In My Blood (Eli Moskowitz/Hawk FF) (Cobra Kai)

Chapter 39: Complicated

CHAPTER 39:(ZELENA POV)

Sam's hands continue to tug at my elbow's bend, urging me away from some unnamed something that she'd eyed behind Eli and I. My eyes roll and bubbles of giggles float past my parted lips in amusement at what I assumed to be unproblematic fooling around. Or at least some minuscule form of a threat. After all, I had trained with our Senseis to be prepared for Tory or Robby or any of the Cobras to show up and protect myself. "Sam, seriously. If it's them-"

My neck turns my head to the right, nearly straining my muscles there to get a good look at what she is pulling me from. "Zelena!" And then my head swerves back to the left, in it's normal position to stare my brunette friend in her beautifully blue eyes.

"Did you know?" It's 100% accusatory and 1000% more pained. Mentally, I laugh at myself because how could she know. Why would she know and not tell me?

But the laughter in my head slowly drains itself of gleeful amusement at such 'preposterous' assumptions until it's purely bitter. The look on her face screams it all.

Tears- alligator tears- drizzle unevenly down her cheeks the moment they well too large in her waterline. I faintly hear voices speaking behind me, awakening the part of me who wants to take action. Yet I can't stop staring at Samantha LaRusso. Girl of secrets. "I'm sorry. I overheard my dad and your Uncle talking about it. I-"

Harsh enough to leave an oddly welcomed stinging sensation lingering across the muscles of my upper arm, I yank the bend of my elbow from her grasp. She sharply calls my name. In true fashion to accessorize my bitterness with her, I spin on my heel to find a barricade of three boys and Piper in my honor. On the other side of their line up stands the familiar face of the main actor in my nightmares wrapped in Kreese's one armed embrace. Tears line his own waterline and for once while facing a crying being, no pity or sensation of sympathetic guilt pulsates in my heart.

Behind those two snakes, arise a trio who allow their conversation to die abruptly when their eyes lock on those of my group's. "Zelena," My name trembles from his lips in uneven breaths.

You fucking bastard, how did you snake your way out of your sentence? What the hell are you doing here? How dare you say my name like you feel bad. Nice alligator tears, did you take theatre as an elective in jail? Consecutively fly through my head while our eyes lock over the heads of my friends. None of them feel instinctively right or true to every emotion swirling in me. My lips part anyway. "Fuck you." Classic.

He blinks slowly and more of his tears roll down his face. He takes a single step forward- small, but a step. And the line barricading us from one another mirror the small action. "You two know each other?" Tory inquires.

Breathless like he's been breathing erratically prior to his words, Robby murmurs, "He's your father." He's inquiring while already knowing somehow, most likely instinctively, that the conclusion he has made is the absolute truth.

My eyes can't move away from the face I'd spent nights screaming in terror at, crying at, memorizing while he allowed red and purple and blue to pool, to surface on different parts of my body. I shake my head clear of the reminiscent pieces of my past. "I'm not letting you or," My gaze forcefully acknowledges the gray haired man beside my nightmare, "You, especially you actually, ruin our group date. Stay away from me and our group- preferably far away."

My body turns away from the grinning man and the not so subtle ploy he's used this evening to cause a "mess". Incidentally, my chest nearly slams into Samantha's shoulder who is standing so close to me, her body was practically a shadow to mine. "Zel."

My right hand raises to cut off any more of the words she has planned in a move to reconcile her error. "Later." My eyes glance haphazardly over my shoulder and my fingers stretch from my extended arm to wrap around Eli's hand that lingers in a fist at his side. "For now," His head turns enough to allow him a glimpse of me. My fingers brush against his skin, slowly sliding around his balled up hand until he visibly deflates, releasing himself from the tension he'd let build up. "I wanna be a teen who is going to kick her friends' asses in bowling with the help of her boyfriend."