Spider-Man | Doesn't Need Help

CHAPTER 13

  "Yes, see you tomorrow." I said as a farewell to Ned, immediately heading in the other direction.

  Today was the long-awaited Friday, just before the weekend. I had already gotten through my first week of school, and honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It would have been even better if it weren’t for that stupid Flash who kept picking on me. He said offensive things to me every day, and at first, I didn’t take it to heart, but when he started talking about my parents… it hurt.

  I was walking slowly through a beautiful park that, thanks to the incoming spring, was blooming nicely and turning colorful.

  The walk to my apartment would take me about thirty minutes, and if I walked really slowly, even longer. But I wasn’t in a rush to get back there, because I’d just end up getting bored. May probably wouldn’t be there, she’d be back late at night again, and I didn’t feel like sitting alone in four walls. Well, not exactly alone, because there were always many homeless people on the stairs.

  I exhaled loudly, looking around, still searching for him.

  I’m sure that my “freedom and normal life” won’t last long. Mr. Adams always told me that no matter what, he’d always find me, and trying to convince me that I was safe now that he was in prison didn’t comfort me at all.

  I turned my head slightly toward the joyful shouts of the children playing in the playground.

  I didn’t even notice when I had left the park and was walking along the street.

  Little kids, their parents’ treasures, were all over the playground, playing on the swings, slides, in little houses, or chasing each other.

  One little boy holding an Iron Man mask caught my attention.

  When I was a little brat, just like some of them, I never heard of anyone like the Avengers. My parents never told me about the heroes of New York. I only found out about them at the orphanage, but from the start, I didn’t like them.

  Those so-called heroes couldn’t stop the evil they always claimed to fight.

  I shifted my gaze to a brown-haired boy and a girl with the same-colored hair, both playing together in the sand. I involuntarily thought of my cousin. We used to play like that, until our childhood was cruelly taken from us. Well, at least it was taken from me, because they took her life.

  Suddenly, I involuntarily flinched when I heard a loud, desperate scream from a woman. She was staring at something ahead of her, running in that direction. Following her, I looked at where she was looking.

  A little girl, about six years old, was running straight through the middle of the street, and a few meters ahead of her, exactly on both her right and left sides, a truck and a regular car were heading straight for her in a head-on collision.

  My breath started to quicken, and my body trembled slightly.

  Without thinking much, I started running.

  I passed the child’s mother and then ran into the street, clearly hearing the honking of both vehicles, which I thought would crash in six seconds.

  The blonde girl was staring, dazed, at the big truck that was about to hit her.

  I have no idea how I even managed to reach her, but I quickly caught her in my arms, immediately jumping as far forward as I could.

  I pressed her small, warm body against mine and grabbed the back of her head with one hand.

  It was so stupid.