Spryta guilty dragged the badly beaten and bruised Tyrone back to the campsite, rolling him into her tent with a gentleness she had never shown before…

Well, given the nature of Tyrone’s injuries, Spryta was pretty sure he would die if she treated him too roughly, so it was more out of obligation than actual care…

Everyone in the encampment watched as the unusually small Spryta dragged a body twice her height into her tent…

Spryta didn’t mind the whispers that came from the other tents because, like her, everyone at the encampment was young junkies just looking for their next score…

Spryta lit her lamp as soon as she settled Tyrone inside the tent…

Dragging Tyrone back to her tent had taken a lot of time, so it was already near midnight…

“Fuck… you’re so heavy…” Spryta complained, forgetting the fact that she was the reason Tyrone was in such a state to begin with…

Anyone unfamiliar with the life of the streets would be confused about someone being beaten so severely by a couple of beggars, but Spryta knew exactly what went wrong…

‘Tyrone can’t run fast enough…’

Basically, she took Tyrone to beg for money on someone else’s turf…

You would think that all beggars would be treated the same due to their shared homelessness and poverty-stricken states, but the truth was far from that simple…

Sure, all beggars were poor and homeless, but even in the lower reaches of Society, there was still a hierarchy to respect…

People had a way of separating the unfortunate, even amongst other unfortunates…

It was no secret that the busy streets tend to generate 20% more wealth than the desolate streets, so the stronger beggars would form gangs to keep other beggars away from the busy streets…

The garbage in wealthy neighborhoods also had more leftovers than anywhere else, so it was possible to eat like a king even as a beggar, as long as you had a good area of the city…

In all her time begging, Spryta had more than once encountered full packaged turkeys in the garbage of wealthy homes…

It was amazing what people threw away…

However, Spryta was forced to hustle away from the busy streets but with Tyrone’s fighting skills, she judged that maybe they could move up in life…

From a small dumpster to a large dumpster…

Looking down at the badly beaten Tyrone, Spryta sighed in frustration “I honestly thought you could win… didn’t expect so many guys to beat you though…”

The plan to get Tyrone as the lookout as she hustled the busy streets had worked perfectly in Spryta’s mind, but obviously, things didn’t turn out so well in reality…

“You’re so lucky my mom taught me to never hit a feminine woman…” Tyrone groaned, using his swollen hands to cradle his bruised body…

Honestly, he had regained consciousness a while ago, but he still allowed Spryta to carry him into the tent because it was the least she could do after getting him beaten so severely…

Spryta frowned “You mean your mom taught you to never hit a woman?”

“NO… A feminine woman…” Tyrone admitted, pushing himself off the ground “If a girl is stronger than me, then she probably gonna beat my ass anyway so I might as well fight back…”

“I’m sorry…” Spryta apologized, honestly not expecting things to take a turn for the worse so quickly…

The worst part is – she could have scored more money if Tyrone put up more of a fight…

“It’s okay…” Tyrone comforted, feeling a bit ironic that anyone would want to beat a dying man to death “I knew you were trying to collect money to get out…”

Spryta flinched that Tyrone would notice something even she was unsure of…

“How?” She questioned in a small voice that demonstrated her lack of confidence…

“Because… when you took the clothes from the church, you kept glancing at the store across the street…” Tyrone explained, caressing Spryta’s hand with his own “The store had a ‘Help Wanted’ sign at the front… so I just knew you wanted something better…”

Seeing that Tyrone was sincere about her being forgiven, Spryta withdrew a pouch from one of the many pockets on her clothing, and spread the treasure inside the pouch all over the ground…

“We didn’t come out empty-handed at least…” She bragged, expecting a congratulation from Tyrone, but instead, she felt his hands strongly gripped around her wrist…

At first, she felt terror that Tyrone was about to force himself on her as Jacob and Tod did in the past…

Even if she knew Tyrone wasn’t such a person, Spryta’s body still stiffened at the thought…

“People are afraid…”

“What?” she questioned, her body finally relaxing when Tyrone did nothing more…

“The people outside are becoming terrified…” Tyrone frowned and covered his nose “Really fucking terrified!”

