First Blood

8

Richard's POV:

Strangely, this time Neo is not here. At first, I was wondering why but then the owner Jones explain to me: "I heard she's at the ICU in Gemini, someone beat her up real good".

"Who did this?", I ask Jones in which he shakes his head.

"I have no idea".

I nod to the kind owner as I quickly walk out of the diner and back to my car. In fact, I am very upset but unable to show my emotion for unknown reason.

15 minutes later...

I have finally made it to the destination, and I head straight up to A-15 according to Jones. Standing at a distance, I can still see Neo's heavily injured face very clear through the glass door, that breaks my heart because I did not realize that sooner or later, she will end up like this. Honestly, it feels like I am guilty even though I did nothing wrong.

However, there is a person who sits next to Neo's bed. A young man, who appears in his mid 20s. The man has long, orange hair that covers his right eye. He also wears white coat with bowler hat. In fact, he cries so much that both of his eyes are red.

"You'll be okay Neo. You'll be okay", the young man comforts Neo as I hide behind a corner so that she will not notice me. This man's movement and the way he talks is very soft and quite feminine.

At this moment, I have no choice but to do what I need to do. I decide to take a seat at the hallway and reading the book to kill the time. Not so long after that, the man walking to a coffee machine to get some energy while still crying. However, he accidentally overflow the cup so I rush over to help him.

- Are you okay? Here, take this.

"I can... it's fine. Thank you", the young man stutter as I offers for him some tissue papers which he looks at me in hesitant, it must because of my friendly manner, but then he genuinely accept it and clean his hand.

"How's she doing?" I ask the young man but he glares at me, so I ask him for the second time.

"Neo, how's she doing?"

This time, he back up in suspicion and ask who am I in which I simply respond: "Just a friend". I offer the man some more tissue papers which she gladly accept this time. The young man introducing himself, says that his name is Roman and he is also the only male prostitute who works in the same brothel with Neo. Eventually, their relationship developed as Roman considers the young girl as her "little sister". Neo is lucky that she have a friend to talk with. When I ask Roman about the injury, he explain:

- A guy hit her, and she hit him back. She was lucky, because they flayed one girl's facial skin and keep her around as a reminder for the rest of us.

As the story goes on, tears rolling over Roman's cheeks.

- They brought Neo over very young, think she got to the point where... she thought her life could be hers one day. Freddy reminded her it never would be.

Roman pause for a moment to wipe his tears.

- He said he'd cut her throat next time. He said a whore who fucks and can't talk might be worth twice as much.

I freeze for a few minutes as Roman walks away. Holding the business card in my hand, I knew that he would not go quiet. Because of this, I stand up and make my way to the Black Betty. Justice is coming, and they will be not expecting for it. Time for me to taking out the trash.

Somewhere in Vale City...

A beautiful wooden mansion can be seen locating at a hilltop. However, the mansion is also heavily guarded as well. At a distance, a white sports car rolling up as the driver park it in the garage. A man in brown suit steps out, and ask the guard: