"It was funny, Jones," Tiff said, crossing an elegant and very girly leg over the other. I watched Terran track it like a hawk. It was all I could do not to laugh. I let the crooked mouth sit there on my face instead. Jade gave me a light punch and hissed, "Not funny."

"So funny," I whispered back, thinking of the years that Jade and I had been on the Radar for Friend Scrutiny. Now Terran could deal. He was under a girl's spell like the rest of us poor saps and it was a great moment.

Yes indeedy.

"I can't believe you spiked my mom's punch," John said in a morose voice.

Jonesy's eyebrows rose. "We can only hope she consumes fifty liters, Terran."

John groaned and did a facepalm.

"Besides, it will get you guys off the subject of me breaking my wing... and all the uncoolness that was."

"I don't know, remember when you had zombie shit on it and it covered the signatures?" Tiff said, clearly goading him.

Jonesy opened his mouth for rebuttal when Carson walked up.

No surprise that the asswipe had somehow gotten an invite; his daddy owned half of Kent. I bet the cops were peeking through the window though. He was under some heavy-ass guard.

Tiff tried to hide her tension and couldn't. Terran moved closer to her.

"Hey guys," Carson smirked and his eyes flicked to Tiff, doing a lingering once-over that clearly undressed her. A light blush rose to her face and I could tell she was restraining herself when Bry walked up and clapped him on the back. "Hey, Hamilton," he said as Carson staggered forward, and that was saying something, we'd all grown to be tall dudes and Bry had made him stumble with the force of his love tap.

"Why don't you check out some other chick, K?" He gave the back of Carson's neck a bruising squeeze and Carson swung around, his punch cup's contents rioting dangerously around the rim. I chanced a glance at John, expecting freak out but his face had darkened. This situation had caused the potential of a red stain fest to be forgotten.

It was all about Carson noticing Tiff. Carson being around Tiff.

Tiff scared. Again.

John was pissed about it but maintaining his cool. Shit, I wish I could do that. I would've already incited a riot. I wanted to kill him on principle

Tiff stood up, smirking at the choke hold. She teetered over to Carson. Even with the high heels giving her four inches she was still inches shorter than him. Somehow, Tiff never had looked small. I knew that was a contradiction in terms but this was the girl that had taken down two of the fragment from Clara's world and was jonesing for a third when that Frazier low life had put the whammy on her. My chips were on Tiff. Bry defending her was just icing on a fat cake.

She was still the bravest person I knew. Maybe more now.

Jonesy had shut his trap and was watching the drama unfold with typical glee. He and Tiff should have been twins: she was the one without a filter and a streak of mean.

She looked up into Hamilton's eyes and fluttered her eyelashes.

Fluttered. Her. Eyelashes.

The guys were stunned, it was too much to assimilate. Tiff of the popping gum and psychedelic yawn hoodies... it couldn't be.

Yet it was.

"See Weller, she likes my brand man. See her diggin' on it," Carson said to Bry as he and John seethed. I knew she didn't, Tiff had a plan.

"I like your brand," Tiff said, dragging a small finger along the skin of his forearm, her eye contact direct, engaging and sensual. I couldn't believe how she was working him. After what she'd been through with him, it was an amazing thing to witness.

"I want your brand to go away and never come back," she smiled. She leaned into him like a cat wanting its head scratched. "I prefer my men with dicks, ya know," she purred.

Oh dear baby Jesus, I thought with a mixture of perverse glee and horror. After what had gone down, she wasn't giving an inch.

And he was going to take a mile.

Bry tensed and Carson moved in, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a hard shake that made her teeth rattle.

I knew Tiff could get out of this but she didn't make a move to stab his inset with her stiletto or anything.

"Help!" she yelled in a pitiful, un-Tiff like yell.

Every male in the room turned and saw the six feet one Hamilton with his hands on a small girl, shaking her.

His dad gave him a look that should have cooked him on the spot and he wasn't the one with the Pyrokinesis.

Hamilton's dad went charging over. Carson dropped his arms from Tiff's shoulders. She began to immediately rub them, with large crocodile tears welling and sliding down her face.

It was Academy Award time.

Carson's dad looked at the fragile looking Tiff and then back to Carson in disbelief. "Why are you laying hands on this girl?" he demanded. His eyes were wide and sick looking as he whispered, "Didn't you learn your lesson?"

My dad strode over to us and said to Carson, "You should leave. There won't be any tolerance for violence here. I believe the appropriate chaperones are outside."

Joan Terran joined Dad with a sniff. "Yes, as I've mentioned since time immemorial, words shall be used in this house instead of fists." She cocked her head like a bird before taking a worm. "I will see you to the door now." She hadn't tasted the punch, I was disappointed to note.

"Dad!" Carson protested, "She was..."

"Not here, Carson," he said, fuming. He gripped Carson's arm and Dad looked at the guy.

Dad's look was one of pure disappointment. Of course, he had broken his thumb. Nice.

Carson lurched toward Tiff again and she gave a surprised yelp, not contrived like her earlier behavior but a genuine oh shit. The passive fear was reasserting itself and I was sad to see it take up residence again.

Before anyone could react she was crushed against him. He said something to her that only she could hear and then dumped her just as quickly.

John caught her, dragging her against his chest, his forearm covering her throat. "Get out of my house, Hamilton," John ordered in a low voice. Carson locked eyes with him, a smug smile ghosting his lips.

He turned that look to Tiff, saying, "It's a promise, babe."

People were quiet after that scene but it was Joan Terran that put it into perspective. "He's an ill-mannered young man." Then her sharp bird-like eyes fell on Tiff. "Are you quite alright young lady?"

