“Sit down. Now!” Blue-eyes said, pressing the gun roughly into my back and prompting me to a chair.

The Tan-suit appeared uneasy about the situation, smoking a cigarette in the corner of the room with a shaking hand and wiping sweat with the back of his sleeve. The girl was another story. She was frightened—

Absolutely terrified.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, she looked to be around ten years old. Her entire body shook rapidly, as if she were freezing, despite it being hot and stuffy in the room. Tan-suit suddenly stepped forward, addressing Blue-eyes. “What are we gonna do—what are we gonna do?” He repeated the question several times as Blue-eyes held a finger to his temples.

“Shut up!” he finally said, causing Tan-suit to cut-off mid-sentence. “Can’t you see I’m thinking?”

Tan-suit stepped forward. “You can’t be serious. He saw us—he can ID us. ID the car. We gotta take care of him—”

I held up a shaking hand, my heart beating in my chest. “Now wait a second—”

The gun struck the side of my head with a crack, sending a blaring migraine radiating through my skull, black dots dancing in my eyes. I tasted blood, but I was drawn to the girl, and she stared at me worriedly. Her dark eyes, filled with pity. Heh, the little girl who was in trouble was worried about me—

I’m fucking pathetic.

Forcing myself to a modicum of courage, I forced my eyes back up at the gunman, wiping blood off the side of my face. “That all you got, pussy?”

Blue-eyes struck me with the gun again. And again. The girl cried out, but Tan-suit quickly wrapped his greasy looking hands around her mouth to force her quiet. The blows kept coming, and my hand instinctively went to my pocket where I felt the Dragons-Eye amulet.

Fat lotta good you were, I thought. Guess the dream is dead. Me too, coincidentally.

I felt a presence enter my mind. Small, at first, but then loud. Booming. I felt the universe spill into me as I heard the words, “Not quite yet.”

My headache cleared, my mind focused, and I stood. Blue-eyes cocked the pistol, wasting no time as he fired a single shot towards me—But I was too quick. Dodging the bullet, I deflected the gun sideways. First, I struck him with a gut punch, then a straight, and finally, a haymaker, sending him crashing to the floor.

As Blue-eyes hit the dirty red carpet, he rolled, aiming the pistol at me again as he took three more shots—

Bang

Bang

Bang

It was loud, but I was undaunted. With each shot, my body moved on its own accord, narrowly dodging each, the bullets just grazing the edges of my clothes and skin and leaving a disgusting, sulfuric smell in the air. I heard the sounds of the bullets whizzing by me, and I hoped that no innocent bystanders were hurt this time.

Blue-eyes looked up at me in horror, as if he witnessed a demon. I couldn’t help but laugh at him. A demon? No—

I was more like an avenging fucking angel.

“What the fuck—” Blue-eyes managed to say as my fist connected with his face. Before I knew it, I was raining an unholy beating down upon him, pushing my entire weight into every hit. The new muscles I’d gained from working out strained as I pushed onward, never letting up even for a second. I realized I was screaming obscenities, but I didn’t know from where that rage came from. Still, I swam in it eagerly, not wishing for it to end—

It just felt too good.

When I was finally done, Blue-eyes face looked like a car had run it over. He still breathed, just barely, through a broken jaw and many, many missing teeth. It was time to move on to his partner; Tan-suit, and he looked back at me with the fear a man shows when he goes to meet god. But there was no God here… just another human here to punish him for his deeds of wickedness. And I wasn’t all that into forgiveness.

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The girl had scooted to the other side of the bed, right near the door. Not trusting who was outside, I turned to her, saying, “Just wait there. Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

Turning back to Tan-suit, he went to the floor, on his knees, his hands out passively, shaking like a leaf in the wind. “Pl-pl-please-do-don’t.”

“Don’t what?” I said, grabbing a fistful of his hair, pulling his head back so I could get a clean shot. “Hurt you? Like you planned to do to this girl?” My fist shook with rage, and I was about to unleash it when the unexpected happened; the girl stood, running across the bed to grab my first before I threw the punch.

She screamed and wailed, pulling my fist back. “Please don’t,” she sobbed. “He knows people. They’ll hurt you—hurt everyone you know.”

