CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - STRANGE SAVIOUR
Hard, cold fingers dug into B’s wrists as he was dragged into the alley way. He tried to pull away, but the fingers clung on so tightly that he could feel the bruises being moulded into his skin. He stared back at Brian, his eyes wide in fear and concern as he saw that Brian was unmoving on the street after the hit from the stun gun. He wildly stared about them, the luxury of having an empty street having now been replaced for the desire for a crowd. Someone had to see what was happening!
He tried to scream, but a hand was clapped firmly over his mouth and he felt the gun pressed against his chest as he was dragged forward. He crazily kicked out with his legs and flung his arms about but nothing seemed to be able to dislodge him from his captor. He managed fleeting kick to the shin of the Gerai, but he was too weakened by his cold to do much damage.
The older man grunted and then he viciously kicked B in the groin, making the boy give a muffled scream of pain before he went limp. The Gerai released his mouth briefly and used both arms to drag him tot eh alley before he pinned him up against a wall, pressing close to him so that he could not escape.
“Skippity, skippity skip,” the man hissed darkly. “You just couldn’t resist coming through time could you, little one?” He used a grubby hand to gently push B’s light fringe away from his damp forehead, smiling at the fearful glow he saw in the boy’s eyes.
“Let me go!” B cried. “Help!” He attempted to break away, but his fists were kept in iron clamps as the Gerai pinned them back against the brick wall.
He turned his head towards the entrance to the alley. What about Brian? Was he all right? B had no idea what damage the stun gun had done to him. His eyes desperately prayed to see him running round the corner to save him, but there were several allies in the street…
“Help!” he screamed.
The Gerai clapped a hand over his mouth and sniggered slightly, his remaining muscular arm clasping B’s above his head to prevent him from fighting back. “Did you really think we would let you get away so easily?” His dark, malicious eyes matched with his greasy black hair and as he leant closer B caught the stench of his breath. He pushed his head away as the hand returned to his forehead. “You have no idea how pleased my superiors will be know that we have you at last. I will be promoted because of you. Hard to believe that something so young and stupid could be so important and destructive…” he crooned. He rolled up his sleeve and revealed a time bracelet around his wrist. Unlike B’s back at Brian’s house, this one was alight and working. He smiled at B. “Time to go I believe little one.”
B shook his head, tears blurring his eyes as struggled in the arms and pressed his arms forward, trying to break away from the Gerai’s hands. He elbowed him in the stomach and the man creased as he groaned in pain, but his hands remained about B’s wrists. B tried to pull away, but a sharp yank brought him straight back to the Gerai. He cried out as the hand was removed form his mouth and again madly tried to escape, swinging both of them away from the wall, trying not to scream as the Gerai’s hands dug mercilessly into his small wrists.
“Little brat!” the Gerai said hatefully. He lashed out and smacked B hard about the face, the impact sending him stumbling backwards against the wall again.
He cried out as he hit the ground, blood dribbling from his lips as a tooth clamped firmly down upon them. He placed a hand against the tender, bruised skin and winced slightly. The tears began to overflow again as he found everything spiralling out of his control. He had never meant for this to happen, never meant for Brian to get hurt…
He raised his head and saw the Gerai keying in the sequences onto his bracelet that would drag them both back to the future. Back to the time B was terrified of returning to.
“No!” B wailed. He searched about him briefly and then grabbed the only thing he could see and threw it hard at the Gerai’s head. The older man screamed as the stone collided with his skull, opening up a thick sticky wound and leaking blood down his stubble filled face.
B jumped to his feet and then made a run for the end of the alley, screaming as loud as he could. The Gerai couldn’t just kidnap him on a street! Somebody would stop him! People wouldn’t standby and watch as someone was taken against their will. “Dad!” he cried, begging to draw Brian’s attention in case he was looking for him. “Dad!”
“Fucking shit!” the man screamed.
B did not hear the blast or see anything, but he felt the burning pain that hit his back. He cried as he fell, but it was little more than a weak moan as his mouth clamped up under the intense pain of the stun gun. He tried to open his lips and scream to attract attention, attention the Gerai would not want, but everything hurt and his throat seemed to refuse to form any words. He felt his head filling with pain as his already frail body tried to cope with the assault that was being thrown at it but everything was beginning to swirl into a dark mess of blackness and oblivion.
He looked up through a hazy vision and saw the Gerai leaning over him, a hand stretched down towards him. “You are coming with me!”
* * * * * * * * *
Brian dashed along the street, ignoring Angie’s cries from behind him. There was still no sign of B or the Gerai along the street so they must have dodged into an alley. There were several along this quieter part of the road. He gasped as he ran into a blond haired woman.. “Have you seen a light haired teenager and a dark haired man in black?” he gabbled anxiously.
She frowned at him and shook her head before ducking away, unnerved by Brian’s desperate words. He stopped and stared about him hopelessly. They had to be in an alley! Either that or they had already jumped… but Brian did not want to think about what that would mean for him.
He brushed a hand against his face, unsure of how much time had passed between him collapsing and the Gerai’s head start. It hadn’t felt like long but he wouldn’t have been surprised to find that he had blacked out briefly under the blast.
Brian peered down the first alley, but there was no one there. His heart sped up and the drops of sweat raced down his face.
“God,” he whispered. “Please don’t let them have jumped times, please no.”
He would never catch them if that happened and he would be powerless until Sammy turned up, but Brian wasn’t sure if he would come. There was something horrible about the situation and he felt a sickening feeling inside every time he thought about his older son. Where was he?
Suddenly the frightened scream reached his ears. He froze and listened.
“Dad! Dad!”
