I’ll be honest, I've had trouble writing this one out- or at least starting it.

I guess it’s because I’ve got a lot on my mind right now? I’m just trying to figure out where to pick up from, a lot has come up after the last post. Nothing too serious, (I think), but it’s busier around Tralee than I remember.

And to be honest, I’ve only got more questions, zero answers.

The best thing to do is to pick up where I left off.

I went looking for some drugs, going by the usual sites.

The south side of town was pretty empty, quiet even, if it weren’t for a few fireworks that were being sent off. I’m pretty sure whoever was lighting them hadn’t bought them legally, but I didn’t feel like confiscating fireworks.

What am I supposed to do with those? Usually, I find a remote spot to pile all the drugs I find and just burn it (whether that’s a good idea or not, I still don’t know. Little afraid to look that up honestly.) You can’t exactly do that with fireworks right? And it’s not like I can just leave them lying around, either in my man-cave or a dumpster somewhere.

It seems more dangerous, having a bunch of explosives in a pile, rather than just letting those kids mess with them. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure extreme temperatures can harm me. Less than an average body, but thinking about it logically, I still feel the cold and the warm, so I can probably freeze or burn. Pretty sure if twenty fireworks went off in my face, it’d leave a pretty bad mark.

And it’s not like I’m getting any more of that rebirthing fluid.

Thinking about it, if I really am planning on going after the mountain, I'm going to have to be resourceful about it. If I attack their bases, whatever their equivalent of those cities is, there isn’t going to be a way for me to regrow a couple fingers.

And let's say there’s around, I don’t know, ten Units and a thousand soldiers armed with some sort of super tech, I’d have to go through ten assaults, probably more, to defeat all of the Mountain. It’s a pretty far off dream, but hey, it was the Irish who invented guerrilla warfare, I’m sure I'll be able to pick it up eventually.

Yeah, so anyway, I’ll look up how to dispose of fireworks sometime.

…

Sorry, I’m rambling, going off on tangents, getting back on track-

I left the south side as it was, going into the city centre. It was just a couple seconds. I wasn’t being rough with my jumps or anything, even though I didn’t have any restraints I was still able to pace myself. Maybe I’d gotten used to controlling myself.

It was around a mile from the where I'd been to the city centre, when I actually got there, I was surprised. As I remembered, back when I was starting out it would have taken ten times as long for me to cross that distance. I’d have to take the bus back home because it was getting late.

The thought clicked in my mind, ‘how far did I travel between the Beast and the city when Jack hit me?’

That, I looked up on my phone. I didn’t really believe what I was reading. The distance between Babel and the ocean was over two hundred miles. I’d crossed that distance in twenty minutes-

I had to use my phone calculator now.

Six hundred miles an hour. I don’t really understand how fast that is, but that wasn’t the speed I was going at.

I was going faster. Think about it, I wasn’t shooting straight across, I was jumping in large arcs.

I covered my mouth. Hell, wasn’t I melting when I was doing that? Wasn’t I struggling to lift rubble at Valentines?

I have a theory, though I’m not sure how true to reality it is. If all of my biological functions are performed ‘better’, then maybe I have some sort of exponential growth factor? Like, I only started working out daily a couple months ago, I think I've put on a little too much muscle. As in, if I was increasing in muscle mass at the average rate-

Ah, fuck sake. I can’t keep track of my own biology anymore. The more shit I get hit with; the more secrets of my body come to light. If only things could be simple. My biology grades are more reflexive of my mental prowess than anything Attrition says.

I sat up from my hunched position, fixing the balaclava I was using as a mask. I couldn’t find the piece of cloth I'd poked eye holes in. Maybe I'd scrapped it.

I looked more like a thug a hero’d beat up, more than the hero himself.

But as I was having a break on a roof top, I recognised a few guys going around. I’d encountered them once as Shamrock, and hadn’t seen them rowdy since.

But now they were really tearing shit up. Shouting and hollering. I came down as one of them started bumping into a car.

At first I thought they were drunk, that wasn’t too uncommon. But then I realised they weren’t.

They were just assholes.

Not that that was uncommon either, but it made me pity them.

“Hey,” I shouted, “you can’t do that.”

They turned and snickered, rightfully so, out of costume, I struggled to make much of an impression. On top of that, my line was crap.

