Max growled, and the men who had come with Tom started surrounding them. He quickly looked around and saw that more men had come out of the alleys and were beginning to encircle them.

Grace groaned as a red window flashed before her eyes.

*****

One quest pending

—

Dispatch The Backstabbers: You must kill five of the attackers. Mercy is for the weak.

Reward: Stats Gained

Failure: Stats Lost

*****

“I need to kill five,” Grace whispered as she poked Max’s side and moved to put her back against him.

“Don’t kill them!” Max hissed louder than he had intended.

The men around them started to roar with laughter as some began to pull out wooden clubs and knives.

“Please don’t kill me,” a weasely looking man she was facing cried out. His performance of being afraid would never earn him a job on stage, but every one of his fellow thugs around him acted like it was the performance of a lifetime.

“You sure?” Grace asked, making a fist and relaxing it for a moment.

“Killing them will be worse, the guards wi–”

One of the men rushed Max, and he stopped talking. He waited, letting the thug get close with his club and swing. When the moment was right, Max moved into him, blocking his swing, which was too wide with his hand, and delivering a knee to the man’s chest that sent him tumbling backward.

Grace didn’t get an opportunity to watch Max fight. She had that weasly guy coming after her, wearing a smile that left no doubt of his intentions.

She couldn’t help the grin she knew appeared, aware that it caught her attacker slightly off guard.

He took three steps, moving as a man without real fighting experience. His movements reminded Grace of the kids her brother played with.

It’s a goddamn group of idiots…

When Grace attacked, she moved so fast that she looked like a blur to those beginning their charge.

The weasly man swung his club from overhead, and Grace ducked under it, slamming her fist into his elbow. It bent backward, the bones and ligaments breaking and tearing as his arm went the wrong way.

Too hard… I need not to hit this hard…

There was no delay between her second attack as she drove her foot into the man’s knee, a crunching sound filling the air as it bent sideways, and the man crashed to the ground, howling in pain as the street welcomed his face.

Like a wild animal that was surrounded by lambs, Grace darted to the next man, shattering his leg and disarming him when she slapped his hand, holding his weapon, breaking a few bones in the process.

The other four men who had decided to fight her tried to stop their forward momentum, now realizing the girl before them was not what they had prepared for.

Reaching the closest one in three steps, Grace kicked him in the chest, doing her best to control how hard she hit him. The man dropped straight down as if he had run into a wall. A wall would have been more forgiving as her foot cracked four ribs and broke two.

Spinning on her other foot, Grace realized she wasn’t thinking about what to do next. Her mind and body moved on their own. Since that small gain in her mental stats, it was as if she did nothing but sit back and watch herself beat the crap out of six grown men.

Within moments, she had taken down two more and was throwing a club, stolen from the one she had just broken both arms on, at the last guy running away.

The club slammed into his left shoulder, and Grace grimaced when she heard the crunch and scream, seeing a bone jut out above the thug's collarbone area.

He fell to the ground, squirming on the packed dirt road.

As Grace spun around to help Max, she saw that only the two big men remained, and Max had a firm grasp on the shirt of his smaller twin.

“Need help?” Grace asked, noticing four men twitching awkwardly on the dirt road.

“No,” Max growled as he yanked Tom up. The sound of fabric tearing was almost hidden by the squeals and howls of the man realizing he had screwed up royally.

“Wait! Wait, Max! Please don’t! I’ll make it up to you!”

The fat man squirmed as his toes barely stayed on the ground, his shirt pulled up and revealing more flesh than Grace could ever imagine being on one person.

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“By the gods, you will,” Max shouted, tossing the man back and sending him crashing to the ground.

Tom fell backward, slamming his head into the dirt, and struggled on his back, trying to roll over so he could get up.

“Stay down!” Max ordered as he moved next to the man and pressed his foot into Tom’s oversized gut.

“Su… sure… whate–”

“Shut it,” Max barked as he cut Tom off. “You’re going to get me everything I asked for, and then you’ll cut out your percentage. You’ll have it in two days like we agreed, or I promise you the next time we come back, it won’t just be broken bones and wounded pride. Do you understand?!”

Tom nodded so fast that his greasy and unkempt hair flapped up and down. He had given up. It appeared he was trying to move as Max continued to lean on the man, making the breaths Tom took sound labored.

“One last thing,” Max said as he put more weight onto his foot, earning a few grunts and groans from Tom. “Don’t tell a soul what happened here. If I find out that you snitched, you better pray I’m dead, or I’ll come back here and carve you like a turkey.”

“No.. no… I… I won’t say nothing.” Tom was stammering from fear and the inability to breathe. “I… swear!”

Max nodded and gave one last thrust with his leg, pushing off of Tom and causing the man to cry out.

Grace grinned as Max turned and looked at her and then the men behind her on the ground.

“Kill any?” he asked as he scanned the bodies for movement.

