Chapter 6

• ARIA
• I thought Pablo and his gang were the scariest-looking men I had laid my eyes on in a long time, but the man standing adjacent to me reminded me of Hercules. He stood a reasonable distance away, yet one could easily see he was brawny. His well-defined muscles hugged his shirt that had a few buttons opened and the top and the sleeves rolled up as if he had come prepared for a fight, but his hands were tucked casually into his pant pockets.
• “Who the fuck are you?” Pablo brawled.
• “Leave the girl alone,” He repeated, his tone was quiet but commanding.
• I take the opportunity to wriggle my arms again in an attempt to get them free, but Pablo’s grip tightened even more. His colleague had released me to move towards the stranger, cracking his knuckles as he did.
• “You have a chance to turn around and walk away like you didn’t see anything,” Pablo’s colleague warned, but his words do not move this stranger, instead, they angered him. His stance grew even more rigid, and his muscles were screaming to be let out of those rather tight shirts, but he doesn’t utter a word.
• Pablo too stepped forward, dragging me with him as he did, and I winced as his fingers cut deeper into my flesh. His colleague grunts before he rushed to attack the stranger, and then everything happened in a flash.
• One second Pablo’s friend was charging at him, and the next, he lay on the floor, moaning and screaming in pain. Pablo let go of me, grabbing his knife from his pockets with his arm mid-air to stab the stranger, but the stranger caught his fist with the knife a few inches from his face and the knife went falling to the ground.
• What looked like an effortless kick from this stranger sent Pablo to his knees in front of him, gripping his ribs and raining curses. I had to pinch myself to be sure this was real, that I wasn’t dreaming, or to remind myself that this isn’t any movie, because how can one man possess such strength, fighting off two men without moving an inch from where he stood?
• “What are you?” Pablo's eyes widened in disbelief.
• “Now is your chance to walk away before I am forced to do something drastic,” His voice remained cool while Pablo scurried to his feet, falling a few times back before racing away, and his colleague who was badly injured barely managed to keep up with him.
• “I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you and your entire family if I don’t get my money. That’s a promise,” Pablo’s voice echoed back as he ran for his life.
• I shuddered at the threat, because I knew he was going to do it. Pablo and his gang are notorious and I learned he had turned a family of five to ashes in the past when they didn’t pay back the loan they owed him. I should be thankful to Mr. Hercules here for saving my life, but I feel he only just succeeded in making things worse for us.
• My eyes stung with unshed tears that were becoming harder to hold back.
• “Are you hurt?” for the first time, Mr. Hercules moves from the spot he’d been standing to inspect my arms that was red from Pablo’s grip. Asides from the redness, I’d also managed to sustain a graze on my elbows when I fell, and little marks of blood stained the area, but nothing too serious.
• His brows creased when he saw the injury, a soft curse escaping his lips. “Bastards,”
• I shrug “It’s nothing,” I yank my arms free from his. “Thank you, but I should hurry home, my mom would be overly worried now,”
• But he blocked my path “Not so fast, Aria,”
• My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open at the same time, then I snapped them shut almost immediately. I have never met him before, yet he knew my name and it rolled off his tongue like we were friends.
• “Who are you, and how do you know my name?” Fear and panic laced my words.