Chapter 5

Becca's POV

Elijah had enough presence of spirit not to make me even more frightened while that group of young people surrounded us. It was very early, which meant that someone would show up at any time, and the boys would get into a nice mess if they didn’t plan to run away immediately. Which also meant that any thoughtless attitude, both by me and by Elijah, could cost our lives.

“You don’t have to do that,” said Elijah, motionless and swallowing with difficulty, as his pockets were rolled by the boys around him. The one with the knife leaning against my coach’s throat just held it harder.

“I can deliver our items without any resistance, just let me do that.”

“And the cute one here?” grumbled a voice coming from my back. I hadn’t even noticed that one of the boys had bypassed the group to get close to me. I could feel it when the boy groped my pockets and found my cell phone.

“Shouldn’t we do something with her?”The boys turned at the same time to the one who had spoken, almost as if they wanted to cast some look of reprimand towards him. Apparently, the plan was not just theft, but something was very strange in that situation. Suddenly, the boys gave up on Elijah, simply let him go, and moved towards me.

“Please, I swear I won’t tell anyone anything,” I asked in a low tone, but looking in all directions of the park to make sure there really wouldn’t be anyone around. It was impossible that there wasn’t. I turned to the boy on my back, noticing his hood that barely hid his frizzy and long hair.

“I don’t have money. I was just exercising; I didn’t bring my bag.”The boy opened an ugly smile, with yellowish teeth and a very unpleasant expression.

“We don’t want your money, cute. We just want you.” I frowned, taking a step back, and bumped into one of the boys around me like a dangerous creature in front of his food. Elijah quickly pulled me against him, until I was on his back.

Those boys had to have a lot of audacity to want to challenge Elijah precisely in his training hours because the man was simply a military man who provided extra security and training services, not just any personal. Something told me that they had no idea about this information because all the boys took out simple knives from inside their cold blouses and smiled at Elijah. I didn’t have to get involved, no matter how unfair I thought it was that there were six people against one, I didn’t have to do anything but get out of the way before Elijah put himself into action.

My coach simply advanced against the nearest boy, pulling the knife out of his hand with a mastery that I almost didn’t even record with my eyes so fast, before simply turning the boy’s arm in a wrong and strange position to break it. The sound of bone breaking still sounded before he advanced to two other boys, pulling them by the collar of his blouses before hitting with all his strength a punch in each of them, with a perfect crusader.

One of the boys got scared and tried to run, totally ignoring the screams of the others who were attacked by my coach, so I simply put my foot in front and he fell with everything on the ground. I was turned my back, still wanting to stop the scared boy from escaping, so I didn’t hear anything before I felt something hard, hot and painful hit the side of my body.I turned with my hand on the spot, already finding the knife that the sixth boy was holding against my belly. The boy did not make a point of releasing the melee weapon, in fact, he intended to climb the blade to tear me completely in the direction of the ribs, as if I were just an animal for slaughter. And he would have done it because I couldn’t even scream in the face of the shock before Elijah showed up to solve the problem and apply an infallible lion killer to the boy.

The knife got stuck in my body, and the blood began to climb up my shirt, just as my hands trembled when I noticed that I couldn’t pull the knife. The painful heat spread through my body, going up and down, like a thermometer. In the distance, I had the impression of hearing footsteps or screams or people simply approaching to continue with their normal lives while I was involved in a situation that I didn’t even know how it had started.

The boy stuck against Elijah’s arms gave even more work than everyone else; he struggled to move away, but my coach arrested him tightly, and it was already possible to see that the boy’s face was turning purple. It was only seconds when everything was happening, but while I was numb by that strange and warm feeling, I realized that I didn’t know any of the boys, I hadn’t heard of any such robbery in the region, and that all seemed like a beautiful order to me.

I opened my mouth to say something to Elijah, to say that I wasn’t feeling pain and that he didn’t need to keep his eyes wide that way because I felt good. But the heart of that wound paralyzed me to the point of realizing that I was losing strength in my legs. Little by little, I tipped to the opposite side of the stab, collapsing on the ground as if the world had slowed down.In fact, people were approaching because when I completely fainted on the dirt trail between the low vegetation, Elijah had to release the boy and run to me, so I noticed that others hurried to hold the boy and keep him away.

Elijah had his eyes totally glazed, desperate. He tore my shirt to reveal the injured belly, did not touch the knife, knew the first aid, and knew that even if the blade was half-tung, there was still a risk of a serious perforation.