"Please, Jenna," Ashley fearfully pleaded, her body continuing to shiver and shake even while entombed from the shoulders down in Jenna's grip. "You don't...you don't have to do this. I know I...I know I fucked up. I violated Jack. I hurt him. I understand-"

A pink, fleshy pad - Jenna's thumb - pressed into her face then, cutting her sentence short as the digit softly ground into her face.

"Shh," Jenna hushed from beyond her thumb. "No more talking, Ash. Not from you. Not unless I ask you a question. Is that understood?"

Jenna's harsh tone brooked no room for argument. Ashley attempted to respond, but found that, as had been the case with Claire, the finger pad pressing into her face rendered talking useless. A new sense of panic began to pervade her thoughts. She knew Jenna, knew she didn't like to be kept waiting. That she didn't like the slightest hint of insubordination. Ashley continued to speak, attempting to eek out an affirmation, but nothing escaped beyond that thumb. And while Ashley could see nothing but that ridged flesh, in her mind she just knew what waited beyond it. Jenna was likely starting to get annoyed, and she could just see those eyes beginning to narrow, those lips beginning to curl into a snarl with each passing second.

"Just nod or shake, Ash," Jenna suddenly commanded. "I promise you that I can feel the difference." Ashley complied without a second thought, only noticing after a few seconds of nodding that Jenna had essentially and casually forced her into grinding her own face into the digit. "Good."

The thumb lifted away, allowing Ashley to lock eyes with her friend once again. Jenna continued to affix her with that same intimidating gaze, but Ashley couldn't help but find some sense of relief in the fact that her lips were still thin and straight.

"But you're right, Ashley," Jenna started with a nod, "you do understand a bit. About what you did. About how awful it is to have that illusion broken. Don't you?"

"I do," she said with a gulp. She did know, now. The feeling of a carefully maintained sense of equality being shattered, casually and effortlessly. For the first time, she wondered if he didn't have Alpha friends of his own. He must have frequented the mixed area for a reason, after all. And now she wondered how he might view them now, after being shown just what they could do to him if stricken by the slightest of whims. After being shown that his relationship with those possible friends rested ultimately in their much larger, more powerful hands. It was with a sniffle that she wondered, too, if her actions wouldn't cause those friendships to crumble under the weight of a new-found sense of inferiority and helplessness. "Jenna, I have so much to be sorry for, I know. So much to apologize for, and I-"

"You're right," Jenna coldly interrupted, "you do have a lot to be sorry for. To apologize for. And once this is over, Ashley, I think it's only fair that you try to make things right with him, don't you?"

"I do," Ashley quavered. She knew she would have to make this right. She didn't know how, but she would.

"That's what I like to hear from my friend," Jenna quipped, the corners of her mouth curling upwards just a bit, and only for a moment before those features darkened once again. "But there's one last little thing to go over with first, Ashley, and I told you that. Our lesson is one in hurt, and not the emotional kind. Not the mental kind. The physical kind. And it's a lesson I want to see stick."

Ashley's body was wracked by a sudden shudder, and she could feel her face contort into an expression of terror. She knew Jenna was going to hurt her. Knew it. And when she was hurt, when she was in pain...that was when it would appear - that awful, sadistic smile.

"You said you didn't mean to hurt him, didn't you?" Jenna asked with a tilt of her head, her lips hanging open ever so slightly as she continued to gaze down upon Ashley. "That you didn't mean to leave him battered and bruised?"

Ashley nodded with another sniffle. Of course she hadn't meant to. She would never...

"Did you think you were being gentle with him, Ashley?" the larger girl asked, the question tinged with condescension, those glacial eyes narrowing as she asked. "That you were just...giving him a full-body massage, or something?" Once again, Ashley nodded guiltily. In her head, that was what she had pictured. In her head, it had all gone so well. Her head was a stupid thing. "So how does that happen, then? How does a 'massage' turn into bruises, hm?"

"I think that's something worth exploring," Jenna declared, and the fingers that entrapped Ashley began to slowly unfurl as the hand itself began to level, leaving her to shiver in her open palm. "So we're going to do a little...hands-on experiment." Jenna free hand appeared then, the thumb and forefinger pointing directly at her. "Have you been hurt so far, Ashley? By Melody or Claire?" Jenna asked tonelessly, those pincers beginning to move forward.