Without a moment of hesitance, Tyrone grabbed Spryta by the waist and rolled through the back of the tent into a dugout that bordered a horizontal wall…

It was not a well-hidden dugout, but at the very least, they wouldn’t be seen unless someone was actively searching…

Spryta wiggled to break free from Tyrone’s grip, but he held her firmly in his embrace, clutching her mouth shut so she could only manage vague whimpers…

---POP---

---POP---

---POP---

---POP---

---POP---

---POP---

---POP---

From their hidden location inside the dugout, Tyrone and Spryta watched as the tent was ripped to shreds by bullets…

The sparks of each bullet would brighten their location, so anyone looking would certainly see them, but thankfully, no one was looking…

Needless to say, both Tyrone and Spryta were terrified to the point that their bodies froze on reflex…

It was one thing to see a junkie die from overdosing or see someone shot in the hood, but it was another thing when the intended target of the bullets was you…

And Tyrone and Spryta knew that the bullets were meant for them, or, more specifically, Spryta…

A couple of seconds later, several men dressed in tuxedos destroyed what remained of the tent, clearly looking for the corpse of Spryta that was supposed to be inside…

“Where is she?” The Gang Leader, named Arro, yelled at Spryta’s neighbor…

Spryta flinched in Tyrone’s arms when she laid eyes on Arro…

Of course, she was very familiar with the boss who supplied her drugs, and she dreaded the moment Arro would come to look for Tod and Jace – the boys she and Tyrone had accidentally killed…

Well, not much of an accident, seeing she and Tyrone had dumped their bodies in the river…

But still, unless the bodies came back to life and swam out of the river, Spryta was sure that they were supposed to have a couple more days before Arro discovered anything…

By that time, Spryta planned for both her and Tyrone to be long gone, but it seemed that none of her plans had been going well today…

“They were just here…” The Neighbour knelt and pleaded “I just saw them…please do not hurt us… please… look at the money on the ground… that bitch would never leave without money. She also goes around with a black kid now… just look for someone black…”

Spryta and Tyrone flinched from the darkness of the dugout as Arro’s eyes brushed over their location…

If it wasn’t for Tyrone’s unique gift that allowed him to detect fear, then both he and Spryta would have been shot to death inside the tent…

However, instead of feeling like the crisis had been averted, Tyrone could feel the fear in the air thicken to an unnatural degree…

Arro eyed the entire encampment for Spryta and Tyrone, and when he couldn’t see anyone matching their descriptions, he decided on the next best course of action…

“Kill them all…” Arro ordered…

---POP---

Spryta’s Neighbour was the first to fall, and then several more gunshots rang out…

---POP---

---POP---

---POP---

It was only until the third ‘POP’ did Tyrone remember that children also camped near Spryta’s tent, and though he could not see the bodies falling, Tyrone could guess that some of those bodies were just kids…

Still, as much as he considered himself a man who had seen fire and rain, Tyrone was too terrified to even make a squeak…

A smart man would crawl away from the crevice and run...

A heroic man would confront the gunmen and fight…

A good man would not have killed anyone in the first place…

So, faced with the question of what type of man he was, Tyrone realized that he thought too highly of himself…

Honestly, Tyrone thought Billy was a bit stupid for protecting him and allowing himself to be killed…

Tyrone also thought that his father was stupid for shooting a lawyer in court…

But now that he was in a similar situation of do or die, Tyrone realized that the Johnson Family name was wasted on someone as spineless as himself…

So he hid… and he hugged the crying Spryta and they hid… even as everyone outside was shot to death, they didn’t make a sound…

Actually, they hardly even took a breath…

Spryta clutched both of her ears, trying to ignore the pops of gunshots and the wails of her acquaintances that followed…

It was one thing to witness a mass shooting, but it was another thing to witness a mass shooting while knowing it was your fault…

“We need to move…” Spryta whispered, attempting to crawl out of Tyrone’s arms, but something happened before they could get away…

---PLAP---

An Orphan Girl, probably in the wrong place at the wrong time, dashed in front of the dugout, attempting to crawl inside and save herself from an untimely death…

But when she saw Spryta and Tyrone hidden inside, the Orphan Girl knew exactly who the men were after…

“They’re here… They’re here… In this dugout over here!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, exposing Spryta’s and Tyrone’s location…

Tyrone and Spryta knew there was no more escaping, and honestly, they were too startled to even move a muscle…

“You sure?” Arro questioned, walking over with a pep in his step “If you’re lying, I will kill you too…”