The look of worry she showed shamed me from the depths of my soul. Up close, I could see the bruises from the abuse she’d endured—old wounds that told a story of a lifetime of neglect. And yet, she still sought to protect not herself… but me.

I felt the Dragon’s presence rise up in my mind as it asked, “Is this the strength of humanity?” Suddenly, tears flowed in my eyes as I let my fist drop, all will to do violence gone in an instant.

“It is, Dragon,” I replied. “It is.”

***

The begrudging husband had, at some point, called the police. By the time I picked the girl up, carrying her outside, a swarm of officers descended on the motel like a hive of wasps. I bent, setting the gun on the ground and kicking it far away from me, the sound of scraping metal echoing on the building’s glass panes. The residents, for the most part, had scattered into the night, leaving most of the rooms unoccupied, doors open, and lights still on.

The blaring sounds and bright lights of the police vehicles both deafened and blinded me. I set the girl down, whispering, “It’ll be ok. You’re safe now. Go with them. Go.”

She turned from me, but then she turned back, wrapping her arms around my upper body. Stunned, I gently pushed her forward, beckoning her away towards the officers. Some had their guns drawn now, all aimed at me. I put my hands up and waited until the officers came to place me in handcuffs.

They were rough, shoving my head down into the concrete. The metal of the cuffs chuffed my skin as they clicked around my wrists. The lady officer who’d placed them on me pulled me up by my wrists, shoving me towards the police car, where she slammed me on the hood.

“No!” I heard the girl scream from nearby. “He saved me—He saved me!”

The lady-officer looked towards her, and then back at me. “Do you have any ID?”

I thought about replying with a snarky remark, but, instead, replied, “It’s inside the office. I work here.”

“Then why do you have a gun?”

“It’s not mine.”

The officer scoffed. “Sure bud, that’s what they all say.”

They proceeded to pat me down, removing the Dragons-Eye amulet from my pocket. The officer looked curiously at me as she put it on the hood of the car. Its silver gleam shone brightly in the headlights of the police vehicles, but, I noticed a red tint to it that hadn’t been there before.

The lady-officer put me in the back of the squad car as she searched both the rooms and motel office. Eventually, I saw Tan-suit being led to a squad car; he was handcuffed at the front and he hid his face as they led him, eventually closing the door with him inside.

Blue-eyes was seemingly left there until an ambulance arrived to wheel him away. I smiled at that and regretted that Tan-suit didn’t share his fate. Still, I was happy with what I’d done, and I wasn’t going to let that piece-of-shit ruin it.

Eventually, the lady-officer came back. Opening the door wordlessly, she beckoned me outside where she removed the cuffs from my wrists; the skin was red and sore to the touch, burning lightly where the metal had cut. “I’m going to need a statement,” she said. “But, from what the victim told us, you saved her. From the looks of you, I didn’t expect you’d be the type. The hero type… Sorry about the cuffs.”

I forced a laugh. “Yeah, I get that a lot, and don’t worry; I’m just glad you guys got here quickly, L.A. cop response times are—” She shot me a sidelong glance, and I quickly shut my mouth.

I gave the statement of what happened from my point of view, leaving out the parts about speaking to an inanimate object that calls itself a Dragon in my head. Don’t want to sound too crazy now do we? When explaining how Blue-eyes received his injuries, the lady-officer cocked a curious eyebrow at me.

“I’m stronger than I looked,” I explained.

She crossed her arms. “And immune to bullets?”

I ran my hand through my hair, slick with sweat. “Just lucky.”

All told, the ordeal lasted a few hours, and, by the time it was over, the owner of the motel arrived to relieve me. Pattrick sent me home for the night and said we’d speak about what happened soon. It was code for I’m getting canned. I knew it; he knew it, and he knew I knew it.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but, looking at the girl I’d saved one last time before she was taken away in an ambulance… sometimes hell is a price that’s worth paying.

“Need a ride, hero?” the officer asked as I began my walk back to the apartment.

I gave her a mock salute. “No thanks, I’ve got some thinking to do. Nights been a real fucking mess, know what I mean?” She smiled, nodding at my comment as she got back into her squad car. I walked away, reaching in my pocket, and felt the intricate Dragon’s-Eye. “Are you still there?”

The amulet warmed, and I felt the immense presence of the Dragon enter my mind once more. And just like that, we were connected again.