Ashley's mouth opened as her response formed in her throat, but that response quickly morphed into a terrified "eep!" as those approaching digits shot forward suddenly, gripping her sides between them.

"They haven't, right?" Jenna asked. "I know you've noticed it. That despite their treatment, you haven't felt an iota of pain. Am I wrong?" A shake of her head was Ashley's immediate response. Those fingertips resting at her sides had her far too scared to hesitate. "Have I hurt you, Ashley? Am I hurting you?" Another shake of her head. So far, no, she had done nothing. So far. "That's right," Jenna continued, "and believe me, Ashley, that's not an easy thing to accomplish. It's not something you just casually do, to not hurt someone so much smaller than you. It takes work. It takes concentration."

"Describe to me how it feels right now," Jenna commanded. "How my fingers feel at your sides."

"They..." Ashley began, swallowing once more as she chose her words. How they felt..."They're just...they're just kind of there. Touching me, but not really...not really anything else."

A slight nod from Jenna, and then those fingertips began to press together, eliciting yet another violent shudder as Ashley felt herself being grasped in a familiar, gentle firmness.

"And now?" Jenna asked, with a falsely curious tone. Another gulp. Jenna knew exactly what she was doing, what her response would be.

"It's...it's like when I'm being picked up sometimes. Firm enough to grip, but...but comfortable, sort of."

"Good," Jenna remarked, her lips forming another smile. "Now, how about this one..."

Another compress, another familiar feeling, though this one she had come to know only within the last half hour. The feeling she had first felt underneath Melody's foot and toes, that had carried over into Claire's kneading. That firm, uncomfortable mashing that left her near breathless.

"Well?" Jenna queried with another tilt of her head, that thin smile still there.

"It's...it's hard to breathe," Ashley forced out as her trembling renewed. It hit her, now, what Jenna was doing. She was building, and Ashley was certain she knew what her larger friend was building up to. It was about to happen, what she feared the most.

"It's interesting, really," Jenna softly mused, "the little series of lines this whole thing works on. When I handle you. When you handle a Beta. How each line gives way to an entirely different end result. So here's a question for you, Ashley: How thin do you think it is?"

"H-h-how thin w-what is?" Ashley stuttered as her trembling intensified.

"That line, Ashley," Jenna sternly informed, "between you having trouble breathing...and screaming in pain." Ashley whimpered once more, her instincts causing her eyes to slam shut as she braced herself for the oncoming squeeze.

"Open your eyes and answer me, Ashley," Jenna ordered, and as much as she wanted to resist the command, her eyes slowly opened to take in Jenna's studious glare. How thin that line was...

"Very?" Ashley questioned, her voice low.

"Yes. To the point where the change is almost imperceptible to the person applying the force. Which brings us to my follow-up question, and don't you dare shut your eyes and go silent on me again: How thin, then, is that line between a simple painful squeeze, and one hard enough to leave a mark? A bruise?"

Ashley gulped, for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "Very."

"And how thin, Ashley, is the line between a little bruise and a fractured bone."

Oh, God.

"Very," she answered.

"Between a fracture and a break?" Jenna continued, her expression darkening rapidly.

"Very," Ashley repeated with a whine. Even without Jenna's vice-like grip at her sides, Ashley felt that her breaths would be fast and shallow. She was beginning to recall Mellie's words to her, before this awful ordeal started: The she needed to understand what she had done, and Ashley felt that she had begun to do that. But there was more to what Mellie had said, and it made Ashley sick to recall it: Not just an understanding of what she had done, but an understanding of what she could have done. And as if on queue, Jenna continued once more.

"How thin, Ashley," Jenna nearly whispered, her eyes narrowing into slits, "between broken bones and a mangled corpse?"

"I'm sorry," Ashley croaked even as her stomach seized up and her eyes began to water. She didn't know why she said it. It was simply the first thing that came to mind, even as her body tensed up between Jenna's fingers. As a feeling of nausea and sickness overcame her. As she realized how close she had come, despite how careful she thought she was being at the time, to carelessly taking a life. How close she had come to becoming a...a...

"A murderer," Jenna stated with exasperation as her fingers left Ashley's sides. "A little less luck, Ashley, and you would have been a murderer."

Ashley couldn't help it, upon hearing it spoken. Her stomach lurched, and a surge of acidic bile rushed up her throat and out her mouth, covering her mouth and neck in the nearly digested muck of her lunch.