Page 56 of Bossy Grump's Secret

“You ought to know when it's not okay to interrupt, boy.” he brags.

"Go to hell." Dylan spits stubbornly. From the sound of his voice, I discern that he's been beaten up pretty badly. I drag myself to a sitting position and try to approach him.

"No, no, boy. You'll go first. We'll see you much later." The man raises his hands to strike with the weapon, probably a steel baton.

“Please,” I croak, making them pause. “Don’t do this. Take me instead.”

They look at me with disgust. "Well, well. It seems your little runt here is a fighter, just like she was when I first met her." The man who harassed me comes forward and bends to meet my face. Without paying much attention, I crawl over to where Dylan dangles helplessly in the hands of a thug. I don't know what makes me do this, but I take his hands and pry them off his grip. They offer no resistance. They have done what they had intended.

"Now, you don't look so beautiful. You're just another whore that clings to the Belfrost for prestige and financial benefits. How about I cut your connection to the source?" He motions to the man standing over us. "Kill him," he commands.

“Please,” I cry in agony. “I beg you! Please, let us go! ”

He clicks his tongue in disagreement. “No, no, darling. Death is beyond you for what you did to me that day. The prestige, the status I have, the name I carry, yet, I was escorted out of that disgusting dung hole of a hotel by filthy pigs. I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to look at the only person who can save you from the wretched life you are doomed to live…and I want you to watch him die.”

Just as the man is about to strike with his knife, other sounds approach. He pauses and looks at his boss.

“What? Kill him, dammit!”

“Boss…cops.” The man quivers.

"I got out of jail before and can do it again. Now waste this guy!" he growls impatiently when the man hesitates some more. But the man doesn't move. Instead, he hands the leader the knife, asking him to do it.

"When we're tired, I'll get a harsher sentence than you. I don’t want to end up like Boris.”

The boss regards his subordinate with irritation. “Boris was…you knew what…give me the knife.” He snatches it from his hands and stands up to articulate a proper strike. All the while, the cops are getting closer. I hear the screech of brakes, insinuating that they’re nearby enough to move for an arrest.

Does this man really have no regard for the law? If so, who the hell is he!? All of his partners have fled, leaving only him. Aone cop bellow frightened me, and a bewildered Dylan.

“Drop your weapon! SFPD! " I hear one cop bellow, but the man looks at them and hisses without remorse. He doesn't even care that he's about to be arrested. After two more warnings, he stays wholly resolved in his decision to commit whatever atrocity he is about to do. As he is about to strike, I hear the shots. Two bullets, and he crashes down to the ground, yelling in pain.

The bullets from where he clutches himself seem not to have hit him lethally. Still, he looks up at us amid the shouts from the cops to back down. They rapidly approach us, and I see nothing but pure hatred in his cruel eyes. He lunges at us with all his might in one deft movement, his hands poised to execute lethal force. Without thinking it through, I position myself upright, blocking Dylan completely from his reach, despite his desperate, protesting yells.

The man never makes it to us; two retorts of a policeman's gun interrupt my peaceful acceptance of death and his defined resolve to kill. He lies in front of us, limps on the ground with the knife hanging loosely from his hand and his eyes wide open. The street is downhill-sloped, so the blood from his head flows down, decorating the street like a ghetto art.

As soon as that round of chaos is over, another round begins. The ambulances begin their hassle of getting us to the hospital. Immediately, I ascertain that the man is dead, and my head whips around to look for Lily. Dylan has already fallen unconscious, and I see Lily just a few feet away from where we were struck, cowering and whimpering.

She comes running towards us once the air is clear, demonstrating that she has not been physically harmed and checking that there is no further danger lurking. She reaches me before the paramedics and pries me off Dylan's half-dead body. When I turn to look at him, I quickly see his chest rise slowly and fall.

He's breathing.

"Ava, you're bleeding," Lily tells me, but it doesn't matter.

"Are you okay?" I turn her all over, checking for any wounds I may have missed, as the paramedics descend upon us and begin the standard medical assessment procedure.

We both receive simultaneous attention while a team carries Dylan on a stretcher.

"Careful, he was hit on the head." I held his head and helped stabilize him, which was unnecessary, but I still felt like I had to. Immediately, I see him on the move and make to follow the stretcher. Still, the medical officials do not allow me access.

Instead, Lily and I ride the same ambulance to the hospital - different from the one Dylan is in.

"Lily, I'm so sorry for putting you through this." I sob when I feel comfortable enough to say more than just a few words. My head hurts like it was crushed, and I live on borrowed time. All my brain matter finally liquefies and flows out, but I brave through the pain, keeping pressure on my wound with the ice-wrapped cloth given to me. While Lily is relatively unhurt, I'd have resurrected that bastard and killed him again if I spotted any injury on her delicate body.

"For what?" she asks.

"If I hadn't insisted we go out, we wouldn’t be here." I feel like punching myself.

"If you keep that mindset, you'd end up with more damage than all of us combined. Everything that happens is indirectly a result of the actions we take. Stop blaming yourself," she croaks.

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