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Step 8: Impact
It had been three years since Anika had moved in with Hugo, Merritt and the rest of their crew. Life had been good for her and her newfound family during these three years. Squatters came and left their home, she met alot of interesting people and lost sight of quite a few of them who had decided to move on, but the core members of the crew always stayed there, Hugo, Merritt, Jenna, Vic, Dave and many others. There was no doubt about it, this place was the perfect place for her to largent her horizons on life and to learn.
Merritt trained Jenna and her to pick pockets and locks as well as to enter forbidden places without tripping alarms. He also insisted that they both read alot of books to not lose the ability to read. He was practically a father as well as a very good teacher to both girls. To add to the feeling of belonging somewhere, anika and hugo had a bizarre relationship that they appearently both enjoyed. They were not lovers, but whenever the both of them were in each other’s presence, a romantic tension could be felt in the air… And neither of them ever acted on that tension… She couldn’t know for sure, but she figured Hugo had the same motivations a she did : That tension was so intense and comfortable that neither of them wanted to risk seeing it die down with a relationship that could become routine… This, what she was living with Hugo, was probably love at it’s most intense form.
« Quit daydreaming Ani, and concentrate! » laughed Merritt.
« What ? Concentrate on what? » said Anika shaking away all of her thoughts.
« Concentrate on your training ! You’re supposed to try to get my wallet without me knowing! » laughed Merritt.
« But that’s already done, it’s right here! » she replied with a sly smile, taking Merritt’s leather wallet from her jacket.
Her mentor was at loss for words, and stared at his wallet in her hands for a few seconds. He then snatched it away from her and laughed joyfully.
« You and Jenna are such quick learners! » he said containing his laughter as much as he could.
« Can I take the rest of the day off Merritt? I’ll come back with a little food for a few of us… » asked the young purple eyed girl.
« Of course Ani ! This isn’t exactly a job you know? I’m just showing you all of this stuff so that you can survive on your own in the future. »
« I know Merritt, and i appreciate it alot… »
She hugged her mentor and left their house.
Hanging out in front of their house were Hugo, Vic, Tim and a few other guiys she didn’t know too well… They were all sharing a bottle of wine and telling each other jokes. Anika couldn’t help but smile as she saw that her friends were having fun like this but still wanted to capture their attention, so she cleared her throat in a loud manner. Hugo and the others turned around and smiled at her.
« Anika ! » said Hugo with an enthusiastic tone « Why don’t you join us? »
« Nah! » she said as she reached for her pack of cigarettes in her pocket « I’m going downtown to get us some food, I’ll leave you boys alone so that you can talk about sex and act macho or something! »
She winked at Hugo and lit her cigarette. Somewhere along the line, Anika had picked up the habit of smoking… At first, it was one cigarette every once in a while, then it was one cigarette a week, then she smoked one every two days, and somwhere along the line, she was got where she was today, to half a pack a day…One way or another, Hugo was therw right now and she didn’t want to embarass herself in front of the others, so she lit up a cigarette to make sure she would do something while in their presence that would keep her from acting like a lovesick puppy.
« Why Anika! » said Vic with an exagerated hurt look « What makes you think that us men act any differently when you girls aren’t around? »
The purple eyed young girl laughed and took a deep haul off her cigarette.
« Jenna and I know alot more about you boys than you think, Vic Vega! And that would be boys, not men, I can hardly see any of you as full grown men! »
« Ooooohhhh! » answered Vic smiling « She called me by my whole name! That means she’s serious! Well, I’m sure I can show you just how much of a man I am! »
She laughed again.
« In your dreams Vic! »
« More like in yours! » he replied with a cocky smile.
« I believe Anika is mostly in Hugo’s dreams! » interjected Tim.
The whole group was laughing hard by then and Hugo was blushing. He was so cute when he blushed… It showed the softer part of the street smart boy that he always wanted to show people he was. Anika knew that softer part of him very well because he had exposed it to her on various occasions, and she appreciated him opening himself to her like that…
« Well, I’m off boys, I’ll see you later on! »
« Later Ani! » replied the others as she left.
She smiled to herself as she walked away.. Life couldn’t be any better… She had friends, she had a place where she belonged, and she was about to steal a good quantity of food off the supermarket… What could possibly go wrong?
Anti-Riot Trooper Ridley Song was dead drunk on his couch and kept on having nightmares about those traumatized purple eyes that he had seen years ago. His obsession about Anika’s well-being had led him to a life of depression and alcoholism. It had almost cost him his carreer… He had been promoted to the rank of detective two years ago, but lost the position quickly enough when his superiors realized that he was an alcoholic.
