WMD Ch. 03

"Thank you," Andrea managed weakly. Gayle shot her one more happy look then was gone.

Andrea took in her circumstances. She was in an old-fashioned, four-poster, queen-sized bed. At the foot, clothes had been laid out and there was her travel back as well. She checked herself. She was in a nice, pressed her white dress shirt half buttoned up. Her bra was gone, but she still had on her panties on. She shivered at the thought of Gayle striping her down while she was passed out. What must the lady think of her?

There was nothing she could do about it now, she decided. A shower felt like a good idea as it would help her pull her thoughts together. The water was hot and the soap was lavender. Andrea used her own shampoo. She dried off with fluffy, white terry cloth towels and hot-footed it back to her room, dressed and made it downstairs in time to gather around the table for the morning meal.

"Is there anything I can do?" she offered.

"Not today," Alexander grinned. "Mikhail should have been here to help me, but he had a late night, so I kept it simple - bacon, cantaloupe, French toast and grits. I'm still not sure what a grit is, but Kamika swears by them."

"I think it is corn meal," Andrea offered.

"It is filling," Mr./Deputy Samsonov spoke. He had a very deep, serene voice. She couldn't recall hearing it before. Once more she was caught up in the family atmosphere as Gustavo and Isabo got ready for school, Gayle went over the schedules of the various staff and her husband, who nodded. This time Andrea pitched in and helped Consuela wash the breakfast dishes. She even got to further brush up her Spanish skills.

"Have a good day at school, you two," Gayle said to her son and guest. For the first time in over a year, Andrea didn't have to take a stiff shot of vodka to start off the school day. She still was apprehensive because she didn't believe the school dynamic had changed. There would still be the looks, the knowing gleams in their eyes, thinking about what they would be doing to her later. Instead of that gauntlet, Alexander met her when she pulled into her parking space and walked her to her class. They chatted about the day's assignment as if they were nothing more than student and teacher. It felt ... hopeful.

Unfortunately, Alexander had forgotten one of his Mom's initial pieces of advice - stick close to your brothers. Walking to his home room he found Darius and seven other big Black characters waiting for him. A quick look over his shoulder revealed three more had been stalking him.

"Alexander, right?" Darius grinned. "I wish you were Vlad, but his time will come." He looked to his boys. "Get him."

Darius had a football game and couldn't risk police action so he left the beat down to ten of his 'friends'. Was this public? Yeah - so? This was Darius' school, the Principle was clueless and the coach and Vice-Principle were in his corner. What he hadn't counted on was the fury of Alexander. He put his boys in a world of pain and because of that, his beating was far worse than Darius had originally intended. As he lay on the ground, bloody, curled up and groaning, his attackers spit on him then made their way to their classes. No one had stepped forward to help Alex.

{Acceleration}

Brandy was still working through as many words as she could because she was afraid to tell me she hadn't decided a damn thing about the Vlad-Brandy-Darius triangle when we drove into the school parking lot. Mikhail was darkly amused while Taliyah was pissed with her friend. Sometime in the past sixteen hours, she had done a complete three-sixty on what was best for Brandy.

In my opinion, a long-running resentment of Darius had boiled to the surface. Darius had chosen Brandy, not her. Then, he had degraded her childhood friend, and the Cheer Squad, into property - cum dumpsters. Until the arrival of me and my brothers, voicing her discontent was worst then pointless. I was counterproductive to her precarious social status. Now ... now she had options.

"Trouble," Mikhail muttered to me. I had been distracted by Brandy's blubbering and excuses so I had missed the plethora of lookouts waiting for us. This was bad news. I had to get out so that Mikhail could exit the car too. Brandy was followed by Taliyah on the other side. I gave Alexander a quick call to warn him of the situation. It took him several rings to respond.

"Brother," he mumbled. "Got my ass kicked outside of Ms. Blanchard's room. I think I'm ... busted up." He sounded really bad.

"We are on our way," I told him.

"Be careful. Darius is out to finish us off," he warned me through clenched teeth.

I weighed my response. I decided to call Mom then 9-1-1. Mom gave me an odd directive, which made sense in retrospect.

So I began with, "Brandy, you and Taliyah need to distance yourself from us. Darius had jumped Alexander so we can expect the same treatment," and they knew it was a command. "Mikhail, let's go." By the reaction of our school mates, they either knew what was going on, or knew something unknown had gone wrong. It wasn't like the whole school was wired to hate us. They weren't. The important people did and that was all that mattered to most of them.

