A Kid Like Her (A Riddick - Jack Romance/Adventure Story)

Growing Up

Helion Prime

Once Kyra's online courses ended, so did her isolation from public school in New Mecca. Although she had only been enrolled for three weeks, it only took her a few days to grow to hate her academic classes and to become bored stiff by the technology courses. Even bumping her up to terminal level technology classes didn't help much. They were tolerable, but not a challenge.

To make matters worse, Iman had insisted she dress like a girl, which she had reluctantly begun doing - kind of. Since Riddick had left, her hair had grown out of her Leonardo Di Caprio cut and now fell to her chin. She never dressed in anything overly feminine, but Iman had demanded that she cease wearing boys clothing to school. She could wear them out and at home, but she would dress appropriately otherwise.

The only adornment she wore besides the charm bracelet he had given her were two new tattoos she'd gotten to cover her bullet wounds. She chose two Kanji symbols, courage for her entry wound and invincible for her exit wound. Each was inside of a circle and the area around the symbols was colored in white. They were small, but very noticeable when not covered, and she thought Iman was going to have a coronary when he saw them. He threw up his hands and shouted one word that made her blood run cold – tablet!

"No, Iman please. Anything but that!" she begged.

"Then you should have thought about it before you defiled your body."

Kyra ran up stairs and quickly came back down clutching the computer to her chest. "How long?"

"I believe a week will suffice." Her mouth dropped open, ready to protest.

"However, if you feel that is not sufficient, then we can make it two weeks."

Her mouth snapped shut. "A week then." He held out his hand and she begrudgingly handed it over to him.

However, once he was out of earshot, she grumbled, "Can't believe this shit! Defiled? He doesn't know the meaning of the word. I've been defiled Iman, and trust me this ain't it. This is just a little decoration. It's my own god damn body, too."

Despite her efforts to blend in by her choice of clothing and hairstyle, many of the boys had taken notice. Not that she could help it. She was quite different from the other girls and had a standoffish, eat shit air about her, which they regarded as a challenge. Boy after boy tried and was immediately shot down. Some who ended up getting overly frustrated with her scathing rejections made the mistake of touching her. They were rewarded with multiple broken fingers or a blackened eye, both of which ended with her in the headmaster's office on several occasions. He was an unpleasant man who smelled like mothballs and whose face looked as if he'd eaten something sour and that awful expression had frozen in place forever.

"Miss. Bennett," he began in his 'holier than thou' tone of voice, which she was sure he reserved just for her, "you will not lay a hand on another student in this school. Do I make myself clear?"

Headmaster Ryan was livid this time. Normally his cheeks were only a light shade of pink when he lit into her. Today they were red.

"No," she retorted, "you don't. Why am I the one in here when they're the ones comin' after me? I mind my own business!"

"Miss. Bennett, do you have any idea what the parents of these boys are thinking when their sons come home with broken fingers?"

Unfortunately, she couldn't stop the smirk or herself from replying, "That they shoulda used birth control?"

Headmaster Ryan's face puffed up so large and red she thought it would pop like an overdue zit. "MISS. BENNETT-."

Kyra had had enough. "Then you tell these fu-...boys to keep their hands off of me! I never once laid a hand on them first. I just want to be left alone. If I want a boyfriend, he'll sure as hell know it."