Chapter 19

"Hey, are you Erlig Grimes?" Two tough-looking guys were standing in front of us. "You should come with us if you don't want to get hurt." One of them started warming up.

Are they for real? What have I done to someone to send thugs after me?

"Who are these dumbasses?" Mara furrowed her eyebrows and looked at me.

I tried to remember if I saw them previously, but I couldn't remember anything from yesterday. After all, I was running away most of the time. And the only one I could barely recall was the leader.

"I don't remember them." I shook my head.

"Should I knock them out?"

"What?" I was surprised, to say the least, by her statement.

"Who do you think I am? They are small fries. It won't take more than half a minute." she started stretching her long, fit legs and hands, attracting not only my gaze but the thug's as well.

"You can… No, wait, can't we resolve this more peacefully?" I didn't want to use violence. And I didn't want to hide behind yet another girl.

"Hm, I guess we can, but you should state why." she tapped her chin. "It would take more time. And what if your reason for this something stupid like: 'I don't want to hide behind a girl.'" She grinned at me.

Guh, straight to the point.

"I don't want you to get hurt." I squeezed a smile.

But Mara kept standing there with a sly grin. I guess it was a sort of entertainment for her. I needed to think of something else.

"If you knock them out, we…I won't be able to know who ordered to harm me. So if you have a way to make them spill the beans, I would prefer it rather than beating them up." I didn't really forget about this, but how could I be sure that they would tell us the truth?

"Look at you, so smart. I thought you would never think about it." She clapped her hands.

"Why are you doing this…"

"HEY, what are you two talking about!? I said we need the guy. The girl can piss off!" one of the guys stood before us. At first, I thought he looked fierce. But now that he came closer, he looked like any other guy, except a little bit tougher and way more worn out. Short, dark brown hair. Tank-top, leather jacket, and jeans. He didn't look like someone who had much money from his clothes. And the guy who was with him looked similar. Tougher than a regular guy and worn out, the only difference was he was bald.

Mara extended her hand with a v sign. "Give us two minutes, pretty please?" She smiled at him. "My boyfriend needs some time to prepare. We won't run away, I swear." She tried to act docile, but I felt that all of this was a show.

As the guy scanned her whole body with his gaze, he couldn't hide a fire of lust. After feasting his eyes on her body, he softened up a little. "All right, you can have a minute!"

"Yay, thank you!" She quickly took out her phone and sent a message to someone. I think it was tactless to look into someone else's phone, so I didn't know what she was typing or to whom.

"And to answer your question, you can think of this as a little revenge. After all, you hurt me so much previously," she pouted.

Sigh, I couldn't understand her at all. Maybe I should give up on this complicated matter?

"So, what have you done?"

"You would see this in a second or two."

She took a cigarette from somewhere and asked the thugs to light it up for her. While I held the bags, she was talking to them, and they even started laughing.

Maybe she was the one who ordered these guys to catch me? And right now, she was waiting for the main group to catch me? But I heard from Paul that she is strong. If she wanted, she could probably kick my ass by herself. I was feeling nervous and ready to throw the bags and start running.

Suddenly a few minivans stopped near the black SUV that Mara and I used. I was this close to running away, but when my and Mara's eyes locked, she showed me her usual smile. While the guys had questioning looks on their faces.

Large groups of men and women started running from the minivans, and soon we were surrounded by this big group of people. All of them were wearing plain black suits and sunglasses.

Now I had the same face as the two guys, but unlike them, I started guessing that they were Mara's people. Her driver wore something similar.

"Young miss, we've come as per your request." One of the guys stood out from the crowd. "What will be your orders?"

A few minutes later, we changed our location, and now we were standing near the cars. Thugs that were threatening me were both tied up and kneeled up before us while trembling. While the bags I held were put into Mara's car by one of her henchmen.

"What do your parents do?" I couldn't help myself from asking.

"Wouldn't it be more fun for you to find it out yourself?" Mara's eyes shined like two gems while her cheeks were slightly red. I guess she was enjoying herself, and it only made me doubt her more.

"Don't tell me it's something…" I looked around and lowered my voice so that only she would hear me "Something illegal?"

"Gosh, of course not! My dad is a regular businessman while my mother is a virtuous housewife." She looked at our prisoners, "I've never before taken part in interrogations, isn't it fun!?" and looked me in the eyes, once again seeking my approval.

"I can't really agree with this. Still, we should ask them. What did they want to do?"

I moved closer to the guy who talked to me."Hey, who told you to assault me?"

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS ARE DOING!? I WILL SUE ALL OF YOU. THIS IS ILLEGAL!!!"

I could only scowl. Is he still in his mind? He wanted to do something shady to me, and now he is talking about illegal stuff? I guess he snapped.

And before I could ask him again, Mara did something unexpected, she basically jumped into a weird stance and lifted her leg, almost doing a split, and then she struck the top of his head with her heel. "UGH!" He grunted and lost his consciousness. However, before he could fall down on his face, she added another kick to the side of his jaw. It looked like a kick a football player made when he kicked a ball.

"HII!" the other guy, the bald one, squealed from the horror.

