21
" Help me,” the girl pleaded softly.
Sam knelt beside her. He recoiled in shock. “Bette?”
The left side of Bouncing Bette’s face was covered in blood. There was a gash above her temple. She was panting, gasping, like she had collapsed after a marathon and was trying with her last ounce of energy to crawl across the finish line.
“Bette, what happened?”
“They’re trying to get me,” Bette cried, and clutched at Sam’s arm.
The three dark figures advanced to the edge of the circle of light. One was clearly Orc. No one else was that big. Edilio and Quinn moved into the garage doorway.
Sam disengaged from Bette and took up a position beside Edilio.
“You want me to beat on you guys, I will!” Orc yelled.
“What’s going on here?” Sam demanded. He narrowed his eyes and recognized the other two boys, a kid named Karl, a seventh grader from school, and Chaz, one of the Coates eighth graders. All three were armed with aluminum bats.
“This isn’t your business,” Chaz said. “We’re dealing with something here.”
“Dealing with what? Orc, did you hit Bette?”
“She was breaking the rules,” Orc said.
“You hit a girl, man?” Edilio said, outraged.
“Shut up, wetback,” Orc said.
“Where’s Howard?” Sam asked, just to stall while he tried to figure out what to do. He’d lost one fight to Orc already.
Orc took the question as an insult. “I don’t need Howard to handle you, Sam.”
Orc marched right up to Sam, stopped a foot away, and put his bat on his shoulder like he was ready to swing for a home run. Like a batter ready for the next fastball. Only this was closer to T-ball: Sam’s head was impossible to miss.
“Move, Sam,” Orc ordered.
“Okay, I’m not doing this again,” Quinn said. “Let him have her, Sam.”
“Ain’t no ‘let me,’” Orc said. “I do what I want.”
Sam noticed movement behind Orc. There were people coming down the street, twenty or more kids. Orc noticed it too, and glanced behind him.
“They aren’t going to save you,” Orc said, and swung the bat hard.
Sam ducked. The bat whooshed past his head, and Orc rotated halfway around, carried forward by the momentum.
Sam was thrown off balance, but Edilio was ready. He let loose a roar and plowed headfirst into Orc. Edilio was maybe half Orc’s size, but Orc was knocked off his feet. He sprawled out on the concrete.
Chaz went after Edilio, trying to pull him off Orc.
The crowd of kids who had come running down the street surged forward. There were angry voices and threats, all aimed at Orc.
They yelled, Sam noted, but no one exactly jumped into the unequal fight. "
― Michael Grant
22
" Yeah, let’s get John here. That way we can stall for a while longer. We can keep on doing nothing for just a little while longer.”
Albert said, “Take it easy, Howard.”
“Take it easy?” Howard jumped to his feet. “Yeah? Where were you last night, Albert? Huh? Because I didn’t see you out there on the street listening to kids screaming, seeing kids running around hurt and scared and choking, and Edilio and Orc struggling, and Dekka hacking up her lungs and Jack crying and…
“You know who couldn’t even take it?” Howard raged. “You know who couldn’t even take what was happening? Orc. Orc, who’s not scared of anything. Orc, who everyone thinks is some kind of monster. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t…but he did. And where were you, Albert? Counting your money? How about you, Astrid? Praying to Jesus?”
Astrid’s throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe. For a moment panic threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to run from the room, run away and never look back.
Edilio got to his feet and put an arm around Howard. Howard allowed it, and then he did something Astrid never thought she would see. Howard buried his face in Edilio’s shoulder and cried, racking sobs.
“We’re falling apart,” Astrid whispered for herself alone.
But there was no easy escape. Everything Howard had said was true. She could see the truth reflected in Albert’s stunned expression. The two of them, the smart ones, the clever ones, the great defenders of truth and fairness and justice, had done nothing while others had worked themselves to exhaustion. "
― Michael Grant , Lies (Gone, #3)
23
" Where would tourism be without a little luxury and a taste of night life? There were several cities on Deanna, all moderate in size, but the largest was the capital, Atro City. For the connoisseur of fast-foods, Albrechts’ famous hotdogs and coldcats were sold fresh from his stall (Albrecht’s Takeaways) on Lupini Square. For the sake of his own mental health he had temporarily removed Hot Stuff Blend from the menu. The city was home to Atro City University, which taught everything from algebra and make-up application to advanced stamp collecting; and it was also home to the planet-famous bounty hunter – Beck the Badfeller. Beck was a legend in his own lifetime. If Deanna had any folklore, then Beck the Badfeller was one of its main features. He was the local version of Robin Hood, the Davy Crockett of Deanna. The Local rumor mill had it he was so good he could find the missing day in a leap year. Once, so the story goes, he even found a missing sock. "
― Christina Engela , Loderunner
36
" They had gathered at Eastcheap to wait. At this time of day, the marketplace ought to have been thronged with people looking for bargains, moving from stall to stall, examining the fresh fish, choosing the plumpest hens, buying candles and pepper and needles. The stalls were open, but the fishmongers and cordwainers and butchers were doing no business, despite the growing crowd. The sun was hot, flies were thick, and the odors pungent; no one complained, though. They talked and gossiped among themselves, strangers soon becoming friends, for the normally fractious and outspoken Londoners had forgotten their differences, at least for a day, united in a common purpose and determined to revel in their triumph, for they were pragmatic enough to understand this might be their only one. Now they joked and swapped rumors and waited with uncommon patience, and at last they heard a cry, swiftly picked up and echoed across the marketplace: “She is coming! "
― Sharon Kay Penman , When Christ and His Saints Slept (Plantagenets #1; Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, #1)
