Chapter 67: Arthur Is Like a Hero

Kat and Alan left Arthur behind for a moment while he went to get a book from the library. The two stepped outside, greeted by the cold afternoon air as they left the building.

The blonde girl came out first. Alan followed half a step behind with his hood up and his hands in his pockets, and for the first time all day the silence between them felt comfortable.

As soon as they stepped outside, their attention was drawn to a trio of men who were making a nuisance of themselves.

One of them was loudly shouting at passersby while drinking something from a bottle. His eyes were so bloodshot that it was hard to tell whether he was simply high or suffering from some kind of eye infection. He obviously had a cigarette in his mouth, and a messy head of long, unkempt hair.

At the center of the commotion stood an exceptionally tall man with a comically small mustache that looked as though someone had drawn it onto his upper lip with a pencil. His muscles, however, were impossible to miss.

Thick veins bulged beneath his skin, and his black tank top strained against his broad chest and shoulders. Several tattoos covered his left arm, while his right remained conspicuously bare.

The third man was tall as well, though considerably thinner. His sunken eyes and hunched posture gave him the appearance of someone whose spine had long since surrendered to gravity.

He looked skeletal, his skin clinging to his bones, and there was something unsettling about him, as though he were slowly rotting from the inside out.

The trio was clearly an inconvenience for everyone, as people tried to stay far away. But no one seemed to be interested in doing anything.

Then a balloon came around the corner, a young boy trailing behind it, clearly not paying any attention to the world around him.

His mother was thirty feet back. "Denis... Denis!" she called in a calm voice, as she hadn’t seen the bad men yet.

The kid ended up bumping into the tallest man of the trio. The muscular man looked down at Denis with a scary expression.

The kid stepped back by instinct, as the shadow of the thug loomed over him.

"Hey. Hey, come here. Don’t walk away."

The boy could only hold up his balloon in a timid, apologetic gesture. He was six years old, and it was all he had to offer as he found himself cornered by a man at least four times his size.

The boy’s face collapsed. He started to cry, which only annoyed the tall man even more.

"Hey... I’m sorry, I’m sorry..." His mother had arrived, breathless, hand on her son’s shoulder, apologizing to all three of them at once. "He’s just a child, he didn’t..."

"Get away, slut!" the tall man barked, his drug-addled voice thick with barely concealed aggression. Without a second thought or the slightest concern for the consequences, he knocked the mother aside with a careless slap.

"Stop that!" Kat shouted, loud enough to get the attention of people blocks away.

She walked up to the trio with an annoyed expression, while Alan hesitantly followed her.

"Three grown men," she said, "and you are making such a mess and picking on a kid. Go pick a fight with someone your size, you cowardly scum."

There was a brief pause; then the loud drunk began laughing.

"Oh, look at this one!" he slurred, swinging his vodka bottle so carelessly that much of its contents spilled onto the pavement. His bloodshot eyes settled on Kat’s body, roaming over her with an unsettling hunger. He licked his lips, a crooked grin spreading across his face.

"You’ve got some real nice legs, you know," he drawled. "Why don’t you come have some fun with us?"

"No chance," she answered immediately.

"If you want to suck a cock, shut up and get on your knees. If not, then you can fuck off," the tall man said with a horny smile. "This is none of your business."

"What you three are doing concerns anyone with eyes." Kat planted her feet. "Walk away."

"Don’t think I’ll hesitate to make you kiss my fist just because you’re a good-looking girl." He clenched his muscles. "It’s a waste to ruin a pretty face, though. So maybe I’ll just punch you in the stomach."

"If you don’t back off now, I’m calling the police," Kat said, her voice already faltering as she reached for her phone.

Halfway down the street, a man already had his phone in his hand, calling the authorities. Things had clearly escalated.

Then, as Kat grabbed her phone, the muscular man slapped her hand and smashed the phone into the ground.

At the same time, the thin one shocked everyone by pulling a foot-long knife from his bag. He stared at both Kat and Alan with empty eyes.

"Why is everyone looking? Maybe I should put everyone in place!" the armed man screamed, not sounding sane.

Alan instinctively took two full steps backwards, but it backfired, pulling the attention onto himself.

Kat didn’t move. She looked at the knife, and then she looked past it, down the pavement, to the corner where the mother had made it to a doorway with her son’s hand in hers, the boy still crying.

At least the two of them had gotten away.

The next thing she saw was the madman swinging his knife in her and Alan’s direction.

The blade made a perfect arc, aimed at Alan’s throat. For a second Alan thought he was going to die. His body was too tense to react in time.

Then a hand grabbed his shirt from behind.

Arthur pulled him back hard enough to throw him, and Alan barely had time to register anything: the knife, the flash of it, and then his back slamming into the library door.

But the knife kept going.

Kat watched it come and understood, with a clarity that felt almost peaceful, that her legs were not going to move.

She could hear her own heartbeat. She could hear the man’s breath. The blade caught the streetlight and turned bright for half a moment.

It passed her.

A few inches had been all that stood between her and the blade, and those few inches had saved her.

Kat’s legs trembled uncontrollably. Before she could even process what was happening, she felt herself being pushed back, and a broad back filled her field of vision.

Arthur stood before her like an unbreakable wall.

The situation was far from over, but the mere sight of him filled her with an overwhelming sense of relief. The tension that had kept her standing finally gave way, and her legs buckled beneath her. She sank to the pavement, her entire body shaking as she watched Arthur face the three men alone.

At that moment, he really did look like a hero.

The thin man tried to attack again, thrusting his knife at Arthur’s ribs. Luckily, Arthur reacted quickly and used the book in his hand to parry the knife as best he could.

The knife plunged into the book, its blade sinking between the thick pages and catching fast enough to interrupt the attack. Arthur seized the opening without hesitation, twisting his opponent’s wrist and wrenching the weapon from his grasp before the man could react.

Arthur followed up with a punch, his body moving on instinct after so many years of martial arts training.

His fist connected squarely with the thin man’s face. Arthur felt the sickening crunch of cartilage giving way, followed by the unsettling sensation of bone shifting where it shouldn’t.

The man’s eyes glazed over, and his knees buckled beneath him. He hit the pavement hard, unconscious before he could even break his fall. Nearby, the knife clattered across the ground and skidded into the gutter.

Arthur had half a second to register it, then the muscular man hit him.

It came from his blind side and it was like being hit by a door. Arthur’s head snapped sideways and the street detached, the sound of everything dropping behind a soft rushing noise like water.

He staggered.

His body did not want to be standing. It reminded him, all at once, that he had not slept properly, that last night he had drunk more than he ever had in his life, and that his legs still remembered how much he had run earlier.

Under normal circumstances he would have dodged that blow, but there was no point in thinking about that. The adrenaline kicked in and Arthur focused on his next opponents.

"Come on, you asshole! I’ll kill you!" Arthur roared, his booming voice startling Kat.

Arthur was usually so composed and even-tempered that his imposing size hardly seemed intimidating. But at that moment, he was terrifying, like a beast unleashed.

The veins in his arms bulged as he clenched his fists, his eyes burning with such murderous intent that even his opponent hesitated and took a step back.