Red venom, Cobra Kai.

02. The Halloween dance.

3rd person POV

"Can I go, or am I still grounded for doing something that I didn't do?" Taylor ended up getting grounded for 'stealing her mom's money.' It was probably her aunt Marley who stole it, but who knows?

"Yeah." Is all Laurie said.

"Okay.. where did I say I was going before?" Taylor wanted to make sure her mom was actually listening.

"Tell Marley I'll be back, okay?"Laurie grabbed her beer bottle and walked away, heading for the front door.

Since Laurie said that she could go to the Halloween dance two days ago, Taylor decided that she'd go. She rushed to the stairs but got stopped by her aunt.

"What're you going as?" Marley looked like she was holding something behind her back.

"A uh.. witch." Taylor didn't actually have an outfit sorted yet. She was just gonna wear black clothing since her friends said nothing about going as something in particular, anyway.

"Yeah right. You're going as this." Behind Marley's back, there was a bag with a costume inside. It looked like clothes that a homeless would wear.

"Seriously? You want me to be dirty and smelly? I'll pass."

"Oh, it's just makeup. I have green and brown. Brown for mud and green for the grass stains. We wanna make this look legit." Marley took out the clothes from the bag and held them up. The shirt had loads of rips on it and the shorts had rips on it too. "I'm gonna add the makeup onto the clothes too, so it looks more realistic." She smiled.

5 years ago, Marley used to a makeup artist for all sorts of things, but she decided to stop and find a different job because the people there weren't so nice.

"Well, thank you. I really appreciate it... but if you're trying to be a wonderful aunt suddenly so you won't get blamed for taking the money, thanks for that too." Taylor slowly took the clothes from Marley's grasp and ran up to her room.

They spent an hour working on the look since Taylor kept on squirming and laughing because of the makeup brush tickling her. Finally, they were finished. Dark green eye shadow and some face paint was all over her clothes, including brown eyeshadow. Marley also added some fake blood on there too, to make it even more realistic.

"What is this?" Taylor asked. Before Marley added the fake blood, she thought she was going to be a homeless.

"Zombie. Do you know what your friends are going as?" Marley asked as she was just finishing Taylor's hair.

"Nope. I heard them talk about maybe going as laker girls... but they didn't tell me in person, so now they must be going as whatever. I don't know."

"Well. I'm all finished. Do you need a ride there?" Marley asked.

"No thanks, I think I'll be good." Taylor stood up and grabbed her bag with all her stuff in it. "Call me when mom gets back, please?"

"Yeah. She'll come back soon." Aunt Marley walked Taylor to the front door and kissed her on the head as a goodbye, which was very rare for her.

Finally, she arrived at the dance. The hall was obviously packed, like every dance was. Taylor walked in and took a chip from a bowl. She was glad she could take something for free without having to steal.

She walked in some more until she spotted Moon. She was wearing a laker dress, which wasn't that weird until she saw Yasmine and Sam as laker girls, too. They all spotted Taylor walking towards them, and they just laughed.

"What's so funny?" Taylor asked as she walked up to the three.

"What are you wearing?" Yasmine asked in a stern voice. "I thought we said laker girls... not dirty animals." Taylor didn't understand. Nobody told her what they were going as.

"You guys didn't tell me, so I just guessed we were all going as different things," She murmured.

"Yeah, you guessed wrong. If you're not dressed like we are... then you can't be with us anymore." Yasmine stated.

"I don't understand. You guys didn't tell me. Didn't I already say that?"

"Just go." As Taylor started backing away, Yasmine snickered. It was obviously her who didn't want Taylor to know what they were going as so she could embarrass her. Taylor had enough of it, so she walked back to them.

"You know what you are, Yasmine?" She asked directly at her face. Yasmine didn't answer, she just looked at her. "A dumb uppity bitch who likes to put people down for the fun of it. You know what? I never even wanted to be here in the first place, so I'm leaving. I hope you have a delightful time here with your bloody fucking nose!" Taylor lunged at Yasmine with her fist and punched her right in the nose, hard. Then she walked away like nothing ever happened. Everyone 'oohed' at what just happened. Some people even laughed, though she did deserve it.

As Taylor was just about to reach the exit of the school, she saw someone who looked familiar. It was her dad. She didn't want to talk to him, but before she could hurry away, he somehow noticed that it was her.

"Taylor?" He walked up to her and looked at her closely.

"How'd you know? I thought all this makeup and dirty clothes would hide me." She looked at the ground. She didn't expect that her dad would be there. And she didn't expect to talk to him either. It was a surprise for the both of them to see each other because they hadn't seen each other for about 3 years 'till that day. "What're you doing here?

"I uh.. I opened a karate dojo. Just putting flyers up. How are you?" Johnny sighed.

"Well, not great. I mean, I just punched a girl in the face, so..." Johnny laughed a bit at that. "When did you get here?"

"Been here for a while, actually." They both felt awkward. They didn't know what to say to each other since it had been a long time since they last spoke a word to each other. "I actually have a student here."

"Oh yeah, who's that?" Before Johnny could answer the question, Kyler and his friends came out of the boys' bathroom laughing.

"Ky, you broke 'Rhea off." Brucks laughed, as he walked away with Kyler and his friends. Again, that name, Rhea, was very familiar. Taylor followed Johnny into the bathroom and right there, the mystery guy from the other day was there groaning on the floor.

"Oh, no." Taylor exclaimed while hurrying over to the boy.

"Miguel?" Johnny rushed up to Miguel too and picked him up bridal style.

"How do you know his name?" Taylor asked while getting up.

"He's my karate student."

"Wait, what?" She quickly followed Johnny out of the bathroom. "Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna drop him off. He lives right next to me," He replied as he hurried through the halls.

"Well, I'm coming."

"No. You can't. Your mom has set some very specific rules." Johnny stated.

"Since when did you start giving a shit about rules? And her rules suck ass. I'm coming with you," Taylor said, not wanting to hear another reason on why she couldn't go.

Somehow, Johnny decided to let her go. It was obvious he didn't care about Laurie's rules either.

Word count: 1251