With all disinterest, I'll help you

Cobly eyes were popping out from it's sockets. He wasn't sure what he had expected to come out from the darkness but he had not expected her. The girl with the shiny car. He'd first thought, she was different. Back in the car, his spirit was unsettled by her, but he'd much more to worry about. She was just another rich girl who had rich air-head friends, he had helped carry a refrigerator to their van. He threw glances at her and caught her profile. She was a beauty–the kind guys at the ring will pay good money just to admire. Shapely lips, skin smooth like alabaster. She turned, catching him staring, and the corners of her mouth were higher than her lips, so that she could be said to be smiling, her face muscles encountering no contraction. He shuddered, immediately facing the road. In his mind, she was one of those who loved the horror genre and tried as much as possible to infuse it into their characters. Just one of those beautiful freaks you meet everyday.

She may be calm on the surface but he knew she was freaking out. Who wouldn't? In a car with a stranger who could strangle her in less than minutes. Another face in a world of faces. So, effortlessly, she was chunked out of his head, into the night.

Now, every pores, every electric wiring in his brain, every hair on his body stood as her scandals came to silence at his front and when she crouched down to his level, and they faced each other, he felt like throwing the weight on his arms and bolting. The urge to abandon not just Sarah, but himself–if it was possible–and jumping off this building.

The wind bellowed at her black dreads before she stretched her mouth into what was to be considered a smile. A strong man he was but this moment was sure to last him a lifetime. Never in his life has he feared the dark, but he could see darkness in the curve of her lips.

She waited. "If I save your lives, whatelse?" she asked in her flat tone, reasoning his silence was because he was still recovering from what these men had done to him.

His sweaty mouth opened and closed for many seconds. Then in a flash of light, Cobly made the mental connection that she was talking about helping him, not the other way he'd thought. "I will do anything for you," Cobly implored.

She shook her head.

"Anything! I promise!"

She was looking at him but not really looking. Her interest was fleeting, so he shouted the only possible thing he thought would get her attention: "I will owe you my life! Please, help her," he glanced at Sarah tucked away from sight, "If you could save us tonight, my life will be for you to do as you please."

The white of her eyes glittered for a moment. "Be careful what you wish for," she adviced, the flatness of her tone coming up with some excitement it hadn't had in years

Cobly nodded. "I will owe you my life. It will be in your hands."

She smiled meaninglessly. Cobly had come to realize later on that it was sinister delight. If it was because of the lives she would save or the death and pain she would cause, he doesn't know, or wish to find out.

She urged him to stand and as he did; Sarah on his arms, carried bridal style, the kicker who had been watching quietly from the edge got rid of his shock and stood as well. His weight resting heavily on his right leg.

4ink found some courage in the kicker boldness and he controlled himself, only whimpers and sniffles now.

The girl saw this and still continued in indifference. Cobly though was still on alert. If any of them come at him again, he might as well jump off the building and take his chances with the fall. He was exhausted. Standing with Sarah on his arms burned deep into his thigh and abdomen. If the kicker had only broken some of Cobly bones, Ruff had broken much more of that, for it was only by will power that he was standing.

The girl looked around the roof. "Take her out of here. l'll be behind."

Cobly held Sarah tightly. Slowly wading his way through the storm of eyes watching him. He moved towards the trapdoor, desperate murderous eyes in his direction, in silent reprisal, none that desperate to stop him. He began descending downstairs blanketed by shadowy figures and blackness. Weariness reproaching his steps, his mind winning the good fight to stay alert. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and every sound got his heart pounding. Peering for shadows to come at him. He went down the stairs, nothing coming up to meet him. And soon he was out into the open air. When he got to the car, he gently rested Sarah on the booth, rushing to tear open the backseat door before successful stuffing her body inside the car. When she was cozy as one could possibly get sleeping in a car's backseat, he closed the door behind him. Went and rested his tired back against the front tires, dragged his legs up to his shoulders, his hands on the dirt, and did the only thing he thought possible; he waited.

****

Sarah lovingly patted his back as they laughed. Her arms coming back to encircle his apron covered torso, which tensed at her soft touch, her head rested tenderly on his back. With a spatula in hand, he stirred the chopped up carrots, spinach, cucumbers and a combination of different other vegetables in the pan. He couldn't get what she was saying next or cared, for she could be talking about a oddity she encountered on the floor and with her unbridled enthusiasm, it would be captivating. She always entranced.

He felt the movement of her mouth on his back and he nodded in interest as he worked on adding the right amount of seasoning powder. The fire from the stove increasing to which he reduced. The fire after some minutes began to flare up again and when he promptly tried to put it back in it's place, it stubbornly refused. It burned more, the vegetables making a loudly sizzling sound like the midnight hissing of a disgruntled clutter. Sarah's face came on beside him and she looked at the scene alarmed.The pan catching on fire. The vegetables all charred and black, it raged on and they looked at it in wonder and love, having lost the strength to fight it. Shadows danced inside. Something appeared to be in the fire and they drew nearer. Peering closely, a hand wracked and burnt, pulled itself out of the flames. Black and moving, it rose itself to tremendous height. They watched it in frozen fear as it leapt. Cobly screamed, throwing himself out of the way. It grabbed Sarah. Cobly turned tail and ran out, Sarah dying cries following him.

"What are you doing?"

Cobly opened his eyes he didn't remember closing and stared up at the voice.

"I guess I slept off."

The girl slow in showing any interest. She came and leaned against the side of the car. "You were having a bad dream?" she asked at last.

"Uh-huh," Cobly nodded, thinking back to such bizarre, bad dream, before raising his head to look at her. She was smiling sadly down at him.

"Yeah," she reasoned. Her voice indicating she understood him.

"How did you know?" he wanted to ask, but she had tore her eyes away from his and was looking off into the distance–at the forest. Silence reigned. His hands rubbing the dirt between his finger and his body jerked up. "What about them? What did you do to them?"

"They will no longer disturb you," she replied.

"So you finished them?" he further asked, suprised; not about death but from the hands at which it had come from and the method.

She looked on and he nodded, still trying to make hypothesis of what was beside him. This girl possessed no muscles or have the fluidity of someone who had mastered kung-fu or any secret arts. She was something more dangerous and his head hurt trying to get to an answer.

A loud scream of pain and the promise of war, interrupted his thought process. There, standing with strained, red puffy face which looked like it has aged thirty more hard years during the short period he was inside that building was 4ink. His ring finger holding a gun loosely.

Cobly looked at the girl questioningly.

The girl shrugged. "I thought he would no longer be a problem, given what I've shown him. He's persistent."

"He's with a gun."

"And what about it?"

Cobly's heart in his throat, he looked at 4ink in expectancy. When he looked back at the girl, she had had that flat smile on her face as she gazed up at the crescent moon.

"Don't be afraid," she said to Cobly in a guardian's tone. "Wait again for me. For sometime."

With that, she began walking towards the forest. 4ink not sparing Cobly a glance went after her.