"Vlad?" Brandy gulped.

"Vlad, I've got this," Taliyah said. "Brandy, let's take a long walk around the parking lot while the men take care of business."

"Vlad?" Brandy repeated. "You don't have to do this. Go home."

"Alexander is inside. We can't leave him there and they know that. They are planning on it."

"Bye," she said in a small voice. Clearly she believed I was done for. Mikhail and I made a bee-line for Ms. Blanchard's room. Before we got inside, I had Mikhail surreptitiously give me his wallet. As we expected, Darius had put a wall of Black between us and our brother. We kept up our forward progress, took our beatings as we shoved our way through and kept our mouths shut. I imagine Darius was hoping for a grand melee where he could surround us and beat us up. Maybe he hoped we'd start whaling away.

He had no clue how cold and emotion-free the Samsonovs will could be. As violently inclined as Mikhail was, he loved us much, much more. Getting bogged down in a pointless brawl wouldn't do Alexander any good. We had to get to him before Darius' crowd came around for a second beating. When we got to him, Kaelyne and Victoria were kneeling beside him, dabbing his cuts with wet Kleenex.

"How bad do I look?" Alexander tried to laugh. His sides were in too much pain. From experience with brutal wounds, I suspected that he had cracked, or broken ribs. He certainly had collected numerous bruises and cuts.

"Kaelyne -Vicky - you need to get out of here," I stated. "They will be coming for anyone who hangs out with us next. I can't protect you right now."

"I'm not afraid anymore," Kaelyne protested. I had already decided that Vicky was somewhat unhinged. Kaelyne should have known better.

"You should be. They might very well rape you two. Darius is certain that he is bulletproof."

I knelt beside my brother and deftly switched his wallet with Mikhail's.

That was our new tactic. Alexander had made inroads with Ms. Blanchard and Mom didn't want to toss her back to the wolves, so one of us had to stick close to her - had to pretend to be Alexander. I had to stay near Brandy so that left our youngest twin. Just as important, we were not to utter one threat, one promise of vengeance, or even an overt display that we had been deeply wounded.

To Mikhail and I, that meant justice was coming down the pipeline in a big way. Mom wasn't an 'eye for an eye' type of woman. You plucked out her eye, or the eye of someone she loved, she would cut off your damn head. Until that moment, Darius had been an obstacle to Mom's desires, just a player we had to remove to enact her greater plan. A healthy dose of humility was our goal.

She hadn't planned to destroy him. Alexander's beating changed that in her ... and us - his triplet brothers. In a way, we Samsonovs had been operating under the delusion that there were still some rules both sides had to cleave to. Darius had clarified that for us. Paraphrasing an old movie, he had sent one of us to the hospital, so we were sending someone(s) to the morgue.

We weren't going to murder anyone. That was an extreme that Mikhail and I wouldn't go for. In a way, what Mom wanted was much worse ~ she wanted to make an object lesson out of our chief tormentor. In our current dilemma, all we could do was stick by our sides until our parents and EMT's arrived. Mom and Dad made it first. Mom had waited in the parking lot for him because she didn't want to go into "kill the first jackass who threatened her" mode, she was that mad.

Dad was an island of calm. A few of Darius' hardest characters tried to harass him to no avail. He knew how to move through a crowd without overtly manhandling them. When they tried, those few were confronted with his in depth expertise and indomitable strength. The disrespect they showed Mom was even worse. How she managed not to murder anyone was a mystery to me.

I should have known better. Every man who retarded their progress, or touched her, she took their picture as she gave them a cruel, heartless smile. The smart ones realized they had just pissed off a borderline psychotic. Most of them simply saw her as a bigoted old White chick.

Around Alexander's body, Dad made the student body give them space. He didn't ask Alexander what had happened. At the moment he wasn't my Father. He was Senior Deputy Sheriff Nikolay Samsonov and the site of his son's beating was a crime scene. My paternal parent wasn't without sympathy. He was a believer in law and order. Being our Father meant he had a conflict of interest when seeking justice for us, so he waited for the closest deputy to arrive.