I guess it’s a sort of local ‘superstition’, that when the green guy comes around, you scatter, and better hope you weren’t doing anything he didn’t like.

I haven’t heard people talk about me, but that’s how I imagine they see me.

They were really just shouting like a pack of hyenas and their speech was slurred in a way that you’d think they were under the influence, but they had the cognition to circle around me.

I didn’t catch anything they were saying, I was trying to think of a line.

Ah, fuck it.

I stuck my hand out, and one of them fell on his ass. I had a bored expression on my face. Maybe they could see that in my eyes This really felt like just going through the motions, I was thinking about how lame I was, just a guy wearing normal clothes.

I looked down at the guy that I'd hit blood spewing from his nose. For some reason, that didn’t seem right. But it didn’t seem wrong either.

I quickly brushed it off, just like I was brushing his friend off me- he’d tried to tackle me. It would have been a pain if he tore my clothes at all, so I brushed the back of my hand against him as he was running towards me. He rolled across the ground, stopping at the foot of the car he’d been kicking.

Another one, he had a speaker on him and he was the least audible because of it, the only thing I heard out of him was, “A third ‘un!”

I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, and I wasn’t all too concerned about it either.

Because a click came from the forth and final guy.

I looked over, the bored expression dying away from my face.

He was pointing a gun at me.

My mouth was hanging a bit, “The hell are you doing with something like that?”

I raised my hand, approaching him with caution.

Where the fuck did some random bastard get a gun? As far as I'd known, Clover’d limited guns to her men, the local thugs weren’t just handed stuff like that. If they were, she’d just be asking for things to escalate down here, I’m not talking about the police, or even me, I’m talking about other gangs forming, people’d stop buying her stuff and be stupid enough to try and take it.

So I stepped forward and was about to ask my question again.

When he shot me.

I don’t know why, but it actual shocked me.

“Did you just-” I stopped; I was in disbelief.

He really did. This fucking moron.

I took a second to look at him. He’d been holding the pistol in one hand, that was obviously a mistake, the recoil pushed his arm back; he was clutching his ears now too, like he didn’t know that a bang would sound off.

I walked forward grabbed at the thing in his hand, and tore it from him.

I crushed it like putty, then threw it.

I stood still for a second, thinking of what to do next, when he made a sound, I smacked him back.

Three out of four of them were lying on the ground. Good enough for me.

“You fucks are getting' off easy tonight.”

I jumped away.

For probably the sixth time, I resolved myself to get to the quarter and put a stop to this.

What was I so mad about? I’d been shot before, another point for my body getting stronger is that it doesn’t even hurt anymore.

I was fine when it was the people living in that world, people like Tayanita or Hunter, sure, they know that it isn’t going to do much to me.

But those guys? When they shoot me-

“Fuck sake!” I didn’t hear the words as I was coming down, but I definitely muttered them to myself.

I wasn’t far off from the Quarter, the new building that was in the same spot as the old one. They’d built it out a bit, added a floor, but it was still the same eyesore it had always been.

I walked up to the front door; the alley was gone now. Actually, so was the bouncer.

The first door was open, but weirdly enough the second one was barred.

I pushed near the handle and the door gave out.

Walking in, I don’t know what I was expecting, the same scene as my first time there, I think. But it absolutely wasn’t. Most of the lights were off, and it was a completely different place, literally, and figuratively as there were no patrons whatsoever.

I squinted looking for the way into the employees' section. Finding it in basically the same place it had been in. There was a light on inside.

I followed it as it trailed behind a door.

I opened it like I was walking into my own house. I found a couple guys in there. Only one of them stood up, the other two just kept smoking.

“Hey,” said one, “who the hell are you?”

At first, I took the lack of a reaction as them thinking I was one of their guys.

“I’m Shamrock. What are you motherfuckers doin’?”

The two that were sitting, didn’t react. The one who’d spoken up, he was older and skinny. He looked at his joint, then to me, “Nothin’.”

The one that was standing, He had curly red hair and freckles, that made him look really out of place, he raised a hand, “Hey, listen mate, whatever you want, we-”

I stepped forward, one foot at a time, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

“Think I recognise the ginger twat. You two can learn something from him- To not give me this kind of crap.”

The one that hadn’t said anything, his face hadn’t changed, he was a fat bastard with a stupid expression. Maybe that’s just ‘cause he was high.

