What The Bad Deserve [σи нσℓ∂]

Chapter 10(Part1) - You think you can win?

"But you'll never be alone,
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn."

- Zayn & Sia

-:-:-

Corida's POV

Martin Luther King Junior once said how no one should ever let any man - or woman, if that's the case - pull you low enough to hate them. Well he surely mustn't have met a specific man in his lifetime, or one similar to this particular person. One man who's eyes seemed to make utter oblivion seem bright. A man who was so conniving, so malevolent and treacherous, that not even I myself could have seen through his feigned kindness.

A man named Isaac Thorpe.

3.5 - Y E A R S - A G O

The dark and unfamiliar streets were smudged in my vision; tears of trepidation acting as a thick sheet of blurry glass covering my view with every blink.

Had I... Had I killed her?

I swallowed back more tears at the thought which almost made me stop in my scurried tracks and throw up right there and then. There was no denying that I was vulnerable. Especially at this time of night. Of course, I had no watch to check nor did I have the money for one. But I knew by the moon's milky glow in the ink-black sky that it was later than I'd ever been out before. It didn't worry me too much, however. It's not like anyone was waiting for me to go back "home", actually anticipating my return. I chuckled to myself humorlessly. Home. Heck, I didn't even know what that was.

If anything; my home was the streets of this grubby town I'd stumbled upon roughly 3 years ago. I didn't know it's name. I didn't even bother asking anybody where I was. I knew I wouldn't be staying, anyway.

Lost deep in thought, my young and frail stature jolts into a person. Or at least... that was my first guess. The person I'd so clumsily barged into was so large and brooding that one may have thought he was a tree or a wall if they hadn't looked twice in the moonlight. Our impact nearly made me lose my footing and I would've gone down like a defenseless flower in the raging wind had the man not caught me by my bony elbows.

I flinch at his touch, expecting him to be somewhat similar to the drunken lady I'd... came across a few streets back. "Out a little late for someone of your state, aren't we?" The man's gruff and thick (yet foreign) accent mentioned.

I scowl although I wasn't sure if he'd seen it in the dim light of the streetlamps. "Excuse me, my mother says I shouldn't associate with strangers." I dismiss him as quickly as I can and aim to dodge his stocky build. I succeed for a second, surprisingly, before halting at the stranger's next sentence.

"Then how are you supposed to make friends? Allies?"

Turning around with my fiery locks swishing in the chilly air, I say "Don't need them."

My feet subtly make a move to walk away yet again. "I could tell when you handled yourself pretty well alone against that woman. Not many people, young ones mainly, would have gotten out so luckily."

I freeze. He saw that?

"So what? Are you a policeman? You're gonna arrest me for self defense or something?"

"Not exactly. I could help you get back on your feet. Get stronger. I can tell you're not really going home to your mother. I recognise myself in you." The stranger utters it so boldly that I almost feel sorry for him and his mysterious past. Almost. He's still a stranger.

"H-How did you--?"

"Call it common sense - or the sheer fact that you don't exactly hide it physically." He sounded pitiful when he said that. I took it offensively for a long moment but then I realised he was right. I looked like I wanted people to pity me. Like I wanted people to know I was in fact homeless. My old and muddy clothes didn't help the matter: just topped it off like a cherry on a grand sundae.