I had started to go back over to the counter and eat an other cookie when the bell over the door chimed again. Jo-Jo must have forgotten something.
But it wasn't Jo-Jo. Instead, a skinny blond kid whose height suggested he was about my age hurried into the restaurant and ducked down behind one of the booths. He stayed like that for a few seconds before slowly rising, peering over the table, and staring through the windows and out into the street.
"Can I, uh, help you?" I asked.
He whirled around at the sound of my voice, and that's
when I saw all the blood on him. His face looked like someone had taken a hammer to it. Every part of it from his chin to his cheeks to his forehead was bruised and puffy. Both of his lips were split open and dripping blood all over the floor that Sophia had just mopped. A pair of glasses clung to hisnose, although the frames were bent out of shape, probably by whoever's fist had plowed into his face so many times. But perhaps worst of all, several red, angry burns dotted his neck, as though someone had lit a whole pack of cigarettes and then stubbed them out one by one on his skin there. More cigarette burns marred his thin arms, but those looked older, since they had already scarred over.
Sophia had heard the bell too and stepped into the storefront. She saw the kid and frowned. "Sorry. Closed - "
The kid whipped his head in her direction. Sophia blinked, as surprised by his battered face as I had been.
"Please don't kick me out!" he said, scrambling to his feet.
"You gotta help me! They're after me!"
"Who?" she asked.
"Two giants," the kid said, his blue eyes wide and frightened behind his glasses. "All I did was pick their pockets while they were smoking in the alley. I swear. And only because
I needed some money for food. They only had, like, twenty bucks on them, but one of the giants chased and grabbed me anyway. He would have put my eyes out with his stupid cigarettes, if I hadn't kneed him in the balls and taken off.
He didn't care about the money. Not really. He just wanted to hurt me. You know? They both did. Please, please, just let me hide in here a few minutes."
Sophia stared at the kid, taking in his bruised face, the blood dribbling down his chin, and the old tattered clothes that covered his body. Her gaze lingered on the burns on his neck. Her lips flattened out into a hard, thin line, and a spark of anger burned in her black eyes.
"Okay," she rasped.
He blinked. "Okay?"
She nodded. "You're safe here."
She reached out and gently put a hand on the kid's scrawny shoulder. He was so thin that his collarbone jutted up against the top of his ratty T-shirt. The kid flinched at
Sophia's touch, and her mouth turned down, as though she were suddenly sad for some reason.
"Gin, get a cloth. Clean up."
I knew that it was for the kid, to wash the blood off his face, but I eyed the dwarf, wondering at the sudden change in her. I'd never seen Sophia go from being so gruff to so angry to so sad before, all in the matter of a minute.
But I went into the back, got a clean dish rag, and wet it with warm water. By the time I returned, Sophia had sat the kid down at one of the tables and had put the rest of the sugar cookies on a plate for him to eat, and he was gulping them down as fast as he could. Annoyance spurted through me, but he looked like he could use the calories more than I could, so I shrugged it off. Besides, I knew exactly what it felt like to be that hungry.
I handed Sophia the rag, and she managed to get the kid to stop eating cookies long enough for her to start wiping off his face. Once again, I stared at Sophia, amazed at how tender she was being and the care she took in dealing with him. She certainly wasn't that gentle with me whenever