I looked down on him, “I beat your friend here and a room full of men on my first day of this shit. So when you bastards sit here, profiting from the suffering of my people-”

Where was I going with this? I shook my head.

The thin one put up a hand, a half interested look in his eyes, “Sorry, buddy, but what- what do you actually want? Look around, business has been dead for a couple months.”

I stretched my hand over the table, grasping at nothing, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

The red one spoke up; he was more worried than his buddies, “Over June, while you and the lady behind the door were gone, the other guys- and their lady, moved in. Though, I’m pretty sure she’s just a- that she’s, uhm-”

“Just working for him, Belfast, the cloud over the north,” the slender guy smirked, “bet you two’d get along. You got a problem with what his guys are dealing? Is that it? Then don’t come round here.”

It made a little sense; Clover was gone for months. That’s months of bad luck for these guys, and with all the expenses that they’ve been building up, the construction, the new guns ordered in for their men...

But I wasn’t listening, not even to that bit about the ‘lady’ that had moved in.

“Yeah fucking right, the Mountain wouldn’t let that happen- Clover would have mentioned it yesterday,” I put my hand down on the table. “Give me something concrete.”

My gaze kept drifting to that fat bastard.

He was staring right at my face they whole time.

I was about to get violent.

Maybe the skinny guy sensed that much, “Alright, alright, uhh, look- we're just holding down the fort. The girl’ll be here tomorrow, the boss, I'm sure your busy too. You just got back in town, right? Don’t you have anywhere you need to be?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I showed my teeth, “The fuck are you getting at?”

He raised an eyebrow, I’m sure that was when he actually figured out how to get rid of me, because he started a grin, “Well, we’re not shooting anybody, right boys? But the dipshits out there? Whether you believe we sold those guns doesn’t matter.”

He tilted his head to the door, “how sure are you that nobody’s getting' fucked out there? You don’t even know where those guns are coming from. It doesn’t matter how many guys you’ve taken out before coming here. You don’t know how many more of them have a piece.”

I took a step back.

That was my first bust of the night. And I found a gun. The law of averages would imply that they’d become common while I was away. Though, when dealing with Clover, whether or not something is common is flipped on its head.

I backed up. Maybe he was pulling my bluff. Either way, he got me.

I was searching for something to say, I almost blurted a curse at them, but that’d make me feel like I'd lost.

“Tomorrow,” I said at last.

I went into my pocket, with a clearer head, I remembered to hand over Clover’s phone.

“Sure,” said the guy reaching across the table.

I turned, my hands flinching away.

I walked, six eyes on me as I left the room.

Down the hall I at last heard the pork chop speak, “Man, you sound like a super villain when you talk shit like that.”

The younger one hushed him, the slender one laughed.

My pace slowed, but it didn’t stop, even if I wanted to turn.

I checked myself.

Whether or not Clover had anything to do with it, those three got lucky.

.

.

.

I was out the entire night, finding only one other guy with a gun. Though, he didn’t pull it on me. I just found it stuffed somewhere. Might not have been loaded, but who cares.

I crushed it.

Once day break arrived, I cleared off for the mountains, traveling south into the relatively plain land. There aren’t any trees up there, just bushes and brambles- and sheep, but when you go far enough, you see less and less of them.

Then, if you know where to go, you’ll find my place. My man-cave.

Now, it’s not a hideout or anything, it’s really just a hole I punched into the moutain side, one I'd made the outline of after Irminsul.

I had to go looking for more stone, which you think would be plentiful in a mountain, but like I said brambles and sheep. I went up there to pile all the stuff I confiscated that night and burned it. Not much honestly, weed and some vapes from kids who shouldn’t have them.

I set some kindling, lit a match, and burned it far away from the cave.

Seriously, I never really liked the idea of having a ‘secret base’, but I have to keep my stuff somewhere. There isn’t room for it at home, and I'd like to keep it hidden.

I don’t know how the ignorance affect works, but hazarding a guess, maybe the areas I've destroyed are also under it? That sort of happened with the Gator falling. The government got that cleaned up pretty quickly.

So there’s a chance that only Units or second worlders can find this place. Works just fine for me.

I slung a strap over my back, the bag given to me by the Ints. I’ve decided it's my Shamrock bag now, so that means I'm going to store drugs in it. And other stuff, like, the stuff I actually own.

From my hectic trip around the world, I’d collected a couple things that I wanted to keep somewhere safe.

