Three of Swords-JJBA Part 3

Late Night Walk

Her eyes surveyed the area around her. She wasn't completely familiar with the streets of Cairo, but she knew where she came from, she memorized landmarks, she remembered a few of the names of the shops she encountered along the way.

It was not a good idea for a woman, especially a student like her, to be wandering the streets of an unfamiliar city alone at night. But she had to find her sisters.

Marina and Bella, her older sisters, had gone missing, not returning home for two nights. As soon as her parents locked themselves in their room worrying about the fate of their two precious daughters, their third and youngest one took it upon herself to go looking for them. The police had known about it since the dawn of the first day of their disappearance. Any logical person would have figured the two girls were gone if the police were unable to find them. But the police didn't have the abilities that Scarlet Zeppeli had.

She turned her head slightly to her right, hearing the rustling of bushes despite the lack of a breeze on that hot night. From her peripheral vision, she saw a man rising from the bush. She turned to face him.

He wore a crooked grin, his hands gripping a switchblade. She rolled her eyes. She supposed there were men like this all over the world.

"Hello, girlie. You seem lost. Do you need help getting somewhere?" He asked. He made no effort to use the switchblade against her, so she made no effort to defend herself yet. Maybe she could talk her way out of this.

"No, thank you. I'm fine." She turned and continued walking, but kept her guard up. Despite her hopes that he would leave her alone, she knew that was not probable. Her thoughts were confirmed when the bush rustled again as he got out of it.

"Oh, I don't think so. It seems to me that you're lost and need a place to stay the night. I can help with that." He walked towards her slowly.

"Did that bush you were hiding in have any thorns on it's branches, by chance?" She asked suddenly, surprising him.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She turned to face him impatiently. These were precious moments where she could have been finding her sisters. But they were being wasted by this hideous man 10 feet away from her.

"Answer my damn question. Are there thorns?"

"Don't speak to me like that! I'm offering to help you, and you ask these stupid questions! There are no thorns!" He said angrily, taking a large step towards her.

She frowned. "Well, lucky you."

He stopped. This girl was pretty, but she seemed crazy. Why would she need to know if there were thorns? Was she not scared of him?

Suddenly, he felt something slither around his left leg. He looked down. There was a branch wrapping itself around his ankle, and it started to tighten. He followed where it came from. The bush he was just hiding in.

He yelled out and dropped his switchblade as another branch wrapped around his right ankle and tightened. It pulled him towards the bush, and he fell to the ground, scraping at the dirt and sand to try to find something to hang onto. He found nothing. He cried out in fear as he reached the bush and more branches wrapped around him, tightening around his arms, his waist, his throat. He was trapped. Before he could scream, a branch went around his head, holding his mouth closed.

"Well, I may not currently have a place to stay the night, but now you have one." She smirked. She loved when she had the opportunity to say little one-liners like that.

The man's eyes were wide as he stared at her. What the hell was she?

He let out a small yell as he struggled against the branches.