Chapter Twelve

I can still remember ST’s warnings about this whole relationship thing.

“Let her stay away from your life. That’s the only way you can protect her.”

Five years ago, the naive me would never realize the true weight behind the words. The me at that time desperately wanted to see Jessica again.

Would I want that? Would she want that? Why should I just submit to their threats? If I removed Jessica from my life, then I lost half of the reason that I’m living through this hell for. That’ was what they wanted wasn’t it?

That was what I thought.

But at least that way Jessica wouldn’t die.

I couldn’t just put her in danger. I wouldn’t want to see her die just so I could feel happy for the moment. I still wished her to be safe and sound.

Then what about me? I would be mentally dying inside if I couldn’t see her, if I knew that I had had a chance but I threw it away by playing safe. Sometimes in life you just couldn’t play safe, or you would achieve nothing. It was a chance I must take, also a risk.

I couldn’t just bring Jessica into all these like this. She needed to have the right to choose, whether she wanted to be involved in all this or not. I couldn’t just change her life forever without even asking her.

Yeah, I would ask her.

As I was thinking about all these my feet already carried me out toward the village that I met Jessica. I still didn’t get why people call them villages. These settlements were like huge underground cities with a few small buildings above ground and a lot of greeneries. Just because it was close to nature, it could still be called a city. But whatever, perhaps the namer was drunk that day.

I took a transit cart down towards the downtown, or down-village, or whatever. Jessica told me which school she went to, so I just started walking towards there. It felt so good to see people like me here.

I decided to take a shortcut, so I crossed a few darker alleys. Then there were some chaos across the wall, the sound of a girl screaming and several guys talking. I couldn’t make out exactly who it was screaming, since there was no more talking sounds afterwards. There were still noises though.

I climbed up the wall effortlessly and took a peek. Then I almost fell off out of shock. Jessica was standing against a wall, face filled with disgust and resentment. There were four guys encompassing her, giving her no space to run. Her school bag was still dangling from her shoulders, but it seemed useless. The four guys smiled in the most repulsive way possible and were slowly advancing towards Jessica.

I quickly got down from the wall and went to the opening of the alley.

Jessica suddenly flung her bag towards one of the guy’s face and ran towards the opening of the alley to the main street, but she was too slow. A guy grabbed her by the waist from the back and got into a bear hug position. Jessica screamed for a mere second but the guy clamped his hand on her mouth.

“Hey stop whatever you are doing!” I walked over and shouted. I tried to look confident, especially in front of Jessica, even though I didn’t think in this scenario she would still notice.

“Oh Andrew!” said Jessica.

“Who are you to stick your head in other people’s business?” The guy who grabbed Jessica now walked over in front of me, nose-to-nose.

“I’m her…” I didn’t prepare for an identity yet, so I just made one up. “I’m her boyfriend! Get away from my girlfriend!”

That didn’t seem to have much effect on the four guys, because they started all closing in around me.

“So she had a boyfriend. That was why she turned our Champion down huh?” that same dude continued on. “I’ll give you five seconds to walk away now. We will not hurt you. Five. Four.”

Now I was feeling rage. Adrenaline pumped in my body. Who did that guy think he was? And who the heck was their Champion?

When that guy counted to one, he threw a hook at my face. I ducked and slipped away easily. Before that guy could strike again, I clenched the back of his neck and pushed down, controlling his standing position. A guy from behind me wanted to sneak up and punch me, but I swerved aside and swung the talking guy between us as a shield. The talking guy got hit in the face quite badly. I moved back a few steps with my rear feet, hands still clenched onto the talking guy’s neck, and drove my rear knee into the talking guy’s stomach. He cried in pain as he crumbled on the ground, unconscious from the pain.

The other punching guy punched again and I blocked it with my forearm. I felt someone grabbing me from behind as I lost my balance. His buddy and the punching guy decided to punch me hard while their friend grabbed onto me. I put all my weight onto my right heel and smacked it down onto the grabbing guy’s toe. Immediately the grip loosened. I turned my torso and elbowed him on the stomach, then grabbed onto his arm. He was resisting, but it was too late, as I threw him over my back onto the concrete ground. He was transfixed with fear before he passed out from the pain.

The two guys left looked intimidated, and they were choosing between backing off or ganging up on me. In this one second of hesitation, I charged toward one guy threw an overhand punch right at his face. He blocked it, but I suddenly turned my hands and grabbed onto his blocking wrist. I pulled that hand towards me, slightly raising it, and pressed onto his elbow with the other hands. He shouted in pain as he felt his arm being broken in half. His face was distorted and warped almost exaggeratedly. Just before his elbow was about to be snapped, I dropped my left hand and elbowed him on the face instead, knocking him out.

The last guy was about to run, but he tripped over his friend’s body. I walked over and grabbed his collar, raising him up to my eye level.

“Who’s your Champion?” I interrogated.

“He’s… He’s the one your girlfriend turned down on!”

“Elaborate!” I slapped him across his face. My fingers left a bloody trail.

“He… He wanted to… to ask her out… and then they could… go to the… dance together… but… she said no…”

I punched the guy in the face, knocking him out. Then I rushed over to Jessica.