There was the frying pan that Clover hit me with, that was for my time in Korea.

There was the mud, a handful of the golem’s remains that I'd swept aside for later. It’s stored in a mason jar, half full. That’s to remember both Babel, and Irminsul.

Not that I'll be forgetting either.

Then there was the budding plant that Bob had accidentally fused to my rib cage when he sprayed the foam on me. I kept that because it was neat

I took my bag by one strap, passing under the slight overhang of vein creep, passing from a mossy floor beneath me to the granite one.

It wasn’t a big space, but ironically, even though it was structurally unstable and dug into the dirt, it still gave me more space than my room.

There was a wooden plank in the back that I used as a ‘display’ for my things. I pulled it off the side of the road.

I fiddled with my smart phone, turning on the torch.

I felt around at the walls, dripping with rain water. I thought about trying to stop that somehow, but I shook my head, “I’m not making a hide-out,” said it out loud to keep myself straight.

I walked into the back bit, placing the bits and pieces in chronological order, stopping when I got to the seed. I lifted it up, thinking about it for a second.

Should I plant it? In the dirt? In a pot?

I mean, it was growing in my torso, so...

I shrugged it off, placing it at the edge of my collection.

I picked one last thing out of my bag. The tassel of my mask. The funny little dangly bit that poked up the top.

It was actually in good condition, a little wear around the seams, but that was ok.

I let out a sigh at that thought. My costume was ruined. It had been before, but there was nothing for me to work from this time, and I had nothing else in the works.

It would take weeks before I'd have anything, hell, I didn’t even have shoes for it anymore- those cool green shoes that cost me forty quid, they just- melted away.

I gripped onto my tassle. It was a stupid little thing. In concept and design. I thought people’d be able to grab onto it as I carry them off to safety.

God that was dumb. Seriously, did I think that injured people would have the clarity to grip to a-

I giggled to myself.

Like I said, it was dumb.

Maybe that’s why I kept it strapped on my head. Just to keep me, well... me.

I turned to leave, stubbing my toe on the long black box that was lying on the floor-

I took two steps past it before realising that was out of place.

As in, I hadn’t put that there, whatever it was.

I pulled it out quickly.

First thought was that it might be a bomb. Second was, why would anybody put a bomb where I could see it?

It skidded across the grassy earth, and I came sliding after it.

I hesitated again. What if this was some super science bull crap, like, I open the box and it teleports me into outer space? Pandora’s box.

Fucking with this thing could really screw me over. I thought about it, who’d screw with me?

The ints? They didn’t know about this place, and I hadn’t been back since before I peeved them off.

The mountain? Maybe.

What if it’s the Russians? I doubted that the most, I was starting to sound like America during the cold war.

Belfast. That'd make the most sense. I was making a leap in judgement, that they might have been keeping tabs on me, or something.

I walked back into the cave. Pacing. Trying to think.

Paranoid, I circled back to it being a bomb. Suddenly a lot less afraid of some fireworks.

In my idiocy I dropped my bag, what was left in there falling out, just my raincoat and that letter.

I packed them back in.

Before taking it back out. The letter.

My feet were once again out on the grass, holding the red envelope with both hands. I looked between it and the cave. It suddenly clicked, that vague message written on the letter. It said ‘where my remains were; where I'd leave the seed and the mud.’

It described the cave. This box was the ‘further information’.

The letter went back into the bag. It’d be bad if it got wet, I was now taking all of this very seriously.

The blurb had said that if it got damaged, there’d be no penalty against me, however, I wanted to read it.

To know who had found this place.

What the deal was with this Schism guy.

I had a few theories floating around, though there’s no way of confirming them until the day comes when I'm allowed to open it.

I wondered now, is this box fair game?

My realisation had only solidified the idea that this was a pandora’s box.

No, after giving it some thought, on that cold summer’s morning, I felt it was more accurate to call this a Schrödinger's pandora’s box.

As long as I didn’t open it, there was an equal chance that opening it would kill me, as there was of it not.

But ‘Schism’ had told me that for more information, I should get this thing.

I inspected it, maybe there was a message on the outside?

No such luck.

I took a moment to think about it, looking up to the overcast sky.

‘Couldn’t this guy have left a clearer message?’, I thought, ‘if Clover says he’s a guy to look out for, then I’m sure he’s hot shit, but what’s with the conflicting extremes? It’s sort of hard to get a gauge on what he does and doesn’t want me to do...’

