UNPROTECTED

Part Seven

Connor's POV

I don't know why I even helped Alina - she didn't thank me and she certainly didn't look grateful for me, but for my brother, who had done nothing other than hug her. 

After doing this feat, I decided that she was spoilt to go and die for all I cared; I never expected that she would actually do that, though. I saw the muscle of a man wrap a cloth around her mouth. I saw her eyes roll into the back of her head, her muscles relax and her expression go completely blank. 

"Uh, Connor? You need to see this." Marcus pulled on my leather jacket as I turned to face him and what he was pointing to. 

It was my Dad. Jude Drew - well, obviously, it had to be him. Nobody else would have been able to get a feisty girl like Alina to faint. "My son! I came here to show you just what you're missing out on! All this justice, eh? Come on, join us. Join us and teach these Reformers a lesson or two." 

My throat suddenly felt tight and dry with all of these eyes boaring into me. 

"Wh-What are you going to do to her?" I recovered from my sudden anxiety. "With all of them?" 

"Throw them out - see how they like the world they oh-so-want to save. Come with me." He eyed me up and grinned, evily, making me feel very uncomfortable. 

"You can't. They are only human, Dad. Just like us." I replied, not caring anymore of what he was going to do to me. 

"He is right, you know. I think-" Marcus began. 

"I never asked for your opinion!" Our father boomed over everyone, making the party-goers stop in their tracks. 

"Leave him alone!" Suddenly, my father seemed to have cracked - his hand was raised beside mine, ready to strike. 

Before anyone could do anything else, a rancid smell rushed around the room, forcing my vision to turn blurred. Marcus was suddenly two people, swaying, whilst Jude was already on the floor, wincing at the gas enveloping the arcade - coughing, wheezing as he tried to hold onto consciousness.

"Remember this you dumb bastard," a woman's voice echoed. "The Reformation don't forgive and forget easily - we are watching your every move. Nobody can protect you, now." 

And then my father was unconscious, along with Marcus and most of the Ministry team - but the man with Alina and her family had disappeared. 

The fuzzy woman leaned over my crumpled body, "You should be glad I heard you sticking up that poor Alina and Co. Your brother was always the kind one - maybe you are changing. Life is so much easier to take away than to give." She whispered into my ear. 

And, right then, I drifted off to a world of blackness and dulled voices.