“My shift ended thirty minutes ago,” Hall said, her impatience beginning to show. Clarke was going to press his point further, but his stomach growled again. Louder than before. “Enough arguing!” Hall insisted, standing between Clarke and the town. “You need some decent food, so march inside!”

“But I—”

“March!”

Clarke took one look at this woman. When most people discovered who he was, they either tried to kill him or ran away from him. But the good doctor before him was standing defiantly, giving him orders. She was… different. Quite a unique person, if a little infuriating.

Clarke turned back to the hospital without a word, walking inside with Dr. Hall right on his tail to make sure he didn’t try escaping.

XXXXXXXX

“I swear it’s true!” the frightened thug claimed to the gang’s leader. “I ain’t lying!”

Clarence, a young man just out of his teens, was lucky that Clarke had let him escape. He ran back to the abandoned auto shop that his gang was using as a hideout as fast as he could. A red Viper sat on a raised pedestal in the back of the large room as the only thing not scattered about, broken, or covered in grime. The car was a fitting trophy, both for the gang’s conquest for this stolen hideout, and for the gang’s name, the Vipers. Tools were left uselessly on the floor and plugged into the wall, even though they had no power. Graffiti covered the walls, one tag from each gang member upon initiation, leaving only a few spots around the room bare and gray.

Oil stains covered the floor and nothing save for the single car, was cared for. Gang members ran about, playing cards on rickety tables or shooting pool without all the billiard balls. A TV on the wall still had the baseball bat that had destroyed it sticking out of the screen.

Clarence cowered before the boss in his small office. What was once the main office for the small-time car garage was now the staging ground for the gang’s drug deals and money stockpile. The gang’s boss, a large, muscular man named Freddie G, sat in a rolling chair listening to Clarence’s pathetic tale of defeat.

Freddie G waited with limited patience as Clarence finished the story.

“…And then Maurice fell over dead! And then he crushed Big T into the dirt!” Clarence recanted excitedly. “It was like… WHAM!… and Big T was dead!”

Freddie G waited a moment as Clarence settled down before he bothered responding. He stood slowly, walked over to the skittish thug, then slugged him in the jaw, knocking him into the small bookshelf sitting against the wall. Clarence knocked his head against the shelf, spilling the three books and pile of ancient magazines onto the ground. He looked up to his boss in fear.

“Are you completely stupid?” Freddie G asked. “Ever hear of bulletproof vests? Big T didn’t shoot the damn hobo! The bum had armor on!”