The Orphan Girl hopped to her feet and nodded eagerly “They are right under the extension, inside a dugout… it’s small but it’s a good place to hide…”

“Get them!” Arro commanded, pointing a gun at the Orphan Girl’s head…

The Orphan Girl knelt and crawled under the wall, placing half her body inside the dugout, grabbing Spryta’s hands, and attempting to pull her outside…

Spryta, of course, fought and scratched like crazy, not willing to be pulled away from the only protection she had, whether that was Tyrone or the crevice, she did not know…

“You have three more seconds!” Arro warned, and the Orphan Girl tried to pull Spryta out even more desperately…

The fear and desperation rolling off her body pounded against Tyrone’s heart…

“Please… Please… Please…” The Orphan Girl pleaded as tears and snot clouded her beauty, but she could not remove Spryta from Tyrone’s embrace…

Despite everything, Tyrone clung to Spryta, not allowing her to be moved an inch away from him…

It was heart-wrenching to look a desperate girl in the face and condemn her to death, but Spryta was comforted by the fact that Tyrone refused to let her go…

Had it just been her alone, she would not have been able to stop herself from being dragged out…

Tyrone was going crazy inside his mind…

Of all the comic books he had read, Tyrone never found a story that could describe what to do in this situation…

How could he decide to save one and allow the other to die?

Should he release Spryta so the Orphan Girl can live, or should he keep Spryta in his arms and allow an innocent girl to just die?

Wouldn’t they still look into the dugout and find him and Spryta anyway?

But by the end of his mental philosophical debate, there was only one answer Tyrone could come up with – just hold onto what you already have in your arms…

So he pulled Spryta into his chest even tighter, and as if sensing what would happen next, Spryta also wrapped her arms around Tyrone’s waist…

---POP---

The Orphan Girl was yanked outside the dugout by her feet and a gunshot echoed in Tyrone’s and Spryta’s ears, notifying them that an innocent life had been lost due to their cowardice…

“Drag those fuckers from under there!” Arro instructed, and his men were quick to get on their knees and begin crawling…

Tyrone and Spryta clung to each other as they wished to be anywhere but where they were, and that wish was soon answered; though, not in the way either of them would have wanted…

Before Arro’s men could get into the dugout, dark smoke wrapped around Tyrone and Spryta, then they were gone from the dugout altogether…

----------------

Tyrone opened his eyes in a void of absolute darkness that stretched for as far as the eyes could see…

Yes, he could see everything…

The darkness was not the absence of light, but more like the natural state of everything in the world…

“Ty…” Spryta muttered, clinging to his body as hers glowed with a faint golden light…

Tyrone took a single step in the void, and felt an intense headache…

The next moment, both he and Spryta, with a puff of black smoke, appeared ten thousand feet in the air…

The sensation of falling caused Tyrone’s mutant ability to trigger once more, and he was back in the void, but instead of taking a step forward, Tyrone moved back on instinct…

Then, in a puff of black smoke, Tyrone and Spryta found themselves standing on a railway, in front of an incoming train…

With a puff of black smoke, Tyrone and Spryta were suddenly inside the train, rolling across the ground as they held each other for dear life…

“What the fuck?” The Train Driver leaped away in fright, accidentally flicking the wrong signal switch on the control panel…

Tyrone and Spryta dizzily stood on their feet, and were instantly greeted by a rifle pointed at their heads…

“What are you doing?” Spryta complained, still feeling way too groggy to make sense of the situation…

Tyrone was a bit faster on the uptake “Relax… we are going to get off at the next stop…”

“Fucking Demon!” The Train Driver cursed, pointing the rifle at Tyrone’s head and pulling the trigger…

Luckily, just as the bullet left the muzzle, Tyrone and Spryta were gone in another puff of black smoke…

---------------

This time the elusive duo reappeared a couple of miles away from the tracks, gasping for breath as each sudden teleportation took a chunk out of their stamina reserves…

It was even worse for Spryta since she could feel the darkness feeding on her life force each and every time they teleported…

Tyrone may have been the driver, but Spryta knew that she was the engine…

“What the fuck!” Spryta swung out of Tyrone’s arms, and punched him in the face with all her strength, which was not very much in her exhausted state…

“You should be saying ‘thank you’ for saving your fucking life!” Tyrone yelled back, anger clouding his judgment “I wish I could have left you to die and save the Orphan Girl…”

“Then why didn’t you!?!” Spryta yelled, pushing Tyrone in the chest…

“BECAUSE YOU ARE THE ONLY THING I HAVE… THE ONLY PERSON I KNOW… AND YOU’RE NOT EVEN A GOOD PERSON AND THAT DISGUSTS ME!”

