Chapter 11 - Just Not Bad


    Bastion urges us into the closet right next to the front door and Aloe pulls me by my arm before I can protest. I halt our momentum and Aloe falls backwards slightly, she looks back towards me with a hint of desperation in her eyes.


    “Zee, there is no time to run, we have to hide, trust me.” Aloe whispers an informed warning, and I decide to trust her as I stop pulling back and we both step into the closet.


    Bastion opens the front door the moment the closet door closes, he doesn’t seem to want to keep the two of them waiting. Eppie wastes no time speaking.


    “Bastion, nice seein’ ya!” He greets Bastion as if talking to an old friend.


    Bastion doesn’t audibly respond but Eppie lets out a confident chuckle as his brother speaks up.


    “M-mister Bastion, W-we have reason t-to believe that y-you are housing s-some fugitives.” Hippie as usual stutters his way through a sentence, but now his voice has a threatening tone that contrasts any other tone I had heard from him before.


    I stop focusing on what I am hearing and I look at Aloe in front of me, she is focused onto me as she is sweating buckets, the look in her eyes speaks millions of words of desperation and fear into my own. I wonder what the two of them possibly had done in the past to get this kind of reaction out of the both of them.


    “N-no-” Bastion speaks but is quickly cut off.


    “Do not fuckin lie to us, ya old fool!” Eppie shouts as he ditches his previous, more friendly tone.


    Bastion goes silent again but no one is chuckling this time. Even though I cannot see what their expressions are at this moment I can tell why Aloe had a look of desperation in her eyes. The foolish brothers I had seen just a couple weeks ago have another side to them, one that instills fear into others. I guess before now, I thought they were mascots of some kind, but now I realize that they are really royal guards, worthy to be by the side of Angela.


    “Alright old man.” Eppie sighs and continues.


    “We know all three of em are here, we ain’t gonna hurt ur girls, but Miss Angela needs us to bring the psycho boy with us.” Eppie explains.


    “W-what are you gonna do with him?” Bastion stutters through his question.


    “That don’t concern ya, old man. Just tell us where the little maniac is hidin’ and we won’t bother the girls. You know us, we love them just as much as ya.” Eppie’s voice starts to pick up in frustration.


    I crack the door to get a look at the scene playing out with my own eyes. I know Bastion is more likely to sell me out if it means Aloe and Sheera are safe, so I have to get a read on the room in order to have a chance of escaping.


    “Who told you I had them?” Bastion says, the look on his face is less fearful than I expected.


    “Hippie did I’s not just say the details ain’t his concern? Or did I’s forget to mention that?” Eppie asks his brother a rhetorical question.


    “N-No you’s d-definitely d-did-” Hippie stutters but is cut off by Eppie.


    “Ya dumbass, that was a rhetoric-” Eppie sighs as he stops in the middle of his sentence.


    “Okay, let''s not complicate it no further, where is the boy, Bastion?” Eppie says with a sense of finality in his voice.


    Eppie seems to be at the edge of his patience, his back is turned to the closet but I can tell without even looking at his face that Bastion is well out of time to stall. Hippie shifts nervously, sensing something within his brother, and I sense the same… he now has killing intent. Bastion has flashes of nervousness on his otherwise stoic face, he seems to struggle between his options, out of either an unexpected loyalty to me, or distrust in the word of Eppie.


    “I don’t know who told you they were here, but they ain’t.” Bastion looks at the floor as he gives his final response.


    “Well I’s did warn ya.” Eppie says as he pulls out an old looking pistol with a silencer from his waistband.


    Time slows down in my eyes, as it always does in these kinds of situations, I can see it all unfold in front of me. The distance between me and Eppie is not far, but he is fast, and I can’t guarantee Bastion''s life if I intervene, and if I do, I can’t guarantee Aloe’s or Sheera’s. I silently reserve myself, my anger and all, intervening will only serve to endanger Aloe, and I know that Bastion doesn’t want me to risk her life for his. I know that because he is looking right at me, he shakes his head slightly as a way of telling me to stand down. But before I can do just that, I feel pressure in my arm, and looking over to my left I can see Aloe, the same look of desperation that she had at the bar, when her own life was on the line, but this time she is desperate for me to save not her, but a person she holds dear.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Before another thought crosses my mind my impulses take over and I am throwing a kick to the hand of Eppie, that hand that is holding a gun. But as I make contact he fires a shot, the silenced shot still is loud enough to echo throughout the room, but probably not loud enough to alert anyone in the building.


    “NO!” Aloe shouts.


    I look to my right and see blood splatter onto the wall and blood pouring out of the ear of Bastion, he is alive. Suddenly a pain shoots across my back and I am forced to my knees by the pain alone, warm blood pours down my back and stains my shirt and pants. I glance behind me and Hippie quickly sheaths a long knife into his waistband.


    “Well well well, the kid was here after all.” Eppie says with pleasant surprise.


    Aloe walks slowly out of the closet and speaks.


    “I-I thought you said you knew we were here?” Aloe asks and I now realize that Eppie did seem surprised that I was really here.


    “Twas worth a shot, Bastion’s time is up either way, master''s orders. She said y’all might be round here though, so we’s had to try.” Eppie explains as his brother stands at his side with a crazed look in his eye.


    With the silenced gun clearly meant for assassinations and them clearly admitting to it, it is all but confirmed that they only really came here to kill Bastion, and the two sisters if they were here, and they only decided to talk because they thought they might find out where I was by questioning Bastion.


    “B-bro, is u-ur hand o-okay?” Hippie asks Eppie without breaking eye contact with me.


    “Yeah yeah, calm down we’s need to do this clean.” Eppie reassures his brother but spells out a menacing motive for doing so.


    “Clean?” I ask.


    “You’s the lucky one, Miss Angela really does want to see ya, but everyone else, sadly they’ve got to go, else things won’t go smoothly with her plan.” Eppie explains and then sighs.


    “Well no need to delay th-” Eppie is interrupted by my fist cracking his jaw and he stumbles backwards.


    Eppie laughs and everyone is frozen in shock.


    “Damn boy, you’s got me g-” Eppie stops speaking as he falls to his knees, unable to stand.


    “Bro!” Hippie screams and crouches next to his fallen brother.


    Eppie looks up at me, wide eyed and shocked, he didn’t expect to lose his equilibrium from one punch. Hippie looks at me with an even crazier look in his eyes, but before he can make his move I plant my boot into Eppie’s jaw, and he goes completely out. Hippie throws a well trained kick at me, but he lacks in speed and it slowly sweeps past my face. He reaches for his waist for the knife but I charge at him, expecting him to be slow, I feel my instincts yank me backwards as the knife whizzes past my nose, barely missing me.


    “Y-you’s hurt m-my bro!” Hippie yells as the glint of technique he showed fades into disorganized, yet focused rage.


    Hippie charges at me, he attempts to slash at me, lacking the precision he just showed a moment ago. He attempts to stab me and I duck down and throw an uppercut that lands flesh, his jaw is not as durable as Eppie as the one punch is all it took to knock him unconscious. He is standing but unconscious as he falls forward onto me, I shrug him off of me and he face plants onto the hardwood floor. The room is silent until Bastion speaks up.


    “Just what did they do to you?” Bastion questions me, probably referring to my time in the military but he gives me no time to answer, he winces as he holds his bleeding ear but continues.


    “We have to go right now! I’ve got a hideout that not even Angela knows about, I’ll take Sheera, but you two need to get on with it. Go now!” Bastion orders us.


    “We can’t just leave you in here with these guys!” Aloe protests.


    “They’re gonna be out for a while, and whenever they wake up they will not be in any condition to chase after us. I could almost clearly hear their jaws shattering on impact, trust me.” Bastion says.


    “Nevertheless, I will grab a few things and get Sheera out of here. You both, be on your way.” Bastion reassures Aloe.


    Aloe is seemingly getting ready to protest again so I pull her by her arm.


    “Promise me you’ll be okay!” Aloe says while pulling back.


    Bastion smiles.


    “Besides my ear… Of course, young lady.” He says as he gives me a slight nod.


    Aloe doesn’t say any more, she whimpers and yanks her arm from my grip and walks out of the front door on her own, and I give Bastion a nod as I follow her. As we finally make it out into the alley way I realize blood is still pouring from my back, but there’s no time to care right now.


    “So, do you have any idea where this criminal hideout is?” I ask her as I remember the day we met, and she led me to the bar hideout.


    “I think I do. Never been, but the knife on the door is something I have seen while wandering the alley ways when I was younger.” Aloe says, clearly mentally exhausted from everything that has been happening.


    Looking at her leading the way reminds me about the day we met again.


    “W-well, I guess I’m relying on you to lead the way again, Aloe.” I say, suddenly overcome by a strange nervousness.


    Aloe doesn’t respond but her shoulders tense up and her walking pace slows down, she speeds up almost instantly and continues to lead the way.


    “H-here it is.” Aloe whispers as she stops suddenly, I bump into her.


    “Hey!” Aloe whispers as loud as she can.


    “S-sorry, I didn’t think it was this close to Bastion''s place.” I say to Aloe, quietly.


    “He said it was just a couple blocks. Jeez.” Aloe says as she makes eye contact with me and holds it.


    “Y-yeah I already said my ba-” I freeze as Aloe holds eye contact with me for a long time.


    I clamor with my words and Aloe continues to hold eye contact with me, and I feel as if I am being held prisoner by her eyes, as I am unable to look away. I only break eye contact to instinctively look at her lips and immediately back at her eyes. Her deep blue irises engulf me as if they are the product of the vast oceans of the east, and I feel as if I cannot breathe as I drown within them.


    “Move out the damn way I gotta piss!” A rough voice shatters my illusion and the both of us look towards it, the door with the knife carved onto it is now open and a rough looking man stands before us.


    “O-oh sorry.” I say as I pull Aloe with me and out of the man''s way.


    The man stumbles down the alley way and I look towards Aloe again, the tension seemingly fades away as we both laugh at what just happened, and for a moment we felt like we did before all of this. Normal? Not sure, but just not bad.