"Okay.” I said, and prepared myself for the mental battle ahead. “In my grandmother’s trunk I found an apron,” and Antonio Banderas “blue bath beads,” Brad Pitt “the Christina Perrin Fall 2000 Collection” Christian Bale “disinfectant,” David Moscow “ergonomically correct hamster furniture,” Ewan McGregor and ooh, Elijah Wood “fencing gear,” Ford, Harrison, in his younger years natch “gardening tools,” Gabriel Damon “Heath Ledger… oooh, wait. Crap!”
Before I could even stammer out an excuse about why Heath Ledger had come to my mind, Camry began pelting me with anything he could get his hands on. Unfortunately, the nearest things to his hands were the acorns he’d been collecting and making into strange symbols all around our camp. (And if you don’t think acorns hurt when they’re pelted at you… sheesh.) When I’d asked him earlier why he was doing it he said something about questing urban legends. I just shrugged and told him to seek help. Naturally, this led to one of our typical arguments where one or the other of us ends up pinned to the ground with various appendages bending in ways nature doesn’t customarily allow. My arm was still sore. It would appear that such a fight was about to happen again, which is unusual. We generally keep it down to one per day or else Miata gets cranky. At any rate, Camry lunged and I dodged and we chased each other all around the camp and far beyond it while yelling generally obscene things all in the name of fun. Well… and unrequited love, but was that really my fault? By the time we’d finished I had managed to give the poor guy a rather impressive shiner. We sat side by side by a convenient river not far from camp and compared injuries while catching our breath.
“You’re getting better.” he said, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
I refrained from pointing out that once you’re at the top it’s impossible to get any better. “You’re getting worse.” I grinned. Sadly, that coy and devilishly adorable grin didn’t stay on my lips for long.
Something sharp and cold was pressing against the back of my neck. “Drop your weapons.”
“Drop our weapons?” I retorted. “What? Like our hands? Just gimme a moment, I haven’t quite figured out how to detach mine yet.”
The voice considered that for a moment. “So you don’t have weapons? How was I supposed to know? Just shut up for a second, that’s all you have to do.”
Camry snorted. “Her shut up?” he muttered to no one in particular.
“Hey, I can shut up if I want to!”
He rolled his eyes and turned his head ever so slightly to look at me. “The only way you’d shut up was if I made you.”
“Oh really? You think you’re so slick?” The thick contemptuous tone in my voice startled even me. He raised his eyebrows in surprise but continued twitching his face and rolling his eyes. It wasn’t altogether attractive but I appreciated his help. That’s loyalty, m’friends. Not to mention that it takes guts. To lower one’s own standing, of sorts, to give a friend the upper hand in a situation such as this. Bravo, my dear little rebel. Let it never be said that 00Amy is ungrateful. Vengeful, spiteful, and corrupt, but not without thanks.
“I told you to shut up.” the voice reminded us. “Please do as I say and don’t make me angry. It won’t be a pleasant experience for any of us.”
A moment later the voice was yelping in pain and writhing on the ground. It was a rather pitiful sight, actually.
“What did you do to her?!” Camry cried. He knelt beside the pathetic girl and tried to help her to her feet.
“I just took care of her henchmen.” I said, pointing to the various still lumps surrounding us. “And then I…”
“You tried to kill me!” she shouted accusingly.
“But… you were… with the knife…” My poor mind was having difficulties sorting out the problem here. This girl was probably going to have us lead them to camp so they could rob us blind and she was threatening our very lives while she debated doing it… and it seemed that Camry was defending her and I was suddenly the bad guy? Since when?
Since about three seconds ago when he’d gotten a good look at her. Long black hair, crimson eyes, one of those short petite types. She wore all black with hints of red here and there and all manner of leather combined with soft ruffles and other odd pairings. I must admit that I admired her daring sense of fashion.
I nearly wretched, however, when I noticed that Camry was trying to reassure her that her personage would not be harmed. He obviously didn’t know me very well.
“Stop making constipated ferret faces and let’s get poor Anglia here back to camp.”
Dandy. Just dandy. We’ll rush little Mary Sunshine back to the others and make sure she’s happy because heaven forbid anything else be done. No, it would be too easy to do the sensible, logical, even sane thing and let her scamper off so that she could find some other people to mooch off of. And even that was a rather nice thing to do, all things considered. I’d just as soon put her out of her misery. …constipated ferret faces?