Then, all of a sudden, through that morning’s over cast, a light shone through.

Without paying any attention to the weather, I turned to look at the box again.

The light was on it, almost perfectly falling there, and still I didn’t know what it meant.

I looked up to the clouds, and like clockwork, a gust of air fell to the ground.

The large grey clouds had parted perfectly, unnaturally, like they’d been cleaved in two by the pink light of the rising sun to illuminate that single spot.

The feeling that I hadn’t been taking any of this seriously, suddenly crossed my mind. That this entire time, whether I was abroad or at home; fighting thugs or monsters-

That Shamrock was simply a non-entity in comparison to someone with far greater power.

Keeping defiant to that thought, I went for the luminated box, found the latches on it, and-

A second's hesitation came, that maybe this was a message not to open it, from whoever- whatever Schism was.

I swept it aside.

Click.

In the light of that alien power, the contents were finally revealed.

My face had been stiff and serious, and it still was.

But I blinked twice.

It was my mask. Or at least, that’s what was sitting on top of the first foam layer.

I lifted it up with some caution. It was hard, a tough material that looked like if would survive a lot of wear and tear. The seams were aesthetically placed, how I would have done it, if I had the talent or materials.

After a moment's thought, I took of the balaclava and put it on.

Maybe it was because I hadn’t been wearing my old mask, but this one seemed far more breathable, and it was easier to see out of. It hugged my head like a helmet, like it was made to protect me, though I'd be more concerned about it getting wrecked.

I left the thin foam panel out, and found the costume I'd been dreaming of. It too was bulky and tough, the torso of it, but there was room for it to fold up neatly enough. I noticed a design trend I'd been thinking about, you generally see it in superhero movies: there’s a kind of hexagonal structuring on the ribs and chest; to emphasis their structure.

I’d flirted with the idea in my second physical design, but I couldn’t really get the whole ‘military esque’ flair to work.

But this pulled it off great!

There was something on the shirt too, a symbol. I recognised it as a Celtic rune. A simple and old one, a knot called the triquetra. I don’t know what it means, but for a while I’ve been thinking about adding it to my costume. To stay a little close to my culture when I get big.

I mentioned it in a pretty old post, along with a few other details of the design. The trousers of the costume, were all one piece down to the feet. Instead of shoes or soles, it was a type of climbing shoe that allows for the use of toes.

Being honest, that sounded good on paper, but physically having them now... They looked kind of gross. Guess I still have to save up for a good pair of shoes. In the meantime, this sort of design’ll be good for climbing structures.

…

I tried to push those thoughts down, to actually think about what this guy was really trying to get at here.

I took the mask off to think about it. This was clearly more than a show of good faith.

Whoever Schism is, or are, then they’ve known about me for a while. They knew what type of design I'd be looking for. Niche design choices.

They knew when I'd be getting back from Babel, where my place was...

How much more do they know?

The fact that they sent me a new costume, at least to me, that say’s “keep being Shamrock’.

That’d be all well and good, if they hadn’t so flippantly threatened my life with the blurb on their message.

And there was one thing I'd noticed about the design, something that was off, not just the feet.

I lifted a leg and an arm of the suit, inspecting the forearm and the calf. There was a brown strap structure knotting around, like my regular costume.

Unlike my restraints, there was no clear way to tighten them. They were just aesthetic.

That told me, whoever was ‘supporting’ me didn’t want me to pull my punches.

I thought about Babel. I thought about how ruff I'd been with the thugs just that night.

I feel like it should have bothered me more. If I was a real moral paragon, how could I live with the fact that I’d completely bypassed one of my rules? That I'd raised the bar for the force I was allowed to use.

But honestly, I didn’t feel that bad about it. Not when those bastards are ready to kill people. All I have to do is stay better than them.

Better than that.

I’m not trash.

.

.

.

I stayed up all night, but I’d slept most off the day before, so who cares? I just got a new suit! Does it matter where it’s from? So long as I don’t have anything else to wear, there’s no reason not to wear it.

I had made a slight adjustment to it. If you looked at it long enough, you’d see how shoddy the stitching was, how the materials clashed.

On top of my head, nice and obvious, was a dangling loop. That dumb tassel.

I’d decided to go on one last run around the town- I wasn’t looking for trouble, but I wanted to get a feel for it.

