sunshine

four

"Oh how r-right you are, L-Len!" Reiko exclaimed with mock happiness, clapping her hands as she broke into a large smile. Lenny flinched from the name and chewed the inside of her cheek, her clammy hands fiddling with the bunches of fabric of her shirt and jacket. Her mouth was dry despite how much sweat was running down her forehead and back.

"How-" Lenny stopped, feeling the lump of anxiety and fear clogging her throat. She swallowed and made another attempt. "How are you here?"

"Oh, t-thats's the question of the d-day isn't it?" Reiko asked in return in a somewhat amused voice. "Tell me, L-Lenny- how did Scout get h-h-here?"

"Don't bring Scout into this!" Lenny exclaimed as soon as she heard her name ad cutting off the rest of her words, her protective instincts for her kicking in. Reiko gave a curt laugh while Lenny flushed, embarrassed by how quick she had reacted to protect.

"Think about it, Lenny," Reiko asked flatly, her electronic-sounding tone coming back. "Why is your beloved Scout here? It's so random- just out of nowhere and there she is! Very soon after, I'm here in all my hate and glory. Questions, questions- but none are answered."

"Stop trying to be poetic, Reiko- it's not working out for you," Lenny replied bitterly, gears in her head still turning fervently to answer the big question: How did Scout and Reiko get here? She gave a loud groan and pressed her fingers to her neck in frustration. "This makes absolutely no sense!"

"Who said it had to make any sense?" Reiko replied leisurely. She flopped onto the bed, the covers and mattress dipping to her weight, making Lenny's heart sink. The mere fact that the bed had bended to her will had meant she was physical and wasn't just her going crazy. Lenny slowly took a deep inhale, shutting her eyes tightly as she rubbed her temples to help soothe her monster headache.

"Just leave already- no one wants you here," she remarked firmly, opening her eyes to glare at her, but Reiko merely gave an electronic laugh, making Lenny silently groan.

"Don't you understand anything about us, Lenny?" A sadistic smile was forming over her face which caused her to visibly tense. Her face scrunched up in slight confusion, wondering what the girl could've meant by it, making Reiko laugh. "And to think that you're my counterpart!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lenny snapped, beginning to glare at her before stopping in fear she would smite her down. Reiko stopped her small laughing to blankly stare at her.

"'W-What is that supposed to mean?'" Reiko repeated slowly, the words rolling off her tongue. Lenny began to flush, realizing how stupid her question must've been. "Well, surely you know I car-re a-" A small pause- "decent amount for Scout, c-correct?"

"I don't like where this is going..." Lenny mumbled to herself, already beginning to tense up. Reiko gave a large smile, which made her nearly twice as scared as she was before.

"Well, L-Lenny," she started casually, getting off the bed and started to circle the girl, reminding Lenny of sharks by the way she was acting which made her perhaps even more terrified. "I can tell you right-t now that I care a hell o-of a lot more for your downfall than that litt-tle brat."

"No! How dare you? Don't hurt her!" Lenny yelled, tears beginning to brim her eyes as she made a hurried attempt to wipe them away with the back of her hand sloppily, but they kept rushing back. "You can hurt me, but just keep your filthy hands off of Scout, you- you animal!"

"Oh, I do p-plan to hurt you, don't you fret you-ur pretty little h-head about it," Reiko sneered at her, but she sounded somewhat amused by Lenny's outburst of panic. Lenny stepped back in fear, her hands gripping the side of her desk as she began to shake her head, still in denial. "You can't deny the truth, Len Len. Face the facts."

"The facts are that you need to leave," she replied, keeping her eyes on her feet but her voice full of contempt and loathing. "You're going to leave and you're going to leave Scout alone and I'm never going to see your face again."

"Be careful what you wish for."

And just like that, Reiko was gone. Lenny blinked, wondering if this was all in her head after all. Did she hallucinate? Or have a fever dream made from stress?

She looked at her homework and sighed, picking up her pencil that she had dropped on the floor out of shock and fear. Eyeing the bed and seeing that it still had an imprint of a dip of a body, she tried to lock it out of her head, trying to focus on the math at hand.

"Len?"

She flinched, curving her shoulders inward as her hands instinctively flew up to her head, still rattled from the ordeal she had just experienced. Taking a moment to finally register the voice from Scout instead from Reiko like she had initially thought, who was finally done with her bathroom break and was now behind her door, Lenny sighed in relief and unwinded herself, giving a smile at her to reassure her. She looked hesitant, but eventually came in, shutting the door quietly behind her.

"Who talking to?" she asked in a small voice, laying exactly where Reiko had laid, sending a slight chill down Lenny's spine as she tried to not pull parallels or jump to conclusions. She focused her gaze at her homework, which still looked liked a jumble of letters and numbers she had yet to make sense of, not wanting to look at Scout in fear she might see the scared look in her eyes.

"No one, sweetie. Just yelling at myself," she lied, subconsciously gripping her pencil tighter. She turned her head slightly to see Scout in her peripheral view to see her expression. "How was going to the bathroom by yourself?"

Immediately, her face lit up and her eyes brightened. "Awesome! Saw kitty cat but kitty ran away! Wanted to hug but gotta pee bad!"

Lenny smiled in amusement, letting out a light laugh as she drummed her pencil against her thigh. "I'm sure Harley was just scared, you can try to hug him later if you'd like."

If there was a later for her.

Stop thinking that, Lenny immediately chided to herself, stop that, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop stop stop STOP!

Even as the word swam through her head and filled it to the point it started to cause a headache, the thought wouldn't leave her mind, even as she stared at Scout, who had taken to using a stubby crayon she found on her messy floor to doodle on some paper she found lying around. The peaceful image of the small child as she stretched across the bed with her tongue sticking out as she drew settled her mind some, but the thoughts still kept coming back.

"Len look!" Scout exclaimed, screeching her thoughts to a halt as she saw Scout hold up her drawing proudly. "Dat you and dat me!"

She got up from her desk to the bed as she took a closer look to the stick figures that bore a slight resemblance to the two of them if she really thought about it, but she still smiled fondly at her and kissed her forehead softly. "Absolutely beautiful, honey. I love it."

Scout beamed up at her, clearly excited and ecstatic that she liked her drawing she worked hard on and as Lenny saw her toothy smile being directed at her, a pang she couldn't explain broke into her heart as she finally took time to ponder what Reiko had said about her. As Scout redirected her attention back to the drawing, Lenny couldn't help but look at her wistfully, not realizing that she was subconsciously trying to memorize every detail of her face, her hair, how she moved, and how she had spoken with a loudness she couldn't contain within herself that seemed to only soften her.

Would Reiko break her? Would she try and kill her, and if so, would it be quick and merciless or slow and painful? Would she try and humiliate her, blackmail her even? Would she break away at her resolve so well that Scout would finally break and stop believing that Len would ever come back to rescue her from her personal hell, no matter how badly she wanted to know it was going to be true one of these days?

She hadn't realized she had been crying until she started to choke on a sob, turning away immediately so Scout didn't have to see her and ask, but she was too engrossed in perfecting a specific detail. She knew exactly what she had to do, no matter how much she wished for any kind of alternative.

She'd need to rid the world of Scout, because surely that had to be a better fate than Reiko. Than a broken resolve. Than being tortured. She knew it was for the best, but she wished it could've been any other way.

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:^)) long time no see