Beach Day

59: Why Don't You Stand For Something?

The sword is heavy in her hands. She swings anyway. He parries, steel against steel, knife's blade caught on jagged metal. She wishes it were sleeker. She wishes it would change once more to fit her, like she was always holy. It would be easier to bring it down and twist it against the blade.

She swings the sword around, detaches it from the knife, goes at it again. Under his arm— there are veins under there and he will stop if she can just connect. She doesn't want to kill him, though; she can't slice anything too severe. She hits his forearm instead, steel on and in flesh. He stabs the knife into her side; she tries not to feel its tip through her shirt, where it missed the leather.

She turns, elbows her grandfather in the sternum, bone to bone, sword's tip up in the air. Though she makes contact and wins herself another few inches of space, there's a significant drawback in that her grandfather grabs her wrist and twists it. Shit— that's her good arm. That's not how this is supposed to go.

She thinks of all the supernatural people in her life.

Betty, with a laugh like wind chimes twinkling over books spread across her mother's kitchen table. Drake, shaking a can of spray paint, promising this will be worth it with a spark of blue flame in his eye. Denny, pushing an overweight raccoon out of a rain gutter with the bristled end of a broom, trying not to lose it at the absurdity of the situation. Eddy. Greg Dealerman. Kay. Darius. Aiden. Her aunt, wonderful and unwillingly chosen, dedicated to the mundane, entirely human— Tiff would be nothing without any of them.

And in front of her, holding her by the wrist, is a man who would take their lives. He would rather see them wiped out than see their personhood. This isn't a step she wants to take,but she can't afford to let the people she loves get hurt worse than she ever was. She can't let what happened to Priscilla, and to so many before and after her, happen again. She has to become old Tiff. She has to become the girl who would kick the Nightmare King.

That sucks. She doesn't want to hurt her grandfather. He's definitely hurting her, though— twisting her arm hard enough that she fears this, too, may break.

She drops the sword, but doesn't cry out. It doesn't occur to her to. The sword hits the ground, clattering. Metal vibrates and rings on stone.

"This sucks ass," she mutters. What else is there to say?

"Mind your language," he hisses, breath hot on her ear.

"Absolutely not." Tiff raises one foot and stumps it down on his toes, forces him to let go. She steps to the side and away from him. The sword is gone. Her bag is gone. She has nothing but her broken arm and leather over her torso. No weapons, barely any defense— what the hell is she supposed to do? She's going to die here in an act of futility. She would have to get around him to get the sword.

Or she could go under.

She remembers Duckie doing this all the time, just to annoy Matt. It's an easy thing for her to do— so why shouldn't Tiff just at least try it? She drops down, tucks in the bad arm, and tries to somersault under his legs, between parts of a bowed stance. Tiff isn't particularly acrobatic, though, and the only kind of dance she can really do on command is skanking (thanks, Drew), so it turns more into a half-somersault, half-diving motion.

Damn idiot Tiffs don't know how to do shit. She ends up under him, between his feet. At least she's within reaching distance of the sword. It isn't like she's her aunt. She can't just call it to her, can't just pull it out of a box or the trunk of the car when it wasn't there before. All she can do is grab it, drag something heavy and jagged toward her. She swings it up, like Tiffany Valentine to Redman under the table. Steel hits flesh, hits the inside of his elbow. With his hand still on the knife he drove into her, he twists the blade.