Whether or not this was my ‘anti-hero’ suit or not, didn’t matter, I just wanted to do some parkour.

Of course, I can’t even do that in peace.

Or maybe it’s that I can’t be at peace?

Down on the ground, I could see someone spray painting the side of an old building in the city centre. If it was in the south part of town, I'd let it slide, but there was a real chance of this girl getting into a lot of trouble.

I dropped down slowly, so as to not startle her.

I guess I’ve lost a sense of how strange it is to see someone fall from a roof and land flat on their feet.

Needless to say, she flinched, her spraying stopped, almost messing with whatever graffiti she was making.

I put my hands behind my head, “Woah, I’m not gonna give you much trouble. The name’s Shamrock. I’m something of an artist myself.”

There was an impossibly wide grin on my face.

My fingers pointed out suddenly to the wall, “Mind if I take a look?”

She was clearly tense, and maybe a little eccentric by the looks of things.

She had greyish hair that was brown before whatever she did to it, however she looked about my age. Over half her face was a thick silver bandana, it reminded me of Handmaid a little.

She was dressed lightly, a blue ty-dyed tank top. A sash around her waist the same colour as the bandana. And normal leggings.

Guess it amused me a little. Maybe I'd started a fashion movement somewhere along the lines.

She closed her mouth up and nodded submissively.

There was definitely something off about her, but I was too (figuratively) high and mighty to notice.

I walked over to her, shoulder to shoulder, and looked at what she’d been doing

It didn’t look like something that’d been worked at for long. It was a large eye with long lashes. The iris was sort of wavy, sort of like a wave length, all of it blue. The lines were good and straight, she wasn’t an amateur.

“I guess it’s pretty good for what it is,” she stood close to her bag, putting herself between me and it.

I pointed out the obvious, “But you shouldn’t be doing this, especially in a public area. There’s a police station not far from here, any asshole could go off and report it. That’d usually be me.”

She didn’t seem like a bad person, sort of reserved pitiable, “I’ll let you off just this once with a warning.”

She nodded again, before lifting the weight of that large duffle bag onto her back, the effort she needed to lift it was clear. I thought about helping, but that seemed like it’d bother her more than anything.

She trudged off pretty quickly...

Before stopping. Maybe five feet from me.

Then she turned with her eyeless glare.

“It makes a lot of sense that it’d be you. Really, who else could it have been running around in the middle of the night? Not that I ever got to know you too well.” Her tone wasn’t how I expected.

She was saying something strange, and my mind began to link it to the business with Schism, but that was wrong.

As her demeaner changed completely, I let her go on, “I guess you wouldn’t know who I am. You’ve been out a while. Over seas. You want to know who I am?”

I was waiting to hear it.

“I’m See-through Girl, and this is my turf now...”

There was nearly a haughtiness to her now, like she’d just flicked a switch and completely changed her personality. Or maybe I'd given her enough space for her to be fine taking her ‘mask’ off now.

“-Bitch.” She spat the curse out like it made her seem tougher. I should mention, she was actually a pretty sickly-looking girl, maybe just pale and bony, I don’t know.

I cracked my neck, she turned her head to the side, like she had an invisible friend telling her something.

“Alright, I don’t know who you are, and I was gonna let you off this once-”

She interrupted, “But I know who you are. You’re Sam Burrows.”

It’s really a shame. I was all positive, that big doppy grin on my face-

And she had to ruin everything.

I went pale.

I don’t know what I was going to do next. I had been worried about this for a while. I brushed it off, because the Ints don’t really care what I look like.

But this girl-

She tapped her head, “I have x-ray vision.”

She left it at that, backing around the corner she was standing at and blending into a crowd.

It wasn’t a good enough explanation.

I’d had a lot of close calls, but if she were to reveal that information to the police- Or God forbid, Saoirse-

Then I wouldn’t be able to be Sam anymore.

The shouting in the distance was drowned out by a ringing in my ear.

I rushed after her, looking about, but somehow, she just slipped away. I went further into the street, there was a wide foot path in that area.

While trying to remember the geography, I realised what building she was spraying on.

I put both hands to my head. It was something so stupid I never thought I'd see it done in my little town.

Banks don’t keep much physical money on hand these days.

Regardless, I just that weakling walk away with a duffel bag containing tens of thousands of euros.