Tiff nodded her head and Joan looked at John. "She just might be able to stand on her own now, John."

An implied directive was there but John ignored it.

Jonesy and I about died, it was impossible, but John was Standing Up. "Not yet," he said turning away from Mrs. Terran in clear dismissal and turning around a somewhat deflated Tiff, rotating her carefully until they faced each other.

"I'm so pissed!" she grated. John's brows rose to his hairline.

Unflappable.

"Huh?" Jonesy said. "That was righteous, except for that ending. I gotta ask, did you plan that?"

Tiff nodded.

"Why?" John asked. "He's gone forever now, you should have let Bry handle it."

"I restrained myself, I wanted to head butt his arrogant ass."

"I see we have more to work on besides clothes, Tiff," Sophie said sarcastically.

Bry and Tiff looked at each other and he nodded. "Ya might as well tell 'em," he said, scrubbing a hand over his buzz cut.

"Tell us what?" I asked, starting to get the alarm bells ringing. Jade and I looked at each other and she gave a subtle shake of her head.

"Well, I wanted witnesses basically. I was being opportunistic," she began.

Then she told us of such a frightening sequence of events that it stole our breath. It paled John's face. It put thunder on Bry's. And it made every girl quiet.

"So this bozo-the-damn-clown's a stalker?" Jonesy asked. Then he added, "After what happened?"

She nodded. "I figured it started a couple of years ago..."

"When you kept telling him he was without a penis?" Mia said innocently and Tiff grimaced, nodding.

"I guess I could've handled that better."

The guys didn't say anything, even Jonesy. But yeah... she could have.

"Still though, no guy should be like, following you," Jade said. She didn't mention The Incident. None of us did.

"What the hell were you doing about this Weller?" Jonesy asked.

"My job, asswipe," he said good-naturedly. Everyone loved the Jonester. He had a purity about him. He was a social pariah but he was without ill intent. It was a kick ass combo, I had to admit.

"I got a job, I got a girl... a life. I'm out of my house, ya know- solo."

Bry had an apartment and had actually started his own landscaping business. That reminded me.

"You lose Hamilton as a client?"

Bry nodded.

"Actually, man, he was the first to go. I mean..." He scrubbed his head again and Mia put a hand on his shoulder. He smiled at her and she gave one in return. "He was like a cash cow. Big-ass yard, paid on time..."

"Creepy effing gnomes in yard," Tiff interrupted in a droll way, her skin still pale from the Hamilton encounter and Jade gave a shiver.

What the hell was it with the gnomes?

"Anyway," Bry said, shooting a look at Tiff. "I hate Carson's ass and now I'm my own boss..."

"You rich, Weller?" Jonesy asked.

Bry laughed, "Hell no, pal. I'm effing broke as usual."

Alex had been quiet this whole time. "But there's a freedom with being your own dude."

Bry nodded, relieved someone got it. "Yeah, I like that part."

"I thought if I like, got his dander up and all, everyone could witness something. Ya know, my family doesn't have any money to defend me. If he were to try something again then it would be his rich's daddy's word against mine. And," she pegged Randi with her hazel eyes, "he kept out of trouble by the skin of his nose all through school."

Not all, I thought. There was that juvy vacation.

Randi looked uncomfortable. "I did some looking in my mom's pulse records." A guilty flush rose on her normally coffee-colored skin as she continued with her surreptitious recounting, "There were some altercations but his dad interfered and..."

"They were erased," Sophie guessed.

Like his attempted rape of Tiff. Can anyone say 'lesser counts?' I wondered without wondering.

"Yeah," Randi said helplessly.

"Bastard," I said.

Tiff nodded.

"He's more than that, guys." We listened and Randi told us what she'd uncovered after Tiff gave her the nod.

Sometimes paranormals weren't the evil ones.

Human nature was.

*

Jade and I drove home to her new place. She wouldn't get her own coded pulsekey for another week but she'd made me drive by about a hundred times.

I was excited, I'd admit.

It wasn't in Valley Keys. Jade had told me she would never go to that neighborhood again.

I did.

It was almost a compulsion. Sometimes, during the school year I'd go by Jade's old house and it would watch me with its blank windows like soulless eyes as I'd slowly cruise past on my way to get her. I'd turn around before the house veered out of sight and I swear it winked at me. Like it was alive.

Gramps said I had a healthy imagination. Go figure.

Her old house wasn't the only one I'd check on. The Frazier house stood silent and unoccupied. It seemed to be a magnet for the errant trash that was always around.

One day I'd let the Camaro idle at the curb and watched as the wind made small tornadoes out of recycled plastic grocery sacks, outmoded pulse credits, non-PVC cups and other debris. The crap rolled along the brown grass like tumbleweeds, collecting in the dark corners of the house's foundation, the flat roof standing like a frown, the porch a gaping mouth of displeasure.

It didn't bother me, or intimidate me. I kept that last tip of the hat salute from Frazier in my mind's eye. Waiting... always waiting for that other shoe to drop.

There was a nagging part of me that knew he was out there somewhere.

Or some-when, because the shitbag was fragment. I doubted he could go back to the sphere world but the Zondoraes had used the tailwind of Randi's dimensional comet and were skulking around.

They had Parker.

Before graduation, after I hadn't seen him for almost ten months, I let my guard down and stopped cruising that same block, waiting for him to spring out of that angry house like a jack-in-the-box. Or Jack-in-the-crack like Jonesy called it.

It gave me a smile to think of the nickname.

It faded when I thought of what Carson had said to Tiff.

They won't always be here when you need them to be.