❝ you all love twisting the knife into one another. ❞
“You all love twisting the knife into one another.”
Ofelia rolled her eyes, momentarily dropping what she was doing to turn and face Candace head on. “Oh, my God. Shut up.” She walked over to where Candace was strapped to a chair, grabbing the duct tape on the way. “I’ve about had enough of your wannabe villain shit.” She taped over Candace’s mouth, sufficiently shutting her up.
Sure, duct taping her mouth shut was a little over the top, but so was everything else she was about to do. Thanks to a generous contribution from David, Ofelia had been able to spring Candace from jail for one day only and secure the rights to the only firing range in Coolsville. It had been hard work too! Not that getting Candace was a problem, but keeping it from all of Mystery Inc. had been. They wouldn’t have let her exact revenge on their tormenter (well, some of them would have been cool with it, but not the ones that mattered), and it was all she’d been thinking about since they’d discovered it was, in fact, Caleb’s shitty ex-girlfriend that had been torturing them for months.
“No, you’re going to listen to me now.” She turned around and walked back to the small table holding a couple of guns from the firing range, her own handgun, and a variety of devices she’d stolen from Danny. “Besides being the world’s worst ex-girlfriend,” She started, resuming loading the gun she’d been holding earlier, putting only one bullet in the chamber. She set it down and picked up the next gun, doing the same thing. “You also-” Another gun loaded, “-Murdered a somewhat innocent cop. Not that I liked him, but even I know murder is extra.” She picked up one of Danny’s inventions, testing the weight in her hand. She aimed at one of the dummies set up in a line on either side of Candace’s chair. Without another thought she fired it, watching a blue ray incinerate the dummies head. Candace squirmed in her chair, starting to realize the point of Ofelia’s little escapade. “What? Did you think we were going for a picnic?” She smirked, blowing off the tip of the laser gun and setting it back down.
“Where was I? Oh, yeah. Cop murder.” She ran her hand across the instruments on the table, letting the vibes decide which one she’d pick up next. “Also, you convinced Bailey J that her ex-girlfriend had been murdered and forced her to dig her up only for there to be no body. That’s pretty traumatizing, don’t you think? What do you think this does?” She picked up a particularly hefty gun off the table, looking for the Paez Tech label for a clue. “Let’s find out, shall we?” She hoisted it onto her shoulder and pulled the trigger, aiming for a dummy on the other side. A huge ball of acid shot out, melting the dummy’s stomach.
“Nice,” She murmured, mentally noting to ask Danny to let her use it on their next bad guy capture. Turning back to Candace, she pointed it at her, laughing as Candace tried to scream under the tape. “Nobody messes with my Baby B.” She acted like she was going to shoot, but at the last second lowered the gun, setting it back on the table.
“You made my best friend call off her engagement with the love of her life and give her no fucking reason why,” She continued, picking up one of the loaded guns off the table. She gave it a spin, really fucking hoping it’d land where she wanted it to. “You threatened a baby?” She aimed at the dummy closest to Candace, pulling the trigger. It fired. “Nice,” She gloated, “Thanks Aaron!”
She set down the first gun and picked up the second, her own personal pink handgun. “So, I have to tell you a secret. Last night I got really fucked up and I don’t remember if I loaded this or not.” She walked closer to Candace, stopping right in front of her. She was crying, how sweet.
“Now let’s get into what you did to me, shall we?” She spun the gun around in her hand and tucked it into her bra so she could sit on Candace’s lap. “Let’s see, you made my roommate kick me out at my lowest-” She counted on her fingers, “-You made Kenzi set my family’s house on fire, and what was that last thing? Oh, yeah. You made me fucking. Stab. Myself!” She whipped the gun back out, pressing it to Candace’s cheek. Candace tried as hard as she could to get away, but with her being tied up and all it was proving pretty impossible for her. “Let’s give this baby a try.” She stood up, aiming the gun at Candace’s forehead. “One,” She put her finger on the trigger, “Two,” She took a breath in, steadying herself, “Three.” She pulled the trigger, impulsively closing her eyes. Surprisingly, she heard no shot. “Damn, guess I was that fucked up.” She tossed the gun behind her, and just to show off, aimed a roundhouse kick straight to Candace’s face.
Just as she was about to give Candace two black eyes, she heard the other girl cough. The tape had come off when she kicked her face and now her mouth was free, unfortunately for Ofelia. “Again, shut the fuck up.” She wound up her fist, ready to punch her teeth out when Candace uttered two words she literally never thought she’d hear.
“I’m pregnant.”
Fuck. That was Ofelia’s first thought. Then it was confusion. “You’re in an all girls prison? How the fuck is that possible?”
“Oh, no.”
Ofelia spun around when she heard the words from behind her. It was Bailey J and Caleb, no doubt here to stop her from literally killing Candace, and she knew it was Caleb’s voice, but why was he concerned? He’d literally only been to the prison once and... “Fuck.” This time she said it out loud. “Whatever. I don’t give a shit about your demon spawn.” She’d been foiled by pregnancy once before and it wasn’t about to happen again. Pulling her fist back before anyone could stop her, she landed a pretty solid punch straight to Candace’s nose. She listened to the girl groan aloud as she spun around and started walking towards the exit, scooping up her handgun on the way. There was no way she could make eye contact with Caleb, not after she knew Candace was carrying a half angel-half demon baby. “Tell David I’m done,” She called out towards Bailey J, picking up her purse from a nearby chair. “And don’t tell Danny I stole his shit.”
“Mm, kinda,” Ali enthused, shuffling through all the costumes trapped inside a box under her bed. “Not to be dramatic, but we did just totally fight and destroy a giant slime monster.” After Mystery Inc. 3.0′s most recent venture with the supernatural, Ali was feeling kinda badass. They’d single handedly destroyed the 20 foot creature with just chopsticks and Ali’s lighter, and because of that she was feeling pretty freaking cool.
“And we took down half of downtown Coolsville in the process,” Jackson mumbled, watching her from the desk chair. Ali shrugged, only partially acknowledging what he said. He was always seeing the bad parts and not the good parts which didn’t make sense to her because obviously the good parts were the only thing that mattered.
“It’s fine. They mayor forgives us,” She replied, thinking about Baby and Leia’s very impressive proposal as to why they were not, in fact, delinquents and were actually very beneficial to the well-being of the residents. It involved a slideshow and a lot of baked goods, but the mayor eventually agreed and they were absolved of all damages. “So cheer up, buttercup. We totally did a good and now we’re like crazy awesome superheroes. We just need codenames!” She pulled a cape out of the box and held it up triumphantly to Jackson.
❝ Don’t be so hard on yourself. You tried to do a very brave thing. ❞
This was just about the absolute worst night of Ofelia’s high school career. Sure, she’d won Homecoming Queen and the adoration and affection of all her peers, but was it even worth it if even just one of those people wasn’t on the same page as everyone else? What made it worse was that the one person that should’ve been as desperate as everyone else at Coolsville High to see her undressed, her running mate Topher, had flat out rejected her celebratory proposition to sneak off to the abandoned limo they’d left in the parking lot. She’d already paid the driver to come back in a few hours, and she’d had a few bottles of nicked champagne stored in the small fridge in the back. All of it a waste. Well, not all of it. After Topher had (very kindly) turned her down, she’d retrieved one of the aforementioned bottles and retreated to one of the bathrooms on the upper floor where she knew no one would be.
Popping off the cork and throwing it down into the shitty ceramic sink, she took as big a swig as her gag reflex allowed and cradled the cool bottle to her chest as a little escaped her mouth and ran down her chin. She cursed, resisting the urge to wipe it immediately. The last thing she wanted to do was look in the mirror and start mentally circling all the things wrong with her hair, face, makeup, outfit, but she also couldn’t blindly wipe without damaging the three hour makeup job she’d done pre-dance. Suddenly, the escaped champagne wasn’t the only thing wetting her face. Much to her surprise and chagrin, it appeared as though she’d started crying as well. It was something she rarely allowed herself to do, but the rejection she’d faced tonight got to her. It finally got to her.
Finally looking at herself in the mirror, she jumped. She realized she wasn’t alone. Sitting fully clothed in an empty stall behind her was a mousy blonde, holding a book more sophisticated than she was. Bailey J. For a second, Ofelia felt relief. Seeing a childhood friend in this state was way more comforting than seeing someone who undoubtedly had just cast their vote for her in her perfect state. Then she remembered she wasn’t friends with Bailey J anymore. She’d dumped her pretty quickly in elementary school, and she was sure she’d never been forgive for it. Wiping at her face quickly, she turned around to face her. “What are you doing in here?” Ofelia asked, taking another sip of the champagne.
Bailey J just held up her book, and Ofelia knew. Dances and popularity weren’t Bailey J’s thing. “Why are you even here then?” She asked, setting the bottle down to search in her purse for her phone to see if Cobie would come pick her up. Ofelia wasn’t expecting an answer, but the one she got wasn’t even the one she was looking for.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You tried to do a very brave thing.”
Ofelia could hear the sneer behind Bailey J’s words, the disapproval of wanting to be liked, to be at the center of attention. The absolute mockery of it all. Ofelia didn’t know when Bailey J turned into such a know-it-all, but then again she also didn’t know when she’d turned into such a desperate mean girl.
“This may not mean anything to you, but it does to me. So if you could save the patronizing tone, that’d be great.” It was a lame comeback, but she wasn’t in the mood. Sensing that, Bailey J put a bookmark in her book and stood, exiting the stall. She seemed unsure of whether she should try and comfort Ofelia or berate her, and thankfully she chose the former.
“Uh, it’s okay?” Bailey J squeaked awkwardly, holding up one hand to pat Ofelia uncomfortably on the shoulder. Shrugging her hand off, Ofelia turned away and took one more look in the mirror to make sure her makeup wasn’t smudged.
“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?” She asked, switching back into her public personality. “I just won Homecoming Queen. Everyone loves me. One day you might know what that feels like.” She shoved the bottle of champagne into Bailey J’s hand and put her purse back on her shoulder. “See ya!” She chirped, exiting the bathroom, and putting on a fake smile to return to her adoring public.
*:・ﾟ✧ Is that [ LUKE BENWARD ]? No, it’s just [ MARCO A DALE ], the descendant of [ ALAN A DALE ]! [ HE ] is [ 23/ GRAD STUDENT] and some say she tends to be [ IRRESPONSIBLE] but she is really [ IDEALISTIC ]. (DANY, SHE/HER, 24, CST) ✧・ﾟ*:
Congratulations, Dany!! Please read over the checklist and send in your account within the next 48 hours.
“Ew, stop!” Baby shrieked at Leia, covering her hands with her ears. Her cousin-ish-thing -- family trees confused her, and Leia wasn’t cool enough to bother figuring out what to call her -- resolutely ignored the fact that ham was one of her trigger words, but Rocket, driving the van, seemed to hear her, at least. She slammed on the brakes, and Baby at least was strapped in and didn’t go flying. Scooby III, however, did, and Baby only shrieked louder when she realized that she was covered in dog spit now from Scooby’s soaring through the van. “Ugh, dog slobber -- almost as gross as that h-word sandwich that you so shouldn’t want to eat ever.” She patted at Scooby awkwardly, mostly to try and appease him until he went and breathed his smelly breaths on someone else in the gang. This, this rag-tag team of weirdos that she was for like, whatever reason a part of, and the junk food they ate and the way they all smelled, was all way scarier than the suspect they were chasing, if you asked her.
