Chapter Text
"Can… I go to my class?" I mumbled, shying away from the… gosh, I don't know if she was a student. The woman, basically, who could've been my sister if you squinted.
Another Hebert, but if you stretched her out a bit and set her outside to tan in the summer sun for a few hours. A faintly dusky take on her skin, hair that was exactly as long and curly as mine. But her expression…
I shivered as she smiled at me, in the same way that a cat smiles at the mouse it's thinking of batting around for a bit before eating. Emma, who I hadn't seen since the last day of high school, wishes she could look at me like this. I wanted to think harder about her, but the girl blocking my path with her hands on her hips leaned in, dangerously close. I caught a whiff of something… spicy. Perfume? I told myself I was shivering because of the early morning chill in the building.
"Hebert, yeah?" The girl asked, tilting her head just so.
"….yeah?" I squeaked, my voice cracking a little. I held a textbook in front of my chest, like a shield. God, I really hoped she wasn't here to hurt me. She had almost a foot on me, and I wasn't on the short end. I don't even think I'd be able to outrun her. Her smile twisted crookedly, turning into a cocksure smirk as she straightened up and starting walking past me. I shrieked as something hit the top of my head, and… tousled my hair…? I shiver, feeling her nails dig through my hair and scratch my scalp almost affectionately.
"You're just as pathetic as I'd heard," she laughed coldly, twirling a lock of my hair in her hand before prowling off. Her voice had a pleasant lilt to it, not unlike Emma trying to sweetly call me a whore or something, but with a little more oopmh to it. "Catch ya later, loooserrrr~!"
"What the fuck was that about…?" I whispered under my breath, watching the jerk go off, practically skipping down the hall. I flinched again as the bell rang, loud as a gunshot, and scrambled off, swearing to myself. That moron was gonna make me late!
"Was that the girl you were telling us about?"
Fortuna smirked at the blonde girl that swiftly fell into lockstep with her. Lisa didn't need to ask questions, but she did anyway, because the littlest thinker that could liked making conversation.
"Why, yes, she is!" Fortuna gasped, putting a hand over her chest. "However in the world did you know?!"
There was a beat between them, before both girls threw their heads back and laughed at her poor joke like it was the funniest thing in the world.
"She's cute," Lisa smiled over at her friend, shooting her a knowing look. "Looks like she'll be fun for the whole family, in fact. You did vet her first, right?"
Fortuna's only response was a dismissive, bullish snort and a cocky grin.
"Right, right," Lisa shook her head, looking ahead again as they walked off - neither of them even had a class today. The pair had come in solely to scout out Fortuna's newest crush - already, Fortuna's mind was clearly working on ideas for her own personal brand of 'love', if the way she was gnawing on her lip was anything to go off of. "That was a stupid question, my bad."
Lisa called Fortuna 'crazy', but the internet might call her yandere. Legally, Fortuna's actions were questionable. Morally, they were quite disgusting. Personally, Lisa loved to see it.
"What all did you path this time? And you're not gonna break her like the last girl, yeah, 'Tuna?" Lisa hummed, leaning in. Of course, this was said with a little more care; neither of them wanted to hurt the girls they teased so lovingly. The fact that most of them simply couldn't handle Fortuna's crazy flirting wasn't her fault. She simply had to pick and choose a tougher girl, that was all.
"I asked for a path to set up a first meeting, and you'll never guess what it said."
"Just tell me, you know I hate this game!"
Fortuna snickered as she shouldered open a door, letting the pair outside and giving her an opportunity to turn to look at Lisa. With the widest grin imaginable; "Insult her a bit and pat her head like a puppy."
Both girls burst into maniacal laughter once more.
Somewhere in the middle of her class, as her professor spoke, Taylor Hebert felt a little shiver run down her spine, like someone was walking on her grave. She dismissed it a second later, and went back to listening to the intro syllabus.
To my surprise, the first day back in college was actually going pretty decent! If you didn't count the strange woman I met earlier, it could even be considered normal. The professor was decent, the class was interesting, and best of all, no one was throwing stuff at me! Gosh I'd missed that.
Unfortunately this changed once class ended.
"Oh my gosh, Taylor, hi, almost didn't see you there, did you get lost in Forever Eighty-One again?"
"…Hi Emma."
Emma Barnes, my former best friend, had decided to start bullying me once we entered college for no discernible reason. She'd left me largely alone in high school, which I was grateful for, but once we got out of there, it seemed like all bets were off. I tried to ignore her a few times last year, but that somehow only made things worse, hence my polite answer.
"Ugh, get out of the way Hebert." That was Julie, one of Emma's 'friends', and the girl who I shared my last class with, the likely culprit for why Emma was here in the first place.
"S-sorry."
"God you're pathetic, grow a spine or something."
"But-"
"Shut up, no one asked you to speak. Loser."
Mean giggles echoed off the walls, making me shrink back a bit. Why couldn't things just be easy like they were in high-school?
"So Julie," said Emma, seemingly ignoring me for the moment. "How'd class go?"
This was a setup, I could smell it.
"Oh it was alright." Her eyes flicked back to me. "Too bad Hebert was there, I thought I could smell her from the other side of the room, ugh. And she could do with sucking up to the teacher a bit less."
