Chapter 2: (2) Picking pears
A twig cracked, signaling the arrival of another teammate.
"Hey, you two," the crisp voice of our teammate, Mary Belle, called out. "Come over here."
Sarden exchanged glances with me and took a breath before complying.
Mary Belle was good at everything and thought those of us at the bottom of the team ranking were her servants to order around at her beck and call. She had the face and figure of an angelic beauty but a heart as dark as some of the criminals we were often sent to hunt down. Why Mr Holt or any of the other instructors hadn't noticed her two faced compliance, I didn't know. Perhaps they did know but didn't care.
"Sarden, go climb that pear tree. There are some nice ripe fruits at the top," Mary Belle ordered with one hand on her hip and one typing a message on her phone.
"What if I don't want to?" Sarden replied rebelliously, scowling at the tree with its spindly branches and slim trunk. Nothing about the tree gave one the sense that it would be a trustworthy climb.
"Then let's have the jumping jack jump for them. She can climb too if you prefer," Mary Belle's long nails pinched my arm through my clothes and twisted. I didn't even notice when she had arrived by my side. I quickly smoothed the grimace from my face but Mary Belle wasn't done with me. Before I knew it, I had been flipped and slammed into the ground. A foot on my throat choked me while I grappled with the shoe, trying to breathe.
"Fine, fine," Sarden backed away and began climbing the tree.
Only when he was already amongst the dangerously swaying branches did Mary Belle release me. Choking and coughing, I rolled onto my side and then got up. Brushing my clothes down, I looked at Mary Belle out the corner of my eye. Since she seemed engrossed in her phone, I hurried to help pluck those pears before Sarden broke one of those flimsy branches and fell.
With a few run ups and jumps, I managed to pull two branches down to where Sarden was stuck in the tree unable to figure out how else he could advance safely. Sarden picked those pears with a nod to me while I dangled in the air. He waited at where he was while I let go of those branches to grab and weigh the next one down.
"Sarden, toss some down for us," Flint Sole, our third ranking teammate after Big Brother and Mary Belle, had arrived. He reached out from behind me with one arm, taking advantage of my inability to fight back to press himself up to me so that he could run his hand over my body while the other hand was upraised to Sarden in the tree.
His breath on my neck made my skin go tight and clammy. As if all the pores were beginning to shut down. Go offline so as to flee into hiding. When he was anywhere near me, I began to feel the world shrink around me and I felt claustrophobic despite being outdoors. Mary Belle made me feel a bit like that as well, but Flint's presence filled the air with a greasy stuffiness that made it hard to breathe.
"You aren't much to look at, but you sure taste and feel delicious," he whispered into my ear and licked it.
His touch made all the goosebumps on my skin rise with disgust and made me want to fling him away. Only I couldn't. If I did, Sarden might get whipped in the face by the branch I was holding onto and fall out the tree.
The fact that I was dangling in the air made me an easy target for the gangster-like pervert. If he wasn't targeting Sarden, he was harassing me where Big Brother and Mr Holt couldn't see.
"Leave Kim alone," Sarden growled, tossing down a fruit for Flint. "Let her go, you jerk."
Flint caught the fruit, tossed it to Mary Belle who caught it without looking up before Flint caught the next fruit Sarden dropped for him.
While he seemed distracted, I kicked at Flint, but he sidestepped my kick easily, catching my kicking leg. Swiftly, he shrugged off his jacket and tied my ankle up to the branch I was holding onto. I kicked at him with my free leg, but he easily held it to one side, poking me where he knew I'd feel it, just to show me how vulnerable I was now.
With one leg tied up so that I was almost doing the splits, I didn't dare let the branch go now. If I did, I'd end up swinging upside down by one leg. I'd never been able to do the splits properly. I wasn't that flexible, so being in this position hurt. It hurt in a different way when Flint continued to poke and tickled me through my trousers with a finger. Thankfully, they were my thick and heavy duty trousers which prevented me from feeling much of what he was doing. With these trousers on, I felt better protected from predators like Flint.
He crept a hand up under my shirt, muttering to me about plucking dangling, ripe fruit. Gritting my teeth, I glared at Sarden to hurry up and finish picking the pears so that he could come down and help me teach my molester a lesson. Not that we'd win the fight, because Mary Belle would almost definitely take Flint's side and help him knock the stuffing out of us, but at least we wouldn't be passively accepting their bullying either.
Flint got his hand under my bra and smiled at my expression when he squeezed, bringing his face closer and closer to mine. I could feel his warm breath on my face and I screwed my face up, planning to aim a well timed headbutt at him.