His eyes darted between two alleys and then he dashed for the nearest one, his legs pounding the ground hard as he fought to reach him in time.
“B!” he yelled as he saw the boy lying on the floor in the alley, the Gerai looming above him and ready to seize him.
B turned his head but then the Gerai grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet. B cried out slightly and then he began coughing as he trembled. He was still sick and this wasn’t going to help him in the slightest.
The Gerai slapped him about the face and Brian heard his whispered threat. “You better not be contagious, I swear.”
Brian’s heart burned with anger as it beat harder inside of him. How dare that man hit his son? Poor B was trembling and pale faced, dark rings betraying his tears. Brian’s stomach was churning with sickness that roiled inside of him in queasy waves of sloshing, cold water. He felt it seeping through his veins but he dare not move in case the Gerai hit B again.
B began to cough madly, creasing over with the effort and then suddenly he brought his elbow crushing in between the Gerai’s legs.
The man let out a yelp and automatically released B to clasp the organ to him protectively. B pushed him away and Brian opened his arms as the boy ran to him.
“Dad,” B whispered, trembling and coughing in his arms.
“It’s all right,” Brian assured him.
He glanced back up but there was no time to run as the Gerai had already partly recovered and had his gun aimed at them. He pushed a dial at the back and a panel at the front began to glow red with power. “You’re not going anywhere!” the Gerai screamed.
“This is a public street!” Brian snapped. “You can’t shoot us! Anybody could come along and see this and then what would you do?”
The Gerai smirked slightly. “I wouldn’t have to explain everything because I would have left this time already. You on the other hand might have some explaining to do. How you gonna get yourself out of that one, Backstreet Boy? What was a Backstreet Boy doing with a boy in an alleyway? I bet the media around here would have a real great day with that one!”
Brian’s eyes narrowed at the crude comments. Dirty men like this had no idea of the type of love that existed within a family. It was so much more powerful than anything Brian had ever experienced and he knew that he would do whatever it took to defend his family. “Leave us alone!” Brian said. “You are not taking him!”
“You can’t stop me,” the Gerai replied threateningly, stroking the handle of his gun.
The older man held his gun out, pointing it squarely at Brian’s chest. Brian felt B clutch him closer and he did the same, preparing to leap the second he thought he had fired to dodge the invisible blast.
He watched as the man’s finger squeezed the trigger, a smirk forming upon his stubble lined lips as he saw B cowering by his father. Brian held B tightly, his eyes still glued to the gun. He saw the finger tighten again and then he leapt to the right, dragging B with him to try and avoid being hit by the energy that the gun fired.
Nothing him them and Brian knew he had jumped at exactly the right time to miss the blast but he heard B cry out as they both thudded heavily to the concrete ground below.
“You can’t keep dodging it!” the Gerai laughed. “I’ll get you eventually and then you’ll be powerless to do nothing but watch as I drag your son from your arms!”
“You’re not taking him!” Brian screamed hatefully, clasping B as tightly as he could, refusing to believe that anybody could take him away. Last time he had let B go without a fight as he released that there was no other choice, but right now he was determined that it not happen again.
Brian gasped as he suddenly felt the world spin about him and a strange feeling began to burn inside of his chest, a feeling of disgust and hatred… At the same time his head throbbed with intense pain and for a second he swore that his view changed so that he was looking at everything from a different angle but quickly he returned to the ground again.
Suddenly there was a blue flash of light and Brian instinctively screwed his eyes shut as he held B to him, expecting to feel an overwhelming sense of agonising pain that would paralyse him, but there was nothing. Brian’s eyes opened and he gasped as he saw that the Gerai had fallen, his body now limp and unconscious upon the ground.
Brian raised his head to the roofs high above them and his eyes fixed upon the black-cloaked figure above, a gun clasped in his hands. He had saved them but still Brian could not shake the dislike. He was certain that his pain a moment ago had originated from this man.
B followed his gaze. “Who’s that?” he whispered faintly.
Brian could feel his eyes locking with the stranger’s, even though he couldn’t see them from this far below their perch. Somehow though he could feel those bright eyes burning into him and almost reading his soul… why did it feel like this person knew him better than anybody else?
“I don’t know,” he replied, although his brain was screaming something at him. He knew this person… he just wasn’t sure how…
B suddenly gasped in pain and his eyes screwed shut as he clutched his stomach. “Uh…” he moaned as Brian felt his body tense in pain.
“B, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“Ow… I don’t feel very well. I don’t think that stun gun did a lot for me… My head hurts…”
Brian wondered if B was feeling what he had just felt, but a look at the boy’s pale face struck terror to his heart and he immediately sensed that this was something different. B did not seem to gain any strange feelings or emotions from the black-cloaked man like Brian did.
Brian glanced back up at the building, but their saviour was gone. He glanced across at the unconscious Gerai and saw the man stir slightly. He would wake soon.
“B, let’s go. We have to leave now and get you home.”
B nodded, his face still constricted with agony. He wrapped his arms about his stomach as Brian dragged him to his feet, his entire body limp and useless.
B began to cough violently and then he sneezed. He stared up at Brian with frightened green eyes. “We never should have come out. I’m still ill…”
Brian embraced him tightly and then took another look at the roofs above them, but still no sign of the one who had saved them. Brian turned away from the roofs and slowly led B out of the alley, helping him to limp down the street.
* * * * * *
As the wind howled and sped up with a ferocious force, he watched Brian leave with B. He stared down at the Gerai and wondered if he could down there in time before he awakened and went after them again. He bit his lip nervously as he peered back over the roof to watch Brian lead B out of his sight.
This incident was too dangerous to ignore. He would have to come and claim B. It was time they went home.