"You better tell us everything you know if you don't want to swim in a sea with newly acquired concrete shoes!"

"I WILL TELL, I WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING!!! JUST LET ME GO!!!"

She looked back at me with a beaming face. "Now that's how you should interrogate someone!"

I didn't know if something was wrong with me or if I was pent up, but I found her really attractive at this very moment. The way her face was flushed right now. And especially her legs, when she kicked the dude into dreamland. They looked unbelievably beautiful. They were long yet thick and supple. I couldn't catch the whole picture, but her movements were really smooth.

I shook this off and started questioning the guy.

It turned out he and his friend were simple bouncers that lost their jobs and started doing some shady tasks to earn money for a living. Such as taking the debt, or beating someone into docility, mugging people of valuable documents, and so on. But because they didn't take any job that was too extreme, they weren't doing good.

And like a gift from the gods, they had a job offer. An unnamed woman made an advance payment, twice as much, as they made from two or even three jobs. The job was simple to beat up the guy and destroy his phone while giving him a warning. She gave them all the information they could possibly need and even told them that I would be probably buying sports equipment in one of the coming days. Having all of this information, they were lucky enough to "catch me" on the second day of their assignment. When I asked him if they knew anything about a large group coming after me, he said he didn't know anything like this. The more I listened to him, the angrier I became. I had only one person in mind who could do this.

As we learned everything we could, one of Mara's henchmen or bodyguards, the one who talked with her before, asked her. "What should we do with them?"

"And what do you usually do?" as she asked him back with sparkling eyes, her bodyguard chose to remain silent.

The bald guy we were talking to was already in tears, begging to spare his life.

"I think we should just let them go." Still, no matter how angry I was, I didn't want to know that someone was killed because of me. I wouldn't be able to sleep.

"You heard him, beat them up and leave them somewhere on the outskirts." as Mara waved her hand, all the bodyguards left this place as fast as the lightning. "By the way, do you plan to let this slide as well?"

"Huh?"

"From your reaction, I understood that you know who is behind all of this."

"So what? What do you want to say?"

"You know, some people would see what you do as an act of kindness. But some of them, tsk tsk, they would see it as a weakness." She took out a phone, but it wasn't her. "You can have this. It's the phone of one of these guys, it has the number of the mysterious woman that made an order. I would also send you a testimony of those guys later. You should choose what to do with it wiiiseeelyyy." she dragged the last word.

As I took this phone, I didn't know what to do with all of it. I was angry, but can I really do anything?

"And remember Erlig. I would help you if something goes wrong." she had an ambiguous look on her face when she said this.

After this, Mara gave me a ride. And I went back home, promising her that I would return the money.

I called Jessie and told her that I was almost one hundred percent sure who was the one behind the assault and what happened today. I barely managed to calm her down as I told her that I would be able to manage this.

While I was lying on the bed in my room, I felt that I was boiling. I couldn't even define what I was feeling right now. It was a mixture of different emotions. I wanted to get angry at the one who tried to harm me but ended up getting angry at myself. From the very beginning, I was afraid not of the bad and evil things but of retribution.

My parents were always saying that I was polite, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn't like that. I feared the law. I didn't know when it started when it has outgrown simple following and developed into fear. But I thought it was a good thing to be law-abiding. It never really failed me until this very moment.

I was faced with someone who didn't give a shit about law, or was it this whole world like that? Where were you punished for being what could be said as meek? I couldn't quite grasp the feeling I had right now.

What should I do? Should I give every piece of evidence to the upper authority? But I also saw how Mara was pushing me to the edge. And her words, saying that she would help me. And what was the good and the bad right now? Was being too kind and polite a bad thing? I couldn't come to any conclusion right now.

Soon it was time for dinner, but I never expected what would happen when Greg returned.

At first, I was eating as usual, maybe a little bit slower as there were lots of things on my mind. Then suddenly I noticed that I was the only one eating. Greg was watching me with a cloudy face, and even Annie looked disappointed for some reason.

"Cough, is something the matter?" I already felt their stinging gaze once before, but right now, it was different. They looked at me like I did something wrong.

"Son, don't you want to tell us something?" so Greg decided to come from afar.

"Well, I went shopping today with a friend of mine, but I used the money from the stipend, don't worry."

"I'm not talking about that, is there anything else?"

I felt pressure from the kind Greg. But I didn't know what was the matter. I could only shrug my shoulders.

"Erlig, I received a call recently from your school. They told me that you started a fight."

"WHAT?!" I stood up.

"Sit down Erlig!" Greg hit the table. "Even if you are stronger, you can't bully others. You have this strength to protect others, not to harm them…"

As a long sermon started, I could only sit down and listen. I was nodding and agreeing to everything my father said. While I was holding the nose of my bridge and rubbing the scar with one hand, I clenched the other hand that was under the table into the fist.

Now you fucking done it. They kept fucking doing it, they thought I was a pushover. I believed in second chances. I thought every person could redeem himself. That kindness would evoke kindness in return. But apparently, this was wrong. This world was telling me to turn into a villain.

And if it was like that.

So be it!