The Vigilante & The Dragon - Book 1 of the Guardians Saga [COMPLETED]

Gabe Forbids Alex Ch. 14.1

"Chick, chick, chick."

The hair rose on the back of Alex's neck at the voice full of malice. She was very, very glad she had powers. She turned around slowly in the darkened cobblestone alley, careful not to slip on the usual trash of beer cans and food wrappers. She leaned her large brown paper bag with caution against a wall dark with dirt and graffiti.

"Whatchoo' think, bringin' yo' middle class ass here?"

Her potential assailant was wearing the obligatory gangsta baggy pants and hooded sweatshirt, hood pulled over his head. It would have been intimidating except that Alex remembered an article where several grandmothers began wearing gangsta clothes to discredit the gang members on their block. Now Alex couldn't see the outfit without thinking of a sweet grey-hair in it.

"Middle class?" Alex protested, forgetting to look frightened so that the thug would rush her. "I'm wearing jeans and a T-shirt. What's middle class about that?"

The gang member stared, surprise on his slack features.

"It's because there's nothing obscene on my shirt, isn't it?" Alex stretched out her shirt and looked down at it. "Or is it because the shirt isn't see through?"

The thug swung at her. Alex stepped a fraction out of its range. She wanted the jerk frustrated. He swung again, but Alex miscalculated and he connected with her jaw.

"Now you sorry, white ass," he said.

"I'm not the type to get scared and run when I get hurt. I'm more of the 'bring it on until one of us is dead' type." Alex wiped off the blood from her lip.

Only Morgan can turn me into a frightened rabbit and every criminal I meet will pay in spades.

The gang member whipped out a knife and Alex smiled. Confusion further clouded his dull, yellowed, eyes. He swiped a good slash and Alex stumbled backwards. When the gangsta closed in for the kill, she kicked his knee. He screamed as it bent backwards. She followed up with a straight leg kick between his legs, her shin trying to split him in two. His scream went up several octaves.

"That was for calling me middle class." Alex again wiped the blood trickling from her lip. "And my grandma wears your clothes."

She poured white light into his belly until he passed out. Then she kicked his groin again and started stripping off his clothes.

Middle class, indeed. I'm blue collar working class all the way.

*****

Alex entered her carriage house apartment and dropped the huge brown paper bag of crawfish on the table. The brothers looked over from the couch.

"I brought your welcome home meal. Sorry I'm late. I ran into some trouble, or rather, I was trouble that someone else ran into," Alex said as she wiped the blood from her puffy lip. "Figured you couldn't boil crawfish while camping."

Alex had greeted the brothers warmly enough when they returned from camping, although she had dropped hints about coming with them next time.

"Don't keep us in suspense. Tell us what happened," Rile said.

"Are you all right?" Gabe approached her for a closer look.

"Sure, it was an average mugging."

"You stopped a mugging?" Cale looked over from the second hand TV.

"Stop?" Rile sounded unimpressed. "More like, how much did they get from you?"

Alex put her hands on her hips and turned to him. "Did you not see my haul of crawfish? No self respecting mugger would leave without that."