Bar Red's Redemption (Edited)

20: Boot Against a Chest pt.2

"You guys know about vampires? ... You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There's this idea that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. And what I've always thought isn't that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. It's that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn't see myself reflected at all. I was like, "Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don't exist?" And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it."
― Junot Díaz

Hehe, it's part two. There wasn't a lot of changes, but I still enjoyed editing for once with these chapters!

Chapter 20:
Boot Against a Chest Pt.2

Still holding Clementine tight, Bar forced himself to ease, just slightly, glancing up from the brunet and to the goddess, her minty eyes were shining with tears.

"What the fuck is wrong with all of you?!" The guy on the floor demands, propping himself onto his eyebrows, like the other three boys won't knock his fucking teeth out. "I was only trying to help! Clem has a bruise and I wanted to see it to see how bad it was, and she freaked—"

"Shut the hell up," Bar snarls.

The boy slams his mouth closed.

He takes a sharp inhale in, his body unnaturally tense as he looks back to the guy and glares. Then he points at him, catching his best friends' attention. "Don't let him speak and don't let him the fuck up."

Both nodded.

Law placed his thick, steel-toed boot roughly onto the guy's chest, earning a groan of pain as the brunet was slammed back into ground.

Gus glaring at the growing crowd makes the gawking student dash away in seconds.

Satisfied with more privacy, Bar turned his focus from the delinquents who weren't even struggling to keep the squirming brunet down, to his girl. To what she had asked of him.

Bar, slowly, opened his arms, letting Clementine know he was free to hug.

That he was okay with it.

Instantly, the little goddess wrapped herself around him, burying her face into his chest and clutching the back of his long sleeve in a tight, trembling grip. It shakes him to his core.

"Are you okay, babygirl?" He felt so stupid asking that. She obviously wasn't okay, the Astoria girl was shaking like a leaf and he could feel her flushed from stress, tear-stained face against his neck as she breathed in his scent, trying to calm down.

She could barely speak, which was another sign that she wasn't okay.

Bar wanted to, at that moment, take her away from the pain of the world—to protect her from everything but knew that was an impossible feat. To keep her away from trouble, he'd have to leave her too, and not even the devil could drag him far enough into hell for that.

Clementine didn't say anything, as he expected, but nodded.

Bar rubbed up and down her back soothingly and with feather-light touches.

Despite wanting to murder the brunet, Bhe ar knew when to heed someone's words and when not to; Clementine had a bruise and he didn't know where, so he was being extra careful, extra cautious.

Besides, Obsidian said she didn't like people touching her.

Bar was trying to touch her less, after this situation, of course, to make sure she was comfortable around him. He didn't want her to feel like she had to touch him just because he wanted to touch her.