week. He wondered how a
girl with her soft dishwater blonde hair, big blue eyes, and cute
features couldn't just find a better guy, which is why he figured it
had to be different ones. Despite being the shortest of the three,
and the one struggling the most given how she always seemed to be on
the verge of tears, she was always pulling slightly ahead of the
other two.
Grant
often wondered what she sounded like when she wasn't about to cry,
since she seemed to have a beautiful soprano voice.
The
pair that ran with her were a true angel and devil on her shoulder.
The
angel was a tall lanky girl with rich olive skin and thick dark
tresses of hair that always bounced around her shoulders with every
stride named Tiffany. Her warm alto always preached that Cassidy, the
blonde girl with boyfriend troubles, should examine the situation
from all sides, remember that her partner's emotions were valid, and
find a way to reconcile. Despite how annoying Grant sometimes found
her rambling on about love languages and attachment styles to be, he
had to admit that it all sounded like Tiffany knew what she was
talking about.
In
contrast, the devil on Cassidy's shoulder was a redhead named Sadie
who had gone from a one sided undercut to a fully shaved head at the
start of the semester and it was now coming back in to a close pixie
cut. Sadie almost always advocated for Cassidy to 'dump his ass' and
reminded Tiffany that 'love languages were created by a deranged
pastor' as she casually jogged beside them, the growing field of
tattoos on her arms and legs dancing in the sunlight.
The
conversations were always good but watching them run by in clingy
athletic wear was even better.
Grant
often found his thoughts wandering to the trio during his early
shifts; guessing which of their workout clothes they'd be wearing,
trying to imagine what Cassidy's crisis would be, and wondering just
how sweaty they would get under the waning sunlight.
It was,
somewhat embarrassingly because it was more than a little gross, the
highlight of his day.
The
first thing that Grant noticed was that Cassidy wasn't in the middle
that day.
She was
on the near side where Sadie normally jogged wearing hot pink shorts,
pristine white and purple Asics, and a blue pastel shirt advertising
last semester's 'Gamma Phi Beta-cue' that was two toned from
perspiration. Tiffany ran on the far side in a matching blue set that
paired well with the blue Adidas on her feet, long white crew socks
stretched up her calves with the tops just beginning to be tinged
with sweat. Sadie ran in the middle in her usual black crop top and
black shorts with white ankle socks that barely crept out of her
black and white Hokas on her feet.
“No
one's saying you have to,” Cassidy's voice was for once not near
tears and he found himself smiling as he realized that it was as
bright and sweet as he always imagined.
“I
kind of feel that's what you're both saying,” Sadie snapped.
“Well,
almost everyone else in our rush class picked one out last semester.
It's just you and...” Tiffany's warm alto rattled with nervousness,
“Abigail.”
“It's
really not a big deal...”
“I
feel like it's a big deal.”
“But
it doesn't have to be.”
Grant's
eyes bounced across the trio as they talked, struggling to make sense
of what they could be talking about. He assumed it was the obvious
topic; that Sadie was having trouble picking a major. Something about
that didn't sit right with him though, since the conversation seemed
to be shockingly fraught.
“Fine!
What about him then?!” Sadie's voice cracked with exasperation and
Grant's eyes went wide as he realized she was pointing right at him.
“I
mean, uh,” Cassidy stumbled over her words as she was forced to
awkwardly stop because Sadie crossed directly in front of her, “Wait,
really?”
Tiffany
jogged a little further down while glancing in Grant's direction. Her
dark eyes ran over him and she gave a shrug, “Sure, why not?”
Grant's
blood was pounding in his ears as a girl he had watched run by almost
every week for a year was coming right toward him. His tongue was dry
and heavy in his mouth while he struggled to come up with something
to say, something that would be cool and interesting and would
actually work. All his sputtering brain managed was to raise his hand
in a weak wave and go, “H-hey.”
And
then she clocked him hard in the jaw.
The
world spun and time seemed to stretch in slow motion while he heard
Cassidy's soprano shriek in his ears.
Then he
hit the hard concrete beside the dining hall and everything came into
focus.
The
ground quaked and his hand naturally rubbed the sore spot where
Sadie's knuckles had connected with his jaw. “What the fuck,” he
managed to say, unable to rise to his feet as the shaking seemed to
only get worse.
The
late afternoon sun was completely blotted out as the largest sneakers
he had ever seen crashed down on his right. He stared at the running
shoes and his throbbing jaw hung open in disbelief. He recognized the
pristine white and purple pair as belonging to Cassidy but they
looked to be as big as a car, which would make Cassidy-
His
thoughts were interrupted by an even larger pair crashing behind him;
the fading blue Adidas that belonged to Tiffany.
The
world had finally stopped shaking as he glanced over to see two
monstrous black and white Hokas sitting in front of him. His neck
craned back to take in the pale milky white legs that rose up above
them and then finally the annoyed looking redhead who was glaring
down at him with her hands on her hips.
“Sadie,
you didn't have to,” Cassidy's once high pitched voice now rumbled
across the sky, still recognizably bright and femme but with a power
Grant could have never imagined the petite blonde possessing.
“Are
you even sure you want him?” Tiffany stared down with her arms
crossed, like a Greek Goddess sitting in judgment of him.
“I
thought it didn't matter who I picked,” Sadie replied snottily, as
she started to bend down and her hand lifted off of her hip,
“Everyone else already picked one, so I picked one.”
Grant's
brain finally processed the enormous fingers swooping in around him
and accepted the preposterous situation he found himself in: he had
been shrunk to the size of an action figure.
He
kicked at the huge fingers with all the fight he could muster as they
closed in but then the hand pivoted and he watched the index finger
balance against the thumb right before it snapped forward.
Grant
found himself suddenly transported back to when he was eleven years
old, his last year of peewee baseball, when one of the kids who also
played in a league designed to train kids for college or even
professional leagues took the mound. The kid had lost control of the
sinker when it left his hand and had actually shouted 'duck' at Grant
as it zoomed toward homeplate. The next thing that Grant could
remember was just the intense pain that radiated across his chest
after that and this was much the same.
He had
no memory of Sadie's finger hitting his chest, just of skidding a few
inches backwards while instinctively curling into a ball and
clutching the spot she had struck.
“Whatever,”
the redhead thundered, “It's done. I'll need a brand when we get
back to the house.”
Grant
was dimly aware of being lifted into the sky and shoved into a
cramped dark space that reeked of sweat but he just remained curled
into a ball, too terrified to do anything else.