N E W Y O R KWhatever Mother had planned, it involved the United Nations building. He didn't know the particulars, and he wasn't asking. But as people trickled in and out of the hotel suite overlooking Central Park, the child was able to overhear enough to get the gist of what the adults were talking about. A fact with prominently brought to light that he was far more aware of the people in the hotel room than they were of him.
This was New York. He was sharing space with his mother for the first time in weeks, if not months. So the boy was eager to try and spend some time with her. Perhaps merit just a little of her attention.
"Mother, can we...""Your studies, Damian." She'd dismissed him without so much as a glance. "
Now."
The boy's elated mood quickly evaporated into apathy.
"...yes, Mother," the child uttered softly, backing away from the sitting room that had been re-purposed into a war room.
The lady in the
niqab, one of his mother's usual bodyguards, gave the boy some math assignments to occupy himself with. Fractions. Algebra. Nothing too spectacular, though he was rather proud after he'd completed a particularly misleading quadratic equation. Homework in hand, the child came up from the table in the room where he was working with his paper in hand as he hurried over toward his mother as she walked through the condo-sized suite.
"Mother, I finished...""Not now, Damian."
Reaching out with one hand, Talia pulled the door shut to Damian's temporary room. Closing him in, alone. The paper with his homework on it dropped to the floor, trampled underfoot as the boy turned and pounced atop the bed. Popping the headphones into his ears, the boy turned up the music and allowed his mind to fade away as he picked up a copy of Dickens'
Tale of Two Cities that had been left for him.
Why was it that he was loneliest when around his family?
He stayed like that, curled up atop the pillows with a book, until he'd lost all concept of time. He left the sanctuary of the bedroom only to get a drink. Pulling open the door, the boy stepped out into the hall to cross toward the European style kitchenette when he nearly collided with Talia.
"Damn it, Damian!"
The child just blinked. He was just stepping out of his room for a drink!
"What'd I do no..." the boy began, finding himself seized by the shoulder before being spun around.
He was summarily ejected out into the hotel hallway as the door to the suite was shut behind him. Apparently it was Parent's Night In. The mixture of emotions didn't sit well, as the boy glanced back at the door.
"-tt-" he uttered finally, before flipping the hoodie up over his head and making his way toward the elevators with his hands stuffed into his pockets.
He'd been in many cities across the world, from Canberra to London, Berlin to Hong Kong, but New York seemed a metropolis on a whole different level. Even still, the park was nice. And a short walk from the hotel. He could see it from the windows of his room, so it made sense to get a look from the ground up. He wasn't sure if he was pouting or fuming, but he was a mixed up ball of angry emotion trying to clear his head as he walked through the paths of Central Park.
With the Justin Bieber turned up in his ears, the
scream had to be pretty loud for him to have heard it.
He hadn't seen what had caused it, but as the child turned his head to a group of thuggish young men surrounding an older lady, it was easy to guess that the purse strap caught in a tug-of-war between the woman and one of the thugs was the cause of the incident. What he
did see was the large, meaty fist slam into the woman's face to get her to let go.
She went down to the ground, and now it was a game to the trio. Surrounding her. Legs rearing back as the other two wanted to get in on the action. Stomp the lady to the ground, prove how strong they were. The boy grit his teeth.
"-tt-"crrrrrrrr-ACK!
The child's foot connected with the side of Punchy McGee's head. The sound, the shock, and the look of sheer disbelief stopping the other two in their tracks as Punchy went careening in ballerina twirls to the cement and the child neatly flipped through the air. He made the landing so that he was between the woman and her fanclub.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum actually took a step back away from the nine year old, their minds still in the process of trying to catch up from then to now.
And Damian? He could give a
damn about their petty crime or the woman huddled on the ground. He just wanted to open a can up on some
sonuvabitch and these bastards had just become the blue light special. Hooking the purse strap with the back of his foot, the child kicked the purse up into the air behind him -- propelling it over to the lady, who fumbled to catch it. With one hand, the boy sneered as he glared back at the woman and gestured for her to beat it.
Punchy McKee was nursing a bad look, pulling a Saturday Night Special as Tweedledee pulled a switchblade. Grinning wickedly, the boy dropped down into a stance that might be recognizable as being derived from
Muay Thai.
Three eighteen-to-twenty
nothings versus one nine year old.
Maybe three more and it might be a fair fight.
Half Pint,
Eviledd1984,
Guardian Angel Haruki,
Supermaxx,
GreenGrenade,
Simple Unicycle,
Lexisheeps,
LG,
Izurich
