Chapter 415: Carmen in trouble
I left Maribel’s place in a hurry.
I should have felt satisfied after being with her. That was what I expected, at least. Instead, the moment I stepped outside into the afternoon heat, something inside me started acting up again.
"What the hell is happening to me..." I muttered.
My whole body felt hot. Not just because the sun was beating down on the empty street, either. Heat crawled through my arms and chest, and it felt like my skin could barely contain it.
Sex had always felt different with people who shared the Symbiote with me.
There was the normal pleasure, but the Symbiote added something else on top of it. It made me feel lighter afterward, almost energized, like every exhausted part of me had been filled back up. The more it happened, though, the stronger that feeling became.
With Maribel, it had hit harder than I expected.
That was the problem.
Even after leaving her room, part of me wanted to go straight back inside and have another round with her.
The thought made me stop for a second.
It was not like I had never felt this way around Sydney, Rachel, Cindy, or the others. Sometimes, after being with one of them, I wanted to stay close to them for longer. I wanted more of that warmth, more of that strange relief the Symbiote gave me.
But this felt worse.
Maybe it was because Maribel had only just been stabilized. Maybe the Symbiote inside her was still reacting differently from the others. Or maybe I was simply worked up because I had just left her room.
Either way, I needed to stay away from her.
At least until tomorrow.
Maribel had come to me because she was in pain and needed help. I was not going to keep going back because my body had decided to act stupid afterward.
I rubbed my face and forced myself to keep walking.
Anyway, I should find Lucy.
Hopefully her talk with Marlon was over by now, though I honestly doubted it. Marlon had a lot of reasons to question her, and Lucy had a lot of things she probably did not want to say. Their conversation could easily last longer than either of them wanted.
I checked my watch.
Maybe I should wait a little more before going back to the Boardwalk.
I looked around, trying to think of somewhere I could sit down without getting dragged into another conversation. The streets around me were quiet, lined with wrecked storefronts and buildings with boarded-up windows. The distant noise from the Boardwalk barely reached this far.
Then I saw Brighton Park.
Might as well take a break there.
I headed toward it.
The park was almost empty when I got there. There were no groups gathered around the benches, no kids running through the paths, and nobody sitting near the old fountain. The place had once probably been meant for tourists or families, but now most of the paths were cracked, weeds were growing through the stone, and the fountain in the center had stopped working a long time ago.
I walked farther in, toward the fountain.
That was when I spotted two people.
Carmen was one of them.
She stood beside a patch of flowers near the edge of the fountain, leaning forward with a watering can in her hand. I had noticed those flowerbeds before. A few weeks ago, they had been little more than loose dirt with seeds scattered through them. Now the flowers had grown properly, spreading small bits of red, yellow, purple, and white across the park.
They made the area look better.
Less abandoned.
With the heat getting worse lately, someone had to keep watering them, and Carmen was clearly one of the people doing it. It was not even the first time I had seen her there. Whenever I passed through Brighton Park, she was sometimes nearby, taking care of the plants or checking whether someone had destroyed them.
The man beside her was Hadi.
I recognized him after a moment. He had short hair and wore a jacket despite the heat, which looked ridiculous under the burning sun. Sweat darkened the fabric around his collar, but he had not taken it off.
He looked older than Carmen, though I could not really tell by how much.
Carmen was hard to judge too. She had a son around my age and a fourteen-year-old daughter, yet she looked far younger than I would have expected. Most people would probably assume she was in her early thirties, not her forties.
Hadi was mostly a loner.
I had seen him around the Boardwalk a few times, carrying supplies or doing small jobs, but he never spent much time with anyone. It was pretty hypocritical of me to think that way, considering I had barely talked to anyone when I first arrived here.
Still, something about the two of them looked wrong.
"Let me help you, Carmen," Hadi said.
"I...I am fine, Hadi. Thank you."
Carmen took one step away from him, tightening her grip on the watering can.
"Come on," Hadi replied. "I am just offering help."
He moved closer again and reached for her.
Carmen pulled back before he could touch her.
"Please, Hadi. Leave me alone. I am fine."
Her voice had become firmer.
Hadi stopped smiling.
His eyes fixed on her face, and for a second he stood there breathing through his nose like he was trying to control himself.
Then he suddenly stepped forward and grabbed her arm.
"I am just trying to help!" he shouted. "So accept it!"
Carmen gasped as he pulled her toward him.
The watering can slipped from her hand and hit the ground, spilling water across the dirt beside the flowerbed.
"Let go!" Carmen yelled.
"Shut up!"
Hadi yanked her closer and lifted his free hand toward her mouth.
I had seen enough.
"Can you let go of her?"
My voice cut across the park as I started walking toward them.
Hadi flinched and turned his head toward me.
Carmen was caught against him, her arm trapped in his grip. Her face had gone pale, and she was trying to pull herself free without making him twist her arm further.
"You are hurting her," I said.
I kept walking until I was only a few steps away.