I missed.
He threw the pear a long distance and I guessed Big Brother was here. It was a relief. The cold man might ignore me most of the time but he was a stickler for the law when it didn't conflict with the 'unity of the team' and as the most senior agent under Mr Holt, took care of those of us under him responsibly.
Flint and Mary Belle were possibly more scared of him than Mr Holt and so never crossed the line with him. They also made sure to covertly bully me when he was around, promising me punishment if I let Big Brother or Mr Holt know what they were up to. As an additional control measure, they'd hurt Sarden as a punishment to me and vice versa.
Sarden and I were tied together in this way, each doing their best to ensure the other didn't get into trouble for the 'crimes' of the other. Whatever we did, Flint and Mary Belle would always find a reason and a way to vent their frustrations on us. So in the end, there wasn't much point trying very hard in anything. We'd get the blame for any mistakes anyway.
And Sarden, being still in his rebellious teenage phase, despite having entered his third decade of life, sometimes just couldn't sit still. I couldn't count on him to save me or find a way to avoid me being used as the whipping girl. Sometimes, I had a feeling he enjoyed watching and being forced to take part in my 'punishment' training that Mary Belle and Flint took turns in directing in surveillance blind spots.
"Flint," I heard the warning baritone say and something struck Flint's hand.
Flint yelped and jumped away from me, shaking his hand. His jacket that had been used to tie me up was pulled away. My leg was released and Big Brother's reliable hands caught me, holding me steady and pulling the branch further down until I had found my feet again.
"That's enough, Sarsen," Big Brother said, glancing up at the treetop. "Come down out the tree. Kim, you can let go of the branch now. Fix your clothes and hair before Howard arrives. You're a mess."
"Yes, Big Brother," Sarden and I chorused.
Sarden scrambled and jumped out of the tree, brushing twigs and stuff off himself, while I turned away from everyone to fix my crooked bra and straighten my clothes. I tucked my shirt back into my trousers underneath my jacket and redid my pony tail, combing my boring brown hair back into a ponytail with my fingers. Once I was done and rejoined the group, Big Brother raised an eyebrow at Flint, using a moist handkerchief to help wipe the dirty shoe print off my neck.
He put his drink bottle back in his pocket and I accepted the handkerchief to be washed and returned to him another day.
"Sorry, Kim," Flint eye rolled a flippant apology.
"If you were really sorry, you wouldn't keep doing it," I glared at him. "Big Brother, can I hit him? Please?"
"I've already hit him for you and he will be punished further later," Big Brother's cold eyes passed over me as if I wasn't worth the time. "Let it go."
"But you didn't see…" I complained.
Big Brother glanced at me without a change in expression.
I heaved a sigh of frustration.
"Yes, Big Brother," I changed what I was going to say. Big Brother either thought I was a whining kid telling tales or he didn't care. Either way, there wasn't much point in pushing it or he'd punish me too.
Sometimes the way he slammed me down on the mat during a punishment training session and patiently drilled me in body form and defense techniques made my heart pound. His hands sometimes seemed to linger on my limbs when he corrected me or locked me in place to show me where I'd gone wrong. Then I'd have to remind myself over and over again until it became a chant that he was my big brother. Just my big brother. Just a senior agent teaching his junior.
Big Brother's eyes landed on Mary Belle with a cold glint. She couldn't hide her discomfort under his intense gaze that promised a good lecture later, coupled with painful training that made one feel like they were about to die.
"Yes, Big Brother?" she finally lifted her gaze from her phone screen.
Big Brother raised his eyebrow at her and watched her squirm under his icy stare. After a moment, she sighed and looked down with a snort.
"I'm sorry, guys," she gave a winning fake apologetic smile. "Forgive me?"
"Big Brother, can I hit her and pinch her back?" I asked.
"No," Big Brother told me. "Mary Belle, hold out your hand."
Mary Belle shot me a glare and reached out a trembling palm. Big Brother slapped her hand with his baton hard enough to make it smart but not hard enough for it to do any damage. She yelped and looked up at him through her wet eyelashes.
"Stop picking on them," Big Brother turned away from her, looking in the direction of the chair lifts and bridge without glancing at her face.
"Big Brother, can I beat them up for Kim?" Sarden asked.
"Would you be able to touch them?" Big Brother retorted.
Sarden scowled.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Tonukurio
Tonukurio Those who have ever been stuck in bad team dynamics know the feeling... so frustrating.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone