Culling

Part I • Chapter XI

The blonde leader wannabe from the train, who might have been named Llew, formed a group of his own, but dude was weak. He wasn't even an option. The Blackbourne group already looked plenty big, and Rocky had previous plans that depended on working with Jay, so that left that group out.

So it was decided that Rocky and Jay would join with Octavius - the man was strong and formidable. One good thing about Octavius' perpetual lack of shirt was that it did show off the fact that the guy was ripped. Besides, Rocky's girl had been getting kind of close to the long-haired man during their wait in line, so he was sure that she'd go join with him.

Rocky had miscalculated.

Keyne sat on his one side, Jay on the other. Rocky had been grumbling to himself since breakfast began as he watched the Blackbourne team around his girl. They were feeding her, pouring her coffee, touching her back - all things that he should be doing with his girl. Not those losers, they didn't deserve her - they didn't know anything about her, after all. He watched her as she smiled up at the red headed one, who had just fed her a piece of bacon, and Rocky growled under his breath. That smile was supposed to belong to him!

Keyne noticed Rocky's lack of participation in the morning conversation and elbowed him in the side, drawing Rocky's attention away from the table across the room. "What's eating you today?"

Rocky angrily stabbed his fork into his waffle. "Rocky doesn't like to see my girl with those guys. Rocky's girl should be with Rocky."

"You referenced yourself, by name, three times in those last two sentences." Aakil was serenely sipping his coffee in his seat across from Rocky. "Isn't it tiring to talk like that?"

"Shut up." Jay didn't look up from his plate, where he was currently mixing his scrambled eggs with hot sauce, as he joined in the conversation. Jay grew up with Rocky and knew why he did the things he did. Jay was one of the most dependable people he knew and would always be counted as a great friend. "Don't make fun of Rocky, he's a good guy."

"I never said that he wasn't." Aakil raised an eyebrow at Jay. "I was just saying, it is an unusual way of speaking. I would find it extremely taxing."

Octavius was looking back and forth between Jay, Rocky and Aakil during the conversation. "I wanted to bring this up earlier, but didn't get a chance. Rocky, didn't you say when you asked to join with us that Sang was your girl? When we spoke to her she said she had never met you before."

Rocky pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "Sang has always been my girl, she just never noticed Rocky - and no one could get near her unless you got permission from her dick brother."

"Yeah, Maro was kind of an asshole, wasn't he?" Jay nodded - seeing the interested looks he decided to elaborate for the others at the table. "Maro is Sang's brother, and they seem to be about the same age. We were not friends with Maro or anything, but we had seen him around school before. It was by chance that we found Sang about two years ago. She literally stumbled over Rocky when we were out skipping classes one afternoon. She looked terrified and ran away before we could say anything to her.

After that incident Rocky tried to find out more about her, but no one from town knew anything about her. It was luck that we saw her talking to Maro one day. Rocky asked him to introduce them, and Maro completely freaked out and demanded that we stay away from his sister. 

We didn't see her around for weeks afterwards, so who knows what was up with that. After that incident we just stayed away, it didn't seem worth the agitation. Occasionally we would see her around town in the strangest locations, but her brother was always hovering nearby so we never spoke to her. She always seemed to be alone."