Vigilante by Choice

Chapter 2: Mugging

"That will be $60.23, sir." The old lady said who was checking me out at the grocery store. Not THAT checking out, she was making me pay money for food.

I smiled and slid my credit card through to pay. "Thank you, and may I say you are looking gorgeous. I love what you've done with your hair." I winked in her general direction.

The old lady laughed as she fluffed her hair. "You aren't getting a discount today, Tobias." She returned the wink.

Shoot! I shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

"Have a nice day." She waved at me.

"I will." I waved to the nice lady and walked out of the grocery store. Tonight I might get home in time to sit and relax while the rascals are doing their homework. This would be exciting and well deserved.

The universe likes to prove me wrong, like always. As I passed an alley hands wrapped around my arm and pulled me into the alley. Before I could react I was on the ground, the grocery bags thrown over to one of the walls. Three men towered over me.

One of the guys kicked me in the stomach. "Do you know why we're mugging you? Your sister owes us drug money."

"So we're mugging you." Another one said before punching me in the face. Really? You're mugging me? Wow, I thought you were giving me an award. Guess I was wrong.

The other one spoke up again. "Yeah, she skipped out of town. So we don't want to be down money."

The second one grabbed my wallet. "She probably left because she doesn't want to be hurt like her husband."

What were they talking about? "Elliott? What do you mean?"

They picked me up and pushed me against the wall. "We set that fire. She owed us money back then, and she claimed to have started over."

The short started talking while the big one held me in place. "So we decided to make her pay. But she left her kids inside. The fire was set. He ran in. He died instead of her."

A third voice chimed in. "Hey you guys, are you going to tell him everything, or can we get going?"

The shortest one turned to the tall one, I assumed he was the one in charge of the others. "He doesn't have enough money." He seems like he is a moron.

"Sorry I'm not a walking bank." I whispered under my breath.

The tall one turned to me. He had a gun in his hand. "Don't get that tone with me or my brothers."

"Yeah." Shorty chimed in. The tall smacked Shorty.

"Shut up. We'll be back for our money." The tall one grabbed my wallet and looked through.  "Next time, we might have to use a little motivation." He held up the picture of Rory, Jeb, Rose, and Jerry.

I don't like it when people threaten them."If you lay a hand on them, I'll-"

"You'll what?" He challenged me with his gun. He brought it to my forehead. "We can easily set another fire and we'll make you watch." I saw a tattoo on his wrist before he smacked me across the face with his gun. The blow knocked me down.

By the time I got up from the ground the three guys were gone. I went over to the bag of groceries. The fruits were crushed, bread was squashed, orange juice was leaking. The only thing that could be saved was the bread, an apple, and the beef jerky.

The journey home was a bitch. My whole body was sore. I walked in the building Vince waved at me.

"Hello Tobias, my man! How are you?" His arms were out stretched.

I glared at him. "Peachy."

It took forever to get up the stairs. Some girl past me and asked, "Do you need help?"

I politely waved her off and continued my venture. I made it to the unit and opened the door. "Hey guys I'm home!" I said. I put the bag on the counter.

Jeb, the tubby one, ran up to me holding his sword up to my head. "Peasant, where is my beef jerky?"

"It's ours and it's in the bag." I said limping around him.

Rory turned to get some beef jerky. When she saw my face she stopped. "What happened to your face?"

"I'll tell you later." I flopped myself on the couch and closed my eyes, hoping for a nap.

I was just about to fall asleep when a finger started poking my forehead. I grumbled and kept my eyes closed. The finger poking stopped. I started to drift off again when this time the finger poking turned into a slap to the forehead.

"Leave me alone. I'm sleeping." My eyes remained closed. But I never get what I want. The forehead slapping became a constant stream of slaps. I opened my eyes to see who was the attacker.

Rory. She just stared at me. "What do you want?" I asked her.

She answered my question with another question. "What happened?"

I sat up and found a piece of paper and looked for a writing utensil. First thing I found was a crayon. "What is this symbol?" I drew the tattoo that was on the wrist of my attackers.

She took the paper and studied it for a second. "It's an Epsilon. This is a letter from the Greek alphabet." She handed it back.

That makes sense, the people who attacked me and tattoo that went along with it. "Ok that makes sense now."

She put her hand on her hip. "What makes sense? Are you going to tell me what happened or are we going to still here and play 20 questions?"

Story time. Why did it always have to be so embarrassing for me? "I was walking home and I was pulled into the alley where I was mugged by three people. All of those guys had that tattoo on their wrist."

Rory looked at me with concern. "Who are the people who mugged you?"

"They are apart of the Epsilon gang. And if I'm correct they are the three Celon brothers." It was elementary, and Rory's intellect of random symbols.