"As if." Aaaand there went Emma again, like the most cruel tennis match in existence. "What you should really be doing Taylor, is sucking the teacher off, that's the only way they'll like you anyway. You've got to be the worst teacher's pet I've ever seen, trying so hard and they still don't pay any attention to you."
I tried to come up with a response, but apparently there was a bulldozer in the building, because-
"HELL-OOOO!" A boisterous, and frighteningly familiar voice boomed, as the girl from this morning promptly shoved several girls out of the way and barged into the center of the little circle of insults.
"You?!" I stammered, hugging the wall.
"You?" Emma echoed me, trying to get into the girl's way to stop her. "Hey, why don't you- oof!"
Emma - and what looked like about half of her make-up - stumbled backwards out of the brunette's path when a hand slapped over her face and pushed her out of the way like a small, annoying child. The smile splitting the woman's face was fiercely predatory. Emma had nothing on this.
"Me!" She crowed in the middle of interrupting Emma's short-lived attempt to get her to fuck off. The tall woman wasn't alone, either - readily and happily following in her footsteps were two more girls, who took it upon themselves to bully their ways through the small group that had surrounded me; one blonde, one raven. The tall woman, who was clearly the alpha of their little pack, gave me a terrifying, wolfish smile. "I've been looking for you."
"I, uh- I don't have any money, I don't - oh my god-"
I shrunk further into myself as a hand slammed into the wall next to my head with a thump! Suddenly, there was a lot of woman leaning over me, and I whimpered like a puppy. Maybe if I made myself small and sad looking, she'd leave me alone.
"Hey stupid! You're looking awfully small surrounded by all the little girls, and that got me curious, whatcha been up to?" She asked, words rattling off in a swift, efficient manner as she leaned in way too damn close and licked her teeth. Emma and gang totally forgotten, I waved my hands in front of my chest, as if that would ward off the woman that looked like an evil version of mom from another timeline.
"I, uhh- orientation?"
"Hey, I'm not done with her!" Emma tried to snap at the girl's back, before finding her path barred by one of the girls that had barged into the insult-circle with the scary brunette; both of them absolutely oozed confidence. The freshman college girls Emma had gathered looked like middle-schoolers compared to these three.
"Right, right, dweeb! So, Taylor, I know your name, I looooove your style," she purred cruelly, grabbing my collar to keep my frightened form pinned against the wall. Was it getting hotter in here? I felt myself gasping and panting for air, hesitantly grabbing at the wrist holding me hostage. She leaned in past my face, and whatever the hell she said was lost in my own terrified, mousey squeaking as she fucking licked my ear.
No, that doesn't hardly do what she did justice. I let out a mortifed whimper as her long tongue lavished the curve of my ear, from my ear lobe to the roots of my hair before she bit me! The quick, light pain of teeth clamping over the helix of my ear drowned out whatever else was happening, and I flinched away from her with the previously-mentioned squeaking, giving her a horrified look.
My ear's wet now, I thought, numb and dumb. All rational thought had escaped me, and my thighs squeezed together tightly, staring at the scary woman whose name I didn't know, but apparently she knew me well enough to bite my ear.
"I - excuse me?" I breathed out faintly, ready to pass out. Without a clue on how to proceed, I defaulted to 'polite young woman', like Dad had taught me. "I didn't catch that last part…?"
"You're joining us for lunch, you fucking nerd, come on!" I was promptly yanked along, stumbling on weak feet and sending an equally baffled Emma confused looks as I was basically kidnapped.
"What… what the fuck was that?" Emma mumbled, watching her target get dragged off. Her Taylor, her best friend, the one that should be whimpering at her feet, not some… curly-haired bimbos! Rounding on the other girls, she hissed through her teeth, "Who the fuck was that?!"
Today was moving far too fast.
I found out the scary and far-too-comfortable-with-touching-me-woman had a name, and that name was Fortuna.
"But you can call me 'Tuna'," she had smiled, before pushing me into the bench seat where she sat next to me, too close to be comfortable, followed by the blonde girl sandwiching me on the other side so that I was trapped.
The blonde turned to me at the same time I did and gave me a dazzling smile, teeth practically sparkling. I waved weakly. I didn't trust my mouth to work and not make an idiot out of me. An arm hooked around my neck as she cooed at me like I was a small puppy. I felt like one, being dragged and jerked around like this.
"Hi, I'm Lisaaaa! I love your hair! You're so pale though, are you sick?" She rambled, getting too close just like… 'Tuna' had. She smelled like vanilla. A tiny, traitorous part of my brain told me as good as Lisa smelled, it wasn't as good as Fortuna did. I felt her push something into my hands, and looked down to see a bowl of soup. "Oh my gosh, did Tuna do something mean to you?"
I nodded faintly.
These girls are way too touchy, I thought to myself, as Lisa draped herself across my body so she could lean closer to the brunette. What the fuck is going on?
"Tuna! What did I tell you about being mean to your new friends?" Lisa snapped. It sounded like she wasn't really all that angry, but it was kinda nice having someone being worried about me for what felt like sorta genuine reasons.
Fuck you, Emma.
Fortuna froze mid-bite like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, eyes darting between her food, me, and Lisa. "Mmhp-agh-mmrr?"
Lisa made a face and slapped her shoulder, before they started nagging over top of me like an old married couple.
I just sighed and closed my eyes. I tried to take bites in between Lisa trying to reach over me to hit Fortuna, and the brunette hitting the blonde back.
…mmm, this was some good soup, though.