Striking Back #10

"Where did you get that much money, Cedric..." Killer said, giving me a confused look as we walked back home. "I thought you blew all your money on booze and brothels..." He added, raising an eyebrow.

It's been several minutes since we left the Grog Box bar and were halfway through on our way home.

Nyoka had no choice but to let us go to maintain his reputation after I gave him exactly what he asked in exchange for letting us walk, and so he did.

Being the bastard he was, Nyoka went out of his way to count every note I gave him and had his men taunt us through every second, but we pulled through without doing anything stupid.

"I spend a lot of money on brothels, but I convinced the madam to give me a recurring customer discount..." I replied with a grin, and Killer immediately understood how without needing me to explain. "As for booze, I usually snatch a couple of bottles from Nyoka's bar whenever we go there for a job," I added with a shrug.

"Lucky bastard..." Killer grumbled, giving me the side eye. "What did you plan to do with all that money anyway...? I've never seen you seen spend money on anything other than whoring and drinking..." He asked in a curious tone.

"To leave the island..." I replied with a sigh as I scratched my head, to which Killer and Kid instantly frowned. "Hmm? Oh, I guess I never mentioned it, did I...?" I said with a chuckle.

"Yeah, I don't plan on spending the rest of my life in this hellhole excuse of an island..." I continued, looking up into the sky and resting my hands behind my neck. "There's a whole world out there, and I want to see everything in it..." I added with a smile.

"Heck, I'd probably be long gone if it weren't for this whole mess," I said, sighing as I shook my head and lowered my gaze to the road. "But someone's gotta keep you two idiots in check..." I concluded with a chuckle.

Killer and Kid said nothing, but I noticed them exchange meaningful glances as they continued walking.

...

"She'll live... but it'll be a while before she could leave the bed..." I said with a sigh as I got off Vicky's bedside. "Nyoka wasn't lying when he said he didn't pull back on his punches..." I added with a grimace.

I was by no means a qualified physician. However, after practicing The Method and studying human anatomy for almost a year, I could visualize the human body as accurately as X-ray vision, enabling me to diagnose lite injuries and illnesses.

The Method's ultimate goal was to develop the ability to visualize the human body down to every cell with perfect accuracy with one glance, thus attaining mastery over it.

However, that specific milestone was too far for the current me to even think about it. Still, my knowledge, limited as it was, could be employed to help Vicky and Heat.

And speaking of the pale young man, he had it even worse than Vicky, as Nyoka beat him even more harshly when he jumped in to protect the girl. Ultimately, Heat owed his life to his surprising resilience, as most people would have been long dead after receiving such a vicious beating.

In any case, Kid grunted at my words as he paced around the room, only to stop a moment later. "What are we going to do about this...?" He said, alternating his gaze between Killer and myself.

"We can't let that bastard get away with beating Vicky and Heat..." The redhead added, gritting his teeth in frustration. "That fucker is probably spending Cedric's money and laughing his ass off at us right now..." He went on as he reached for an apple on a table next to Vicky's bed.

"It pisses me off just thinking about his smug face..." Kid concluded as he gripped the hapless fruit and crushed it into apple paste with both hands, likely imagining it was Nyoka's head.

"As much as I hate to admit it, there's nothing to do but bide our time and wait for the opportunity to kill Nyoka..." I said with a wince. "That said, we better move somewhere hidden so this doesn't happen again..." I added as I gestured toward the still-unconscious Vicky.

"The bastard might still go after them..."

...

Two months later

Hiding behind a tree, I blankly watched as a towering man roughly three feet (one meter) taller than me attacked a group of heavily armed thugs, effortlessly tearing them apart with his bare hands.

The man's name was Boden, Nyoka's right-hand man, and to make a long story short, I was here to kill him.

I might have acted carefree at the time, but the fact that I had to give up the money I earned from risking my life, which was to be my ticket out of this damned island, still pissed me off to this very moment.

I couldn't let it go, so I retaliated the only way I knew how; violence. The gang boss himself was still too strong to handle on my own despite looking like your run-of-the-mill sleazy gangster, but his goons were fair game.

Boden wasn't a pushover either, and it would have been ludicrous for me to even think about fighting him. But after taking out dozens of Nyoka's foot soldiers and studying their anatomy to further my mastery of The Method, I was confident enough to fight him head-on.

That said, I had no intention of fighting him fairly. I'll wait for him to finish his battle, which he'd no doubt win, judging by how quickly he tore the poor schmucks from West Clover apart. Only when his guard was down that I would attack.

Sure enough, Boden made quick work of the West Clover thugs, pausing momentarily to catch his breath before he headed to the carriage they were escorting.

'I wonder what's in there...' I mused as I looked at what seemed to be a massive box covered by an equally sizable cloth to conceal it. 'Doesn't matter...' I shook my head, focusing on the main task, as I began slowly inching toward Boden.

I got very close before I stepped over a branch, instantly alerting Boden to my presence as he turned around and saw me. Still, I was already close enough to attack before he reacted, and so I did.

I took a step forward, allowing the momentum of my movement to carry into my fist as I leaned my entire weight into it and buried it into Boden's solar plexus, causing him to grunt as he fell to his knees.

I was ready to grip Boden's head and bash it against my knee. However, he quickly gathered his bearings and swung his arm at me, his massive reach forcing me to jump back.

"I recognize you..." Boden said, gritting his teeth in pain as he got up, still nursing his abdomen. "You're one of them brats the boss wants dead... you just doomed yourself and your little friends..." He added with a grunt, squeezing out a hideous predatory smile.

"Once I kill you and tell the big boss what happened, he'll have plenty of reason to exterminate the lot of them," He added as he raised his massive arms and slowly approached me.

"I hate to break it down to you, but you're not walking out of here, big guy..." I said, raising my arms in a defensive stance and inched toward Boden, meeting him halfway through.

"Big words for such a little brat," Boden said, taking full advantage of his height as he sent a straight jab flying at me with his left before I was anywhere near swinging distance.

Frowning, I ducked under the attack and stepped forward, delivering another powerful punch to his solar plexus, instantly backing away as he grunted and tried to grab me.

"It's not about the size of the dog in the fight..." I said with a grin once I was out of his reach. "It's about the size of the fight in the dog," I added with a chuckle as I stepped forward to close the distance.

"Or so a wise man once said," I calmly added as I dodged another attack, planting my fist into Boden's liver instead, the repeated assault over his guts causing him to keel over.

I didn't let Boden's slip go unpunished as I cocked my head back, burying my forehead into his nose, causing it to break with a sickening crunch of bones and a jet of blood.

The pain seemed to cloud his judgment as he immediately reached for his nose instead of keeping his guard up or counterattacking, and I was quick to take advantage of it as I kneed him in the guts.

I grimaced as I heard something splatter in his abdomen, and a mouthful of blood flew out of his maw and straight into my face, but I didn't relent and continued the barrage of kicks and punches until he stopped moving.

...

Want more chapters? Then consider subscribing to my patr ēon. You can read ahead for as little as $1 and it helps me a lot!

-> (patr ēon..com / wicked132)

You can also always come and say hi on my discord server

-> (disc ord..gg / sEtqmRs5y7)- or hit me up at - Wicked132#5511 - and I'll add you myself)