Ch 392 - Money and Respect

Micky glared at the students as if daring them to speak up. But really what he was looking for was a spokesperson to pick on.

"Come on! Hurry up! Who's going to answer me?"

As he said this, the rest of the gang members raised their weapons as if preparing to strike.

The students were consumed with fear. Just moments ago, they had been revelling in their victory over the gang. Now they were back to square one.

"Well? What's wrong? Why's everyone so shy all of a sudden, huh?"

At Micky's signal, a gang member picked a student at random and punched them hard in the stomach. The student doubled over, coughing and retching, and the gang member kicked them again, sending them sprawling on the grass.

Heidi watched all of this carefully, keeping her face neutral. She realized that this new group of fighters Micky had brought to them were not amateur thugs like the ones she had beaten up before. These were trained fighters.

She thought through their options as quickly as she could. It seemed like fighting wouldn't work this time. She would need to find another way to safely get them out of this. She tried to think of an argument they could use to talk their way out of the situation.

Her brow creased in sympathy as she watched the student Micky had picked at random to suffer struggle to stand. She felt horrible that things had turned against them all so quickly.

Before anyone could decide what to do, Micky pointed to another random student. The fighter revealed a knife and held it to the student's throat.

This was one of the students who, just minutes before, had been angry at Alex for not joining in the fight. All of his bravadoes were gone, now. His legs were shaking so hard he felt as though he was going to melt into the floor. He felt something wet around his legs, and he couldn't tell if it was sweat or if he had wet himself.

The air was tense. It felt as if hardly anyone amongst the students was even breathing.

He took a shaky breath and said, "Um, we were wrong? We were really wrong. We shouldn't have. I'll pay! I can pay you money if you just don't hurt me!"

It was clear from his tone that this was not an idle promise. He sounded like he could afford to pay Micky a great deal.

His offer inspired some of the other students who were also quite wealthy. Even though they had been proud of themselves for fighting back, that was before Micky had produced hundreds of armed fighters to support him. Now, fighting felt ridiculous.

One by one, the wealthier students fell to their knees and began to beg to be allowed to pay Micky off. Those who had criticized Alex for not joining the fight felt foolish. They raised their voices over each other, begging Micky to let them go.

Heidi watched them all critically. She understood their fear, but she still felt somewhat contemptuous toward them. She stood tall. She was determined to find a way out of this with her dignity intact.

More students were starting to join those who knelt on the ground. Even though they were not as rich as some of their classmates, they still figured it was better to lose some money than to die. Some of them suspected that simply begging for forgiveness would probably be enough on its own to get them out of there.

The first student to offer money, who was still standing with a knife to his throat, slowly reached into his wallet to pull out a credit card. He held it out to Micky, offering it to him.

To his surprise, Micky slapped the card out of his hand, sending it flying.

"It must be great to have money, huh?" he yelled. "You just flash a credit card, and all your problems go away! Is that how it's always worked for you?"

The students were stunned. Many of them had been convinced that money would solve the issue. Having their money rejected was yet another humiliation.

With an ugly sneer, Micky struck the student with his crutches, knocking his legs out from under him.

"You thought you could take us on!" he roared. "You didn't even think about the consequences! And you think you can just fix it with money? What about respect? Show me that!"

He swung his crutches out wildly, striking students at random. The students screamed, ducking and crawling to try to get out of his way.

The first student who had offered money gasped out, "Please! Please forgive us! I understand what you mean, but this is what I can give you! Please give us a chance. I'm offering you property, money, anything!" He babbled on incoherently, making wild offers in exchange for his safety.

Finally, Micky tired himself out. It was difficult to hit people when he only had one good leg to stand on. He let himself come to a stop, air puffing in and out of his lungs.

"Fine," he panted. "I get it. Money is the only thing that makes sense to you people. Fine!" He turned to the rest of the students. "So you're all just desperate to give us money, huh?"

The fighters glared at the students, who began nodding as hard as they could. "Yes! Yes, we'll pay!"

"All right, we can play that game. Your lives are worth more than money, I'm sure. Since there's so many of you, I'm sure it won't be any problem to give us one billion dollars. Give us that much, then you can leave. No problem, right?"

Gasps rippled through the crowd. They had each been imagining numbers in the thousands. Micky's demand blew their estimations out of the water.

The students looked at each other fearfully. There were no poor people amongst them, but they were not that rich, either. Some of them knew that their families had decent assets, but they had no idea if all their money put together would total one billion dollars. 

They knew it would be incredibly dangerous now to suggest the total Micky wanted was too much. The first person to speak would probably be struck down, or even killed. None of them wanted to risk angering him again.