Chapter 35:Leaving Red Street

Saturday morning in the East Borough was the same as always, with the ever present yellow clouds in the sky and a horrible smell in the air, the workers were not resting and were on their way to their jobs in the factories where their pay was a pittance but that was all they had.

Among the various workers was a brown-haired woman who was holding tightly the hand of a girl very similar to her and also hung a medium-sized bag on her shoulder.

They were Mantis along with her mother and they were finally in the process of leaving this rotten area of ​​Backlund.

Passing through an alley, Mantis could hear how some homeless people were talking about something...

"Did you hear what happened last night, it seems that someone robbed the Creed..." one of them said in an astonished voice but he was hit by another who glared at him

"Shut the fuck do you want to kill us?" the man whispered angrily as he looked around to see if anyone heard them but he only saw how Mantis was looking at him.

"What are you looking at bitch" the man growled at the girl scaring her making her hug the side of her mother who hurried her step.

"Mantis, I told you that you can't look at people like that" the woman said scared as she moved further away from the alley always keeping close to the girl who nodded strongly also scared.

"Sorry mommy I won't do it again" said the girl looking at the dirty floor.

Sighing, the mother could only keep up as she looked around for any dangerous person.

Emotions in the East Borough seemed more dangerous than before, as she had finally found out what had happened in the bar where that kind gentleman had given her that 10 pound note.

It turns out that he calls himself Mr. Holmes and he and his partner had not only sent multiple members of the Black Skull to the hospital but had kidnapped the second in command of the gang.

No one had seen him since then...

Later on Friday afternoon and evening some madman had robbed the Creed of a large sum of money and had also killed several members in their way out.

The Creed have been searching for the culprit since and have been very aggressive in their search.

'Mother, give me strength to pass this test,' the mother thought as she continued advancing with her daughter.

Right now they were on the street most traveled by workers and if they wanted to leave East Borough they had no other option but to go through Red Street.

This is because the area they lived in was a ~relatively safe~ part of the East Borough but the problem was that it was located on the sides of the area meaning they didn't have many options to leave it.

The long road option was a resounding no, if they wanted to take that road they had to go through the most dangerous area of ​​the East Borough and they couldn't do that.

So the best and only option is to go through the red street and hope for the best...

..

..

A group of men were talking drinking at the blue bar.

"When I find that son of a bitch, I swear I'm going to kill him..." one of the men said with hate, who was somewhat bald.

"You can count on us, I ask for the face" answered another who seemed to have a misshapen jaw and his eyes were widely separated.

"What kind of madman thinks he can rob the Creed and get away with it." spoke one who had a horrible scar on his cheek, it looked as if someone had shot him there.

"They kill Federic and Vita, the bastards didn't even know what hit them" said the last one with fake pain but he couldn't hide his dark smile.

"Get that disgusting fishy smile off your face Ecuador why don't you go with a whore so we don't have to see you,who knows,maybe you can see your mother." said the one with the scar causing the man with the horrible smile to look at him with hate .

"Fuck you bastard" Ecuador spat causing the other to just laugh.

With a deep frown, the one with the dark smile got up from his place and left the blue bar, going out into the street to control himself.

'Who the fuck does that idiot think he is if I only could I would kill him!!!.' Ecuador thought as the man lit a cigarette but as he inhaled from the cigarette a familiar face made him stop.

A young woman with brown hair and eyes who was accompanied by a girl just like her.

'Isn't that Sweet Lips? It's been a damn long time since I took her to bed,' Ecuador thought with a dark smile as he drop his cigarette to the ground and put it out with the sole of his shoe.

'I've got some steam to blow off' with that on his mind he started going towards the mother-daughter duo and this made the mother shudder through her sixth sense…

...

"Mommy, what's wrong?" her daughter's voice brought her out of her stupor and the woman could only give her a tense smile.

"It's okay my love, what do you think if we speed up the pace a little more" said the woman and Mantis nodded.

Before the mother could pick up her pace again her sixth sense kicked in for a short moment and in horror she turned but she couldn't see anyone.

"Honey, I'm going to carry you for a while,you're tired after walking so much, right?" The mother didn't wait for her daughter's answer, but she grabbed Mantis in her arms and increased her pace much more, it even seemed as if she were running....

....

In an alleyway not far from them was a figure dressed in a black windbreaker with a gloomy mask on his face, on his left wrist was what appeared to be a blade that was smeared with fresh blood.

"Don't you know it's impolite to bother the ladies?" he said with annoyance towards a figure that was on the ground next to him.

This was Ecuador who had dead eyes and in his neck there was a hole where the blade had stabbed him.

Using the dead man's clothing, Adryan cleaned the hidden blade, after which he stopped flexing his forearm causing the blade to hide again.

"Well I'll let you rest for a while I have to have a talk with your friends" he said as he went deeper into the alley and in his hand was a very small bag with some money.

'Why do they have to be so poor...' was the last thought on Adryan's mind as he disappeared into the darkness of the alley, leaving Ecuador's corpse as food for the rats.