He tried to forget those hurt purple eyes, but he simply couldn’t… They haunted him and they would for as long as he couldn’t have peace of mind on the whereabouts of the young girl… It,s as if the memories of those eyes were there to remind him that he had failed in his duties to serve and protect miserably…
So he tried to run away from it all with the use of alcohol…
And it made things only worst…
He lost his position as a detective to be bumped down all the way to traffic coordinator. From then on, he had climbed back to a place in the Anti-Riot Squad…
The glory of the Anti-Riot Squad, he thought, to stop people from speaking their own minds, to stop people from screaming at such organizations as the Ministry… To work with brutes who enjoyed hitting people with their clubs…
Somehow, that wasn’t at all what he had expected as a kid when he dreamed about becoming a Law enforcement officer…
But dreams and reality were two totally different things… And he realized that for quite a long time now, he had been in a limbo state between reality and dream…
Ridley looked at his half empty or half full 40 ounce bottle of Cognac and decided that it was time to wake up…
He threw the bottle with all of his might on the wall in front of him as it smashed into pieces with a loud crash.
Life goes on, and he would serve and protect the people again soon enough.. He would work hard to get a promotion to get out of the Anti Riot Squad…He would no longer drink his problems away , but rather face them, no matter how difficult they may seem…
Nothing could have prepared Hugo for the shock he was in right now. Nothing at all… One moment, he was laughing with Vic and the others in front of the crew’s headquarters. And the next… the next…
Looking at the whole chaotic scene, nothing made sense anymore… He looked at his smoking handgun and simply didn’t know what to think…
Why, why did it have to happen?
It could be easy to go down crying right now, and it would also be very easy to go in a fit of rage, but the young boy tried very hard to understand what just happened here… Rage and sadness wouldn’t help him assess the situation in anyway whatsoever… So what had happened? He looked for bits and pieces of memory of events that had just passed by and bizarrely enough, they were difficult to come by… What happened? Right now, Victor was lying in a pool of blood, and was either dead or dying… Tim was giving him CPR and was barking orders at everyone, to call an ambulance as everyone else just stood there in shock, staring…
« Make a move goddamnit, I’m fucking losing him! » barked Tim.
« Damn Vic… Why? Why? » mumbled Hugo.
« Wake the fuck up Hugo! Call a fucking ambulance! Vic is fucking dying! » screamed Tim in anger.
Merrit came bursting out of the door…
« An ambulance is heading this way… Those of you who are packing give your guns to Dave here and he’ll leave with them before the cops get here and find you all with unregistered guns… »
Dave came to Hugo but the spikey haired boy simply didn’t react…
Dave took the gun of hugo’s hand , but still, the no reaction from the boy… His mind was running at a hundred miles an hour as he tried to understand… What had happened?
Hugo tried to clear his mind of all unwanted feelings and snap back to reality, but it was in vain, the stress of what he had just witnessed was too much.
As he replayed the events in his mind, Hugo saw Vic pass him the bottle of wine laughing his heart out because of a joke Tim had just finished telling… That was only a few moments ago. He then remembered that every single instinct in his body screamed at him as he heard the engine of a car roaring from far away. But his senses having been dulled up a little by the alcohol he had drank, Hugo ddin’t react. If he had known better, he would have reacted… and the lack of reaction may have just cost Vic his life.
Looking towards the direction that the sound of the car came from, hugo realized it wasn’t a car, but rather a motorcycle with two people on it, the person in the back holding a machine gun, ready to shoot away.
« Everyone down!!!! » Hugo remembered himself screaming.
The others all ducked ,drawing out their guns, but Vic simply turned around looking at the bike as he reached for the gun in his jacket.
And the rain of bullets came as projectiles were spat out of the bike’s passenger’s machine gun. Most of the bullets missd their mark, but quit a few hit Vic directly on the chest. Hugo and the others were shooting back at the bikers, but none of their shots hit their marks as the bikes simly whizzed by and got away…
It was the Speed Demons…
As Hugo’s mind returned to the present and he saw all of the cops’ sirens around him and Vic being put in a bodybag, he swore on his deceased friend’s soul that SpeedDemon blood would be spilled tonight as salty tears ran down his cheeks… Hugo knew that he should be hearing alot of sounds right now, but he couldn’t… his mind was set on a single thing : hatred for the Speed Demons… And he would act on this hatred.
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