"Strangers passing in the street,
"By chance two separate glances meet.
"And I am you and what I see is me."
-Echoes, by Pink Floyd.
It was rare for you to get nervous about something, especially since you normally would go head-first.
But there was...
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There were more than four-thousand kids in this school, about a thousand for each grade.
A little less than half of those kids were surrounding us. Some kids, who were smart, watched from the stairs reeling, shouting like wild dogs for who they thought would win.
He yelled something that I couldn't catch on due to how loud the people were around us.
"Sorry!" I yelled back, "Doc said I shouldn't listen to bullshit!"
Everyone 'ooh'ed and laughed at the guy, whose name I knew was Eren, and the only reason he found out he was fighting was thanks to Gabby being the one who knew about him.
He got into a fighting position, which looked funny to me, and tried throwing a punch.
Luckily, I had a fast reflex and ducked under his fist, grabbing his arm and pulling it behind my head.
We are face to face now, and taking that to my advantage I kicked the front of his knee, making him fall, but before his face hit mine I moved out of the way, making him fall face first into the ground.
I grabbed his arms and put them behind his back, restraining him from punching or moving due to pressure I'm placing on his back.
"I would give up if I were you." I whispered in his ear.
"Like I would do such thing." He said harshly, struggling to get out of my grip. That was my cue to raise his right arm with the elbow facing me.
Crack!
Everyone was in sock, and the guy was screaming in pain after a few seconds.
His arm was bent, it would not fold frontwards but backwards.
"I warned you, you didn't listen." I told him as I walked away, people making way for me to walk through.
After that was over with, I made sure to head straight for the Grab-N-Go, where I knew Vance would be at.
I walked through the front doors, with the sound of a bell warning my entrance.
"So?" Asked the blondie, not looking away from his game.
"He won't touch anyone for a few weeks if not months." I told him.
He looked up at me this time, not caring about his score and him losing. He was in shock, but it wasn't very visible, only reason it was given away was due to his eyebrows rising up slightly then going back to their original place.
"What did you do?" He asked, rather curious.
"Arm's bend." I said simply, with a plain voice.
He chuckled, but his face showed no new emotion. "Who would've thought, since when do you know how to bend arms?"
"You're underestimating me, I know many things that would fall under the medical field. Some things don't fall under it, but fall under murder 'field.'"
"Surprise me." He ordered.
"If you inject digoxin into someone who doesn't have heart failure then they will die and it will look like they had blood pressure, and if it's injected under the tongue then the pinch mark is most likely to not be found." I reassure.
He was shocked at this, but knew it was true due to how I said it. I didn't stutter once, I didn't eat my words, and didn't trip over them.
It was a rather interesting topic to look into, I didn't use that knowledge on anyone or anything, but it could come in handy.
"Fair enough. I trust that you won't say a word about this?" He glared at me.
I chuckled lightly, "Of course."
It was a shocker he even talked to me, so I better keep my mouth shut to not get on his nerves like I did back in middle school.
His temper was a ticking bomb after all, the only exception was that you knew when a bomb would explode thanks to its timer, with Vance though, it was different, you never knew what he would do.
There was no capable way of reading him.
I turned to leave the store, before I saw it once again.
The black-fucking-ban.
"Oh my, do I have a secret admirer or something?" I whispered to myself.
There was no way I would go out through the front door where they could see me, so I went back to Vance, who was playing Pinball, and sat down next to the machine, waiting for the ban to notice my absence and leave.
I was lucky that the man didn't notice me walking away from the door, for he was probably searching for something on the passenger's seat.
"Asshole's following you again?" Asked the curly haired guy.
I sighed and nodded my head, yes.
I was not playing this man's little hide-&-seek game, I ain't patient enough to hide nor patient enough to seek.
My temper was running short with the top hatted man appearing everywhere I went.
I found it extremely weird how every time he appeared I was always near Vance. It was almost as if he wasn't just targeting me, but Vance too.
"Does he follow you anywhere?" I asked quietly, only for him to hear.
"Not really, it's always when you are around." He confessed. "Vance..." I started and he hummed.
"He only ever appears when you are around..."
He stopped playing, not caring when the machine made a small noise to announce how the game was finished.
His face was stiff, in a position where you could tell.
He was getting pissed, and a pissed Vance was not a pretty Vance.
"That son of a bitch..." He whispered, trying to remain cool.
"You don't think... He's going for both of us, right?" I started fidgeting with my nails. This whole thing was crazy.
Then I thought about the odds. What if he really was the one who kidnapped the other kids?
It wasn't impossible, he seemed cliche already.
"I'm not sure." He confessed, and for the first time, he actually looked down to the floor.
He too was thinking the same thing, I knew it by his face.
This top-hat man might be The Grabber, and was awaiting his next victims.
He was waiting for the next kids he will take from their home.
Those kids might be one of us, and we didn't know who. This man had no reason to do what he did, he merely did it for the sake of his own pleasure and entertainment. We didn't know a thing about him, and he didn't know a thing about us.
And for the first time in a while, I actually got scared. I got scared for myself.
For Vance.
I knew we both could handle ourselves, but this is a new thing, we are talking about someone who has kidnapped other kids who haven't even been found yet.
