“Don’t lie to me carrot top!” A few of the homies laughed at my expense.

My eyebrows scrunched together, lines stretched across my forehead. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My sister was wearing a tank top at the house the other day. I saw the bruises on her back. She didn’t realize they were there, but I saw ‘em, blue as a Warrior’s jersey. Tell me how she got them.”

I gulped trying to process what he said and find an explanation on the fly. “We went out to eat at the restaurant we are at the parking lot needed a new asphalt job. She tripped in a pothole and rolled over and fell on her back.” There was no way it sounded legit.

“How do you explain her screaming when she pocket-dialed me?” he countered.

Ooo. That detail was hard to get around. “She—uh,” I started, but fumbled.

Smirking, he said, “Swear on it,” he said, leveling the gun right between my eyes.

“Okay, you want the truth?” I said. I figured I’d give him exactly what he wanted. You do that when a guy puts a gun in your face. “The truth is I fight monsters. You know like Van Helsing. The Witcher. Vin Diesel. Shaggy & Scooby.

“This giant bird monster attacked your sister and brought her out to Skaggs Island. I went out there and brought her back. I put my neck on the line to save her and all that she walked away with was a few bruises. So I’d be thanking me if I were you.”

“What language is that fool speaking?” asked one of the thugs, voicing what the rest of them were thinking. I must have sounded like a madman.

“Oh, I see how it is,” said Justin. He backhanded me with the grip of the gun causing me to fall to my knees. “You loco, white boy. They shoulda locked you up, but you’s an undiagnosed psycho.”

Justin eyed Oscar who in turn motioned for one of the thugs to come forward with a flick of his wrist. “Well my boy José has your diagnosis right here.”

José brought a pipe down on the back of my head. Stars erupted in my vision, my brain swam in a woozy stupor.

Justin grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me towards him as he punched me in the face. “First time I laid eyes on you, I knew you were no good white boy.”

He punched me several more times in the mouth until I spit out blood. “Nobody hurts my sister. Nobody.”

I was still dazed from the pole hitting my head, so the punches weren’t helping at all. I tried to gather my bearings, and my Good Luck. But what was I going to do? Kill Justin? He was only hurting me because he thought I hurt his sister. And how could I kill another person when I was fighting monsters just to protect other people.

After he finished with me, Oscar sicced his boys on me. They pummeled my body like a punching bag, tenderizing me like a slab of beef. After some time, I became aware that I was no longer being punched in the body or kicked in the head.

Justin seized a handful of my hair again and used it to drag me across the railroad tracks and gravel. I swear he picked the bumpiest path to the shoreline. I felt water seep down my neck through my shirt and into my pants. I was so dang tired of getting wet with my clothes on. If I was not in the shower I should not be getting wet.

Justin grabbed my cheeks with his other hand and yanked my face close. “I’m going to kill you now for what you did to her. They’ll find your body in a few days, washed up down the river. But first…” He forced me to watch as Oscar threw Gavin into the water. With his arms and legs tied up, he sank like a rock.

“No!” I screamed. With a burst of strength. I ripped free of Justin and dove beneath the frigid river. But no sooner was I underwater did Justin latch onto my ankle and drag me back out. I wouldn’t have gotten that far anyway, with the beating they gave me.

I tried to fight back, tried to claw his face with my fingers, tried to grab hold of anything. But there was nothing I could do as he held my face under the water. I tried to hold my breath but he choked me harder, forcing my gag reflex to take action which made me cough uncontrollably, in turn making me inhale water. Water also poured through my nose down the back of my throat. An intense pressure built behind my eyes and I felt like they’d pop out.

Please. Not like this.

The panic set in and all of the conditioning I did with Gavin was for naught. It surrounded me, enveloping me, through and through. No matter which direction I shifted, endless submersion lay beyond. I couldn’t get out of it, couldn’t’ get away from it, couldn’t keep water from pouring into me.

My final thoughts were of Gavin.

Gavin, the guy who didn’t want to get drawn into all this mess, the guy trying to save me, the one trying to pull me out of the monster madness that became my life over the past month. Because of his concern for me, he’d pursued me to protect me from danger. Because of me, Gavin had been taken hostage by a group of thugs. And now because of me he was beaten and sinking in the very thing he’d tried to help me overcome.

Stars exploded in my vision, but even those were beginning to fade to black. Justin shook my head violently, threatening to give me whiplash, which was the least of my worries. I wrapped my hands around his wrists now and tried with all my might to pull him off, but my arms fell limp to my sides of their own volition. I felt very tired and a nap sounded really good right then.

If I could just fall into the most peaceful sleep, I might wake up from this nightmare later.

Justin’s hands let go of me and I drifted downriver.

Sleep… sounded... so... good.

The darkness encased me and I blacked out.

---

Something inside me snapped. Since imprisonment in Tir fo Thuinn, my Luck level had slowly amassed. I’d been holding onto a reserve of Luck since I’d gotten the phone call from Justin. And now the reserve gates broke open, power flooding my body, refusing to let me die.

Improbable? I call it Luck.

My body worked on autopilot and I clawed my way out of the river and up the muddy shoreline. My stomach tensed and my mouth blew a stream out like a fire hydrant. My lungs burned and my nostrils stung. Hacking hard enough to see my veins flashing in my eyelids, I drew ragged breaths.

For a while I was nothing but conscious. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t think. I struggled to perform the first task you learn when entering the world; breathing.

Then it hit me.

Gavin’s still under water. There’s no way he survived longer than I did, tied up and scraping the bottom of the river.

They killed Gavin.

I howled from the depths of my shattered soul.