“YOU ARE DISGUSTED!?” Spryta span on Tyrone’s feet “YOU NEED TO START TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN FUCKING DECISIONS… EVERYTHING BAD YOU BLAME ON ME… YOU ACT LIKE YOU'RE THIS BLACK GUY WITH STRUGGLE IN YOUR VEINS BUT YOU’RE JUST A SCARED KID WHO HUGGED ME LIKE A TEDDY BEAR WHEN THE GUYS WITH GUNS CAME KNOCKING! YOU DISGUST ME!”

Tyrone held his head and stomped the ground until his feet hurt “YOU’RE JUST A FUCKING ADDICT… WHAT DO YOU KNOW OTHER THAN TO GIVE BLOW JOBS TO DRUG DEALERS FOR MORE DOPE?”

Spryta’s rampage came to an abrupt halt as she looked at Tyrone in surprise…

Some things were never meant to be said in an argument, and Tyrone had just crossed a line that should never be crossed…

“Blow Jobs?” Spryta asked, tears leaking from her eyes as she stood directly in front of Tyrone….

Her head was lower than his chest, but Tyrone felt small in comparison…

Tyrone opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to find the right words but he couldn’t…

“I’m sorry…” he murmured…

“Is that what you think of me? Someone who chose this life?” Spryta asked, turning her back to Tyrone “DO YOU KNOW HOW I STARTED USING DRUGS? WHAT THEY DID TO ME? DO YOU KNOW WHY I AM SO FUCKED UP!?”

Tyrone sighed “It’s okay… I said I’m sorry, let’s just m-”

“MOVE ON!?” Spryta interrupted, spinning around to look into Tyrone’s dodgy eyes “THE FIRST TIME I TOOK DRUGS WAS TO NUMB THE PAIN… DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEY DID? THEY HELD ME DOWN… THEY LOOKED HUNGRY LIKE ANIMALS WHO HADN’T EATEN FOR DAYS, AND I WAS THE LAMB OF THE NIGHT… THEY DIDN’T HAVE BELTS SO THEIR PANTS FELL STRAIGHT OFF AND –”

“I DON’T WANNA KNOW!” Tyrone yelled and Spryta smiled crazily…

“YOU GUESSED IT ALREADY, RIGHT? YOU PROBABLY KNEW FROM THE MOMENT YOU MET ME… THE FIRST TIME I WAS RAPED; IT WAS TWO BLACK MEN…” Spryta walked to Tyrone, tiptoed to hold his head, and forced him to look her in the eyes “I WAS JUST A WHITE KID WHO DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING AND THEY DECIDED BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF MY SKIN, THEY WERE ENTITLED TO TAKE SOMETHING FROM ME LIKE THE RICH WHITES TOOK FROM THEM… BUT YOU ALREADY KNEW THAT BECAUSE YOU CAN SMELL FEAR… YOU CAN SEE THE WAY MY BODY TENSES WHEN YOU ARE CLOSE AND THE WAY I TRY TO FORCE MYSELF TO BE NEAR YOU WHEN ALL I WANT TO DO IS RUN AWAY… You talk like being Black is a privilege, Tyrone…. But there is good and bad in everyone, so I just hope you can stop pretending to be the good guy…”

Tyrone’s reply was silence, but Spryta understood that his silence was a thousand words that admitted to the guilt in his heart…

---BBBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM---

An explosion a couple of miles away stopped the conversation from progressing any further, and both Tyrone and Spryta could tell it was the train they were previously teleported to…

They stayed silent and watched the blaze for a couple of seconds, knowing they were the ones responsible for the event…

“We don’t have to be in love, happy, or even like each other…” Spryta linked her hand with Tyrone’s, interlocking their fingers together “But that train had people on it, and we probably killed them, so we’re murderers… something stronger than loves binds us together – we are both fuckups…”

Spryta pulled Tyrone along, and the duo disappeared into the bushes, pushing the events of tonight to the back of their minds…