The EMT's arrived the same time our Principal did (no one had bothered to clue him on the incident earlier). He started to disperse the students. Dad stopped him. Some of these people were witnesses. Two other deputies arrived - neither one current enemies. Big Bob showed up as they rolled Alexander - now Mikhail - out. He had Dad escort mom to the hospital. The Sheriff would be by to take Mikhail's statement later.

We finally were dispersed to our 1st period, having missed homeroom. Mikhail and I detoured to Ms. Blanchard's class first. A few of the 'fellas' had stopped by to tell her about Alexander's demise. We came by to rectify any misconceptions. Nothing had changed. 'Alexander' would be showing up and escorting her home as planned.

"But you are not Alexander," she whined. "He's been ... because of me."

"That doesn't matter," Mikhail rumbled. "Alexander told them the shit stops here and that hasn't changed."

"They won't stop coming," she shook her head.

"Leave that to us," I assured her.

"Now there are only two of you," she reminded us.

Mikhail laughed.

"You've got it wrong. Now there are three of us and Mom is far more vicious than Alexander could ever be."

"They put her oldest boy in the hospital," I added. "That was a mistake whose depth they can't even begin to comprehend. Trust us."

"Okay," she said in a fearful voice.

Getting to our classes was eased by us being late. My teacher declared me 'tardy' despite my protestations that my brother had just been taken to the hospital. A few of my Black classmates snickered over that. 'Alexander' was given a 'pass' by his far more understanding teacher. That teacher was one of the 'haters', but Mikhail figured that hospitalizing one of us had gone way overboard in that man's eyes.

That wasn't the only sign that things had changed. Darius and his crowd were prepping for the next attack. The rest of the school ... they sensed something terrible was on the horizon. Our lack of response was a warning sign all its own. We weren't cringing, blustering, or glowering. Vicky said we were the 'eye of the storm' and wanted in on whatever vengeance we had planned.

We told her we didn't have one. At lunch, Taliyah was torn up at first because she thought that Darius and Rashaan had Alexander beaten up over her. They'd even taunted her about it between classes, warning that worse was in store for her and Brandy at lunch. Those two women had gotten a measure of revenge by changing the location of the Cheer Squads 'lunch meeting'/gangbang, then forgotten to inform the football team of the change of venue.

Darius came looking shortly after the fact. The other eight members of the Cheer Squad looked perplexed. Had Brandy not humiliated him (by dissing his BBC), he might have not decided to assume the whole group was in on this policy of denial.

"Brandy, get your ass over here," Darius seethed.

"Taliyah, you had best correct yourself," Rashaan added. A few other players who pretended they were BF/GF with a cheerleader added to the commotion.

"No," I stood up and confronted him. He was looking for something more. 'Alexander' took up a position on the far side of the cheerleaders. People were clearing out the space between the football team and us.

"Brandy," Darius stressed his authority. She was wavering. Fortunately for us, Taliyah was not.

"Back off you Mother-fucker," she screamed.

"Taliyah?" Rashaan mumbled.

"You really want to be on their side?" Darius' eyes narrowed.

"I want to kick you and your fellow cowards' asses," she seethed. Darius shot Rashaan a mocking glance, shaming him. His 'woman' was getting mouthy.

"Taliyah," Rashaan asserted himself. "You are asking for a world of trouble."

"What?" she spat back. "How many bruthas are you going to bring when you try to shut me up ... cause I know you aren't man enough to do it yourself."

"Bitch," he stepped forward. I tried to move to her - Darius interposed himself. Mikhail had three guys on his flank so any move he made would put him in a nest of trouble.

Rashaan grabbed her arm. My past twenty-four hours around that girl taught me that was a mistake. I didn't know if Rashaan was slower than Mikhail, or just caught off guard. Her slap resonated across the cafeteria. Before he could respond, she put a knee into his crotch, doubling him over. Multiply guys winced at the power of that nutting. Rashaan hissed like a punctured balloon and slowly slumped to the ground.

Darius decided that was the indicator for the final showdown and settling of accounts. Kaelyne kicking a chair into his path was unexpected by both of us. Darius was far quicker on his feet than Rashaan. He was able to jump back before he could get clipped. The mob was so dependent on Darius for leadership that they froze up when his charge was truncated. Kaelyne had saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of pain.

"I'm done with you," Taliyah sneered. "If you had wanted to be a real man, you would have fought Mikhail one on one, not like a pack of chicken shit jocks." There was another hush and a 'no she didn't'.

"Brandy, get the fuck over here," Darius glowered.

"I'm ... I'm with Taliyah," her voice wavered. "What you did was wrong. I thought you would be more of a man about this."

"You'll pay for that," he promised.

"Shut up. You are done. Brandy is with me now," I challenged him. "I once offered you the opportunity to settle this like a man. You declined and now the whole school sees you for what you really are - a big, Black narcissist who doesn't care about anyone, but yourself."

There was a third pause in the murmuring.

"I don't think the football team knows what a narcissist is?" Kaelyne said in a low voice. Brandy let out a hysterical giggle.

"Samsonov!" the coach bellowed from across the room.

"Which one of us?" 'Alexander' shot back.

"Both of you," he growled.

"No," we said in unison.

"What?" he blustered. We were screwed no matter what we did.

"I need them to move some things in my class," Ms. Blanchard spoke up from behind him. Alexander - the real Alexander - would have been so proud.

"Get some other boys," Coach spun on her. She began to wilt.

"Coach Thomas," a voice behind Ms. Blanchard emoted softly, "you are getting on my last damn nerve."

"This ain't your school, Fonteneau," he turned on Mom.

"My boy says you were one of the people that beat him up. I'm here to let the Principal know. On a personal level, I'm suing you and the school for what happened."

"I didn't do nothing," he groused.

"Funny, the only one who claims to have witnessed my son's beating is my son," she purred like a Mamma Tiger stalking her prey. "I may be a Samsonov now, but I still have all that Fonteneau fortune to fight that court battle with. One more mishap for my other two boys, I'm going to have the best law firm in Little Rock crawl so far up your rectum that they know what you are going to eat before you bite into it."

"I'm not afraid of you," he puffed himself up.

"Really? None of these cases will take place in Davis County, Tobias (the coach). The previous school principal assaulted me, I have three sworn complaints against the Kingston PD filed with the Arkansas State Police, and a lawsuit pending against this school and the school board. A change of jurisdiction is a given. I'll be dragging you down to Little Rock to settle this mess."

"You are lying," he gulped.

"Test me," Mom sizzled. I still couldn't see her over the crowd, but I knew those steely eyes were boring thru his soul. He might not have been guilty of beating up Alexander yet he was guilty of so much more that he was already rotten to the core. Everyone knew he had given his tacit approval for the beating of a student theoretically under his care.

As an educator, he was sworn to better the lives of his charges, not use them for his own aggrandizement. No matter how entitled he felt he was, he knew the outside world wouldn't see it that way. Worse, he knew, deep down, he could have done so much better for his students. Sportsmanship, grades and fraternity were all his to dispense. Instead ...

"Darius," Coach Thomas called out. "You and I need to have a chat."

Darius turned his back on me and walked over to the Coach. Undoubtedly they were going to have a planning session. Alexander's fall had turned out to be a mixed blessing. Now the Sheriff's department had their eye on the place. Big Bob himself was chatting with the Principal and was inviting the man over for dinner. Big Bob was getting involved. It would take a few weeks before it became 'race-based harassment.

"Vlad," Brandy hugged my left arm tightly. "Prince, how bad is this going to be?"

That was unlooked for by multiple people. Two linemen retrieved Rashaan before the team made their departure.

"Brandy, take care of the Cheer Squad. If the team gets their hands on them, there is going to be some serious suffering. I'll be okay," I smiled down at her.

Taliyah gave me a thumbs-up before joining with Brandy. Mikhail told me later that she gave him a wink. After all, she knew that it was Alexander in the hospital, not her 'man' yet she had played her outrage so well. I'd almost been convinced. I was sure she'd made an impression on Rashaan ... and Darius. They rounded up the Cheer Squad and the arguments and accusations began. The majority of their squad-mates didn't mind being BBC cum-sluts. That Taliyah and Brandy had broken the spell was seemingly impossible for them to grasp.

As it turned out, with Taliyah giving Brandy some spine, Brandy was able to work her charismatic magic on the others to make them agree to a new program. Lunch 'workouts' were a thing of the past, as were after-scrimmage play times. From this point forward, the girls would be driving themselves to and from away-games - no more communal bus rides. To stress their point, Taliyah only had to point at Mikhail/Alexander's beating to show them how out of hand things had gotten.