Shaking her head, Grace shrugged. “Almost, but I made sure not to like you asked.”

Max took a deep breath and grunted as he let it out. “Let’s go. We need to get out of here.”

As they started to walk away, Grace jogged to catch up with him and suddenly staggered a few steps.

Pain crashed into her head as a red box flashed in her vision.

*****

Quest Failed: Dispatch The Backstabbers

Failure: Two Mental Points Lost

*****

The world shifted back into a muted color, and memories a moment ago Grace Could have easily told you perfectly seemed jumbled in her head.

Holding her hand to her temple, she groaned.

“What happened? Did you get hit?”

Using her other hand to wave off Max as he towered over her, an expression of concern across his face, Grace took a deep breath and slowly let it out, standing up straight as she did.

“I failed the quest… I was supposed to kill five of them, and I didn’t,” she stated in a hushed tone. “I lost two points to my mental stat, and my head is killing me. It’s like I can’t remember or notice things like I used to.”

Max groaned, giving Grace some space, and scratched his chin. “This is my fault. I told you not to kill them. I forgot how bad a quest that you fail can be. Next time, ignore my advice if the failure has a major impact on you.”

Clearing her throat, Grace looked at Max and frowned. “I’m not sure what a major impact could be. This was my first real failure, where I suffered like this. Even if it’s not the ones where it’s death or Levi getting hurt, some say I will lose a skill… how bad could that feel?”

Inspecting his teeth with his tongue, Max nodded slowly, considering what she had said and what he knew. After a moment, he sighed. “From now on, let’s just not plan on failing. Even if it means you might have to kill someone.”

Grace’s eyes widened as she stared at the man she had come to depend on to protect her and her brother. His tone and voice had been so calm as he told her to become a killer. “Seriously?!” she exclaimed. “Just like that? You want me to become a killer and –”

“Shut up!” Max snapped back, holding his hand up. “You chose this path, and now you have to walk it. You traded your soul and choices, and now the repercussions for that can be…” Seeing Grace’s shocked and confused look, he sighed and paused momentarily. “Listen, for whatever reason, you are now an emissary. Your choices are limited, and we cannot risk you suffering like that again. Nothing is going to get easier. They get harder. They demand… they demand blood. Look at our city! The king did this because he didn’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean he didn’t have a choice?! He could have said no and not slaughtered everyo–”

“Even if it meant he would die? Or his wife or his son?”

Max’s question cut her off, and she found herself standing there with her mouth open, unable to finish her words.

“What would you do for your brother? Would you do what the king did to a city like this if that was the only way he would live?”

Squirming where she was, Grace winced and felt a pain like a knife piercing her heart.

I would do that… If there was no other choice and if it meant his life…

Grace shuddered as she finally admitted to herself the truth of what she would do to protect Levi.

Lowering her head, Grace looked at the ground. “I would burn everyone… I would even kill you.”

Max calmed himself, slowly breathing in and out. He could see how much it hurt a girl with only one main concern. He knew what she felt. He had done horrible things to protect the woman he loved, and when she died, he had done even worse things.

Slowly, he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Look at me Grace.”

Grace shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered.

“You can and you must. Look at me.”

Sniffing, Grace wiped her cheek as she looked at Max, surprised to see the gentle smile he wore as he looked down on her.

“Do not beat yourself up for admitting what is the most important thing in your life. If it came down to your brother or me, I would want you to pick him.”

“How… how can you say that?” Grace asked, stuttering as she tried to fathom how Max would allow himself to be killed.

“Because I’ve been where you’re at,” he replied, frowning after he spoke. “When the king’s men attacked the city, I had a woman… someone I loved… one I loved more than anything else. I fought, I stole, I murdered, I…” His voice trailed off as Max looked up at the sky momentarily. “I did things I’m not proud of, but I did all of that to protect her.”

Grace saw a tear escape from Max’s eyes, yet the man didn’t bother wiping them away.

“When she died to some sol–” Coughing, Max sniffed and shook his head slowly, stopping himself from saying whatever it was going to be. “Afterward, I went on a rampage. There is a reason I was one of the first gang leaders. When I had no one to take my rage out on, I bottled all my feelings up inside. I only cared about myself.

“And then some pain in the ass girl with a little brother came and asked to stay in my house.” Max chuckled, turning his attention to Grace, who nodded as she smiled. “I saw in her the same concern that I felt once. My men told me I was a fool for giving up a space in the house to you, but I couldn’t say no. A part of me wouldn’t let me say no. Now… now I’ll do whatever I can to help you protect your brother.”

It took a second for Grace to realize she was shaking. The truth of every word Max had spoken vibrated within her. Without wasting another second, she rushed him, embracing him as she plunged her head against his stomach and cried.

Max joined her, letting tears he had held back for half a year fall into Grace’s hair as he gently stroked it.