What happens at dusk

Full damsel in distress mode

Two hours later, James had no idea how, Hayley had gotten Mike out of prison. It was something about his handicap and a shortage of evidence. The girl had held her place against the small town police officers, like a lioness defending her pups.
Damn, that girl should become a lawyer.
She kind of reminded him of Katherine form 'Taming if the shrew'.

The three were barely out of jail yet James already wanted to go back to the weird White House. Even though it was the reason they had to go to prison in the first place.
His inner Sherlock Holmes simply wanted to uncover the mystery. As his favourite quote from the detective went:"When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains must be the truth"
That is what they had to do. How impossible did Russian bird smuggler sound yet they just had to discover what was real and then they would have the truth.
Maybe he had been waiting for this kind of danger all the time. Back in England everything was education in boarding school and when he transferred and met Bert, it remained the same. Boring yet it was life. The only place where there was some kind of thrill to be found was in his karate dojo.
The thrill and the excitement had unleashed a spark in him. All that spark could do was expand and cause a giant fire.
And even though he had already burned himself, still he kept the fire burning.
His excitement only adding fuel.
Yet within his newfound freedom, the question remained: Who had spold them out?

Mike was anxious. James could feel his stress and anger from across the room.
"What is it?" He asked.
Nothing, was his disappointing answer yet he knew it was a lie and his friend was hiding something.
What was he up to?

The next day at school James still couldn't figure out what it was.
He just sensed there was something.
Why wouldn't his friend open up to him.
It made him feel uncertain and anxious as well.
That was why he stayed close to Bert the whole day.
Yet when he saw Mike disappeare after class, he followed.
Unfortunately considering he had the luck of the devil he got lost. After all the school was very new to him. Certainly the west wing which was closed off do to danger of collapsing.
The jocks hung around there often.
Wait. Was Mike going after someone?

After ten minutes of wandering around like a lost foil, he took his best option and called Hayley.
"I can't believe you got lost again! I'll be right there. Don't move. Wait for me. I want to know what Mike is up to as well," Hayley told him after he explained his rather complicated situation.

The duo crossed the hallway in search of their friend and arrived just in time to see him throwing the first punch at Zack.
Hayley flung forward, went full damsel in distress mode and begged them to stop fighting over her.
James knew that Mike was fighting Zack because of that but he also knew he'd never admit to that and would probably use the excuse of Zack being the one most likely to have sold them out.
He then realised that Hayley had made a mistake by interfering in the duos fight. It was the same as interrupting a deer fight.
You should never do it.
He was to late to prevent Hayley from getting a punch in her face.
She fell backwards on the ground yet the boys were too much into their display of power to notice the 'thing' they were actually fighting for had become caught in the crossfire.
James tried to help Hayley up but she shoved him away. Enraged by the boys behaviour she ram away whispering feminist quotes under her breath, leaving James alone with the two fighting bulldogs.

Normally he was always up for a good fight but that was in the dojo.
He actually hated street fights.
They resembled anger issues and incompetence to solve problems in a humain way.
This was just to dudes raming into each other but for the sake of his friend he interfered.
Mike was already bleeding badly.
His nose looked broken and his face resembled a very damaged tomato.
"This is going to get my suit dirty, isn't it," he said as he sighted and threw a jodan morote tsuke in the guys face, followed by a hisa gamen geri in the stomach.
The adrenaline made him energetic yet sloppy so he couldn't dodge the punch in the ribs.
Damn, that hurt.
The anger only added fuel to the fire and he tested out some combination.
The raw meat on his opponents face made James cringe yet he knew his knuckles resembled the bloody mess.
"Oh dear!" He exclaimed as he saw the dirty fists of his opponent were making his white shirt red.
"Holy crikey, I'm never going to get that out of my clothes!" He sweared.
"What?" Zack asked.
"It's a British swear word, you bugger."
"Oh."
And they continued their fight.
Mike had passed out on the floor but that was ok considering the fact that James had everything under control.
Or that's what he thought. The fight had caught someone else's attention.
And the guy was coming up fast behind him.
James noticed Zack eyes kept trailing up to a place behind his. This was anything but logical in a fight. Normally a person would make the mistake of looking into your eyes instead of the chest but never something else.
Wondering were Zacks eyes wandered to he turned around and was faced with the last person he'd expect here.
Thom.
Oh dear.
He was to late to react to the metal pole flying towards his head and with one quick hit he was struck down.
Thom stood over his as he said the words James never expected to hear.
"I was the one selling you out. So I could rescue Brooke but Hayley ruined it and she is going to have to pay for that. But first I need to get you out of the way 'cause I can't have you spoiling it." Right when he said those last words the pole was going down one final time and with a loud bang the world went black.