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"Leave me the hell alone before I rip your dicks off," Sam spat at the two nameless douchebags who’d started jeering at her from across the empty hallway, doing her best to ignore them as she fiddled with her locker. Only to be expected, she told herself fiercely. You’re used to this, remember?
No matter how much she tried to shut out their obnoxious voices, though, the abuse was clearly getting to her, because she’d already fumbled her locker combination five times and she was still standing there, messing with it, having the phrases “lesbo” and “freak” and “she-male” float easily past her hardened exterior like it was nothing. It must’ve been something she ate, because she wasn’t usually this sensitive, yet here she was with goddamned fucking tears blurring her vision as her impenetrable locker added insult to injury.
Just as she’d delivered a hard kick to her locker and turned to do much worse to the two assclowns in her periphery, a flash of blonde hair and the clink of bracelets announced her sister’s presence. “Deanna, don’t—” Sam started, but her sister had already launched herself at the doomed shitheads and was effortlessly punching them both out, using their flailing limbs to her advantage. Sam watched resignedly as she introduced their faces to her knuckles again and again, the vengeful glint in her eye standing out when false apologies began to fall past their lips.
Finally, when they were both whimpering and cowering and sporting matching patterns of impressive bruises, Deanna slammed them simultaneously into the wall of lockers, holding them captive by their hair as she spoke into their ears. “Say it like you mean it.”
"Wh-what…what are you t-t-talking about?"
She shook the one who’d spoken by his collar, jarring his nose into the cool metal he was pressed up against. “Apologize, fucknuts! To Sam, not to me!” She dragged them expectantly over to Sam by their jackets, looking at them like they were the equivalent of dog shit on the bottom of her boot. They glared at their shoes as they did what was expected of them, shaking with humiliation and residual fear as they feebly struggled to escape Deanna’s grasp.
“Let ‘em go. Any more and you’ll probably kill them.”
Deanna released them with one last scoff, curling her lip when they flipped her off and shouted “Crazy bitch!” as they sprinted away down the hall. Sam could tell her sister had half a mind to chase after them again and see how many different ways she could break their arms, but the restless fury characterizing her posture eased away a little when Sam put a hand on her shoulder. “Thanks, but you shouldn’t’ve done that. You keep beating people up for me, everyone’s gonna start thinking I can’t take care of myself.”
Deanna’s frown deepened, and she tossed her hair out of her face stubbornly as she said, “Can’t mess with instinct, Sammy; I see some cockwipe harassing you and I go straight into Hunter mode. Besides, it’s not like they don’t deserve it. I’d smash their fucking faces in if you’d let me.” Sam shook her head, but she felt the corners of her mouth turn upwards anyway, gratitude coiling warm and pleasant in her chest.
Her half-smile dropped off her face when Deanna reached up to thumb away the moisture on her cheeks, reminding Sam of how embarrassingly close she’d come to letting their insults get to her. “What’d they say to you?” Deanna asked, voice softening, hands skimming down to rest on Sam’s neck.
Sam looked away from the tender concern in her older sister’s eyes, feeling too big and too awkward and like she couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t afflicted with terrible growing pains. It was an increasingly common feeling. “Just the usual,” Sam muttered, sticking her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Deanna gave her a thoughtful, probing look, and it was at moments like this that Sam wished her hair was long enough to hide behind.
“Listen to me, Sam,” Deanna said suddenly, gaze alight with vehemence, “They’re full of shit. You’re gorgeous, alright? You’re the prettiest damned girl in this school, and if a couple of constipated losers don’t see it, then fuck ‘em.”
Sam gave her sister a watery smile, wishing she could believe her whenever she said things like that. But the truth was that Sam had been growing more discontented with her body every time she looked in a mirror in the past two years. Delayed-onset puberty was putting her through the wringer, shooting her up so that she was a full two heads taller than Deanna (than most boys her age), leaving her broad-shouldered and big-breasted, all gangly limbs and angular features whereas Deanna had killer curves and a magazine-model face.
Sam had always known that her sister was ridiculously attractive, but after she hit sixteen and she started feeling like her body was being stretched too thin for her to bear, the fact was made all the clearer, and she couldn’t help but be jealous of how confident Deanna was in her own skin.
Sam reached down to flick her sister in the chin, hoping to lighten the mood a little and take her mind off all the self-pitying crap that was clogging it. “Don’t worry so much; you’ll get wrinkles. And where would we be if you couldn’t seduce evildoers into submission with your pretty face?” Deanna punched Sam in the arm, finally breaking into a smile. “Whatever, bitch. Let’s get you home; I’ve got work in an hour.”
Sam looped her arm through Deanna’s as they strode out of the building and to the car, keys jangling in tune to Deanna’s collection of bangles and wristlets with each synchronized step they took. ”Oh, by the way, can I get a ride to Jessica’s tonight? We’re, uh, we’re having a…study date. History midterm coming up.”
Deanna paused midstep and raised her eyebrows at Sam, gleeful smirk creeping onto her face. “C’mon, it’s not like that,” Sam insisted, to which Deanna immediately said, “You keep saying that, Sammy, but I’d bet you fifty bucks she likes you back. Bet tonight’s the night she confesses. You’ll be calling to tell me to pick you up in the morning, I just know it.”
"Oh my god, shut up," Sam exclaimed, cheeks going bright red. "My love life is none of your business."
Deanna made a string of obscene kissing noises before starting to chant, “Sammy and Jess, sitting in a tree, f-u-c-k-i-n—”
"You’re seven years old, I swear," Sam said, laughing and muffling Deanna’s mouth with one hand while messing up her hair with the other. Sam was prepared when her sister tried to bite her fingers, swinging her hand out of reach as Deanna’s teeth snapped together on empty space. "Ha!" Sam trilled victoriously, ducking out of reach and dashing across the parking lot when Deanna made a belated grab for her.
"Get back here so I can teach you to respect your elders," came the breathless cry as Deanna hurtled toward Sam, hair flying all over the place, manic grin making her look like a bit of a lunatic. Even as Sam evaded her, laughing so hard all the while that she felt winded, a familiar uneasiness fitted itself against her ribs, pulsing in time to her racing heartbeat.
It scared her sometimes, the extent of what she felt for her sister.