"Let go of her, Hadi."
"What do you want?!" he shouted.
His eyes were bloodshot. Sweat covered his face, and the way he moved was too quick and unsteady. He did not look like someone who was simply angry. It looked like he had taken something, or had not slept for days, or was just completely out of his mind.
"Just fuck off," he snapped. "Unless you want to get hurt too!"
The spilled water kept soaking into the dirt around Carmen’s flowers while Hadi’s hand stayed locked around her arm.
"Let go of her, Hadi," I said, keeping my voice low and serious. "You know what Marlon will do when he hears about this, don’t you?"
Marlon did not show much mercy to people who hurt others inside the community. Hadi being a former Marine would not save him either. If anything, it would make Marlon angrier. A man with military training should have known better than to use it to prey on someone weaker.
"Fuck Marlon!" Hadi shouted.
He released the hand covering Carmen’s mouth.
For half a second, I thought he might let her go.
Instead, his free hand moved under his jacket.
He pulled out a gun.
Are you kidding me?
"Ryan!" Carmen shouted as soon as her mouth was free. "R...Run! Go call the others!"
"Shut up!"
Hadi yanked her arm harder.
Carmen groaned through clenched teeth, her body jerking toward him. Even with him holding a gun and twisting her arm, she was still looking at me instead of herself.
"Run!" she cried again.
Normally, running would have been the smart thing to do.
A gun was not something I could casually ignore. One bullet could still kill me if I made a mistake. I had seen too many people die from weapons like that. In a normal situation, I would have backed away, found cover, and called for Marlon’s people.
But Carmen was right there.
Hadi had one arm around her and the gun raised toward me. If I ran, there was no telling what he would do to her before anyone arrived.
And honestly, guns did not scare me the same way anymore.
Not after Jackson Township.
Not after Callighan’s men.
Not after the Golden Nugget.
Not after fighting Hybrids.
"Let go of her, Hadi," I said again.
I started walking toward him.
"Don’t get closer!" he screamed.
The gun shook in his hand as he aimed it at my chest.
"I am gonna gun you down!"
"W...Wait!" Carmen shouted. "Please, don’t hurt him! I will do whatever you say!"
I looked at her.
Even now, she was trying to protect me.
Carmen was too kind for her own good. She had spent her time watering flowers in a ruined city, trying to make one small part of this place look alive again. She did not deserve to be dragged around by some unstable asshole with a gun.
That was why I could not step back.
"This will not end well for you," I told Hadi. "Drop the gun. Let her go. If you get on the ground now, Marlon might be kinder to you."
"Fuck you!"
Hadi’s finger tightened around the trigger.
I used Time Freeze.
The world stopped.
Hadi froze with his gun aimed at me, his mouth still open from shouting. Carmen remained trapped beside him, her face twisted with fear and pain. The spilled water beside the flowerbed had stopped midstream, caught in little droplets above the soil.
I moved.
I grabbed Hadi’s wrist first and forced the gun away from Carmen and me. His fingers were locked around the grip, but he could not resist while time was frozen. I pried his hand open, took the gun, and threw it across the path. It slid several feet away before stopping near the dead fountain.
Next, I pulled his arm away from Carmen.
His grip came free from her skin, leaving red marks around her upper arm. I shoved him away from her and threw him hard onto the ground.
Then I stepped between them.
Time resumed.
Hadi hit the pavement with a grunt.
"What—"
He pushed himself up immediately, looking around in confusion. His eyes went to his empty hand first, then to the gun lying near the fountain. After that, he saw Carmen standing free behind me.
Carmen stared at her arm.
Then she looked at me.
"Ryan...?"
Her voice came out small and confused. She had not seen what I did. From her point of view, Hadi had simply been holding her one second, and the next he was on the ground without his gun.
Hadi’s confusion disappeared fast.
His face twisted with rage.
He got to his feet and charged at me.
He was slow.
Even before Marlon started training me, I could have seen the punch coming. Hadi ran straight toward me with his arm already pulled back. No attempt to bait me. No effort to protect himself. He was just angry and swinging as hard as he could.
Marlon’s training had started changing the way I saw fights.
I noticed Hadi’s feet were too far apart. His weight was leaning forward. His other hand was low instead of protecting his face. His right knee bent too far when he stepped in.
I had never paid attention to things like that before.
Now I could see every opening.
Hadi threw his punch.
I moved to the side.
His fist cut through empty air beside my shoulder. I caught his arm before he could pull it back, twisted it behind him, and drove my leg into the side of his knee.
Hadi cried out as his leg buckled.
I used his momentum, pulled his arm forward, and threw him face-first onto the pavement.
The fight ended before he could even try a second punch.
Hadi lay on the ground groaning, one cheek pressed against the cracked stone while I kept hold of his arm behind his back.
Carmen stood a few steps away, rubbing the red marks on her arm.
The gun was still lying near the fountain.
I looked down at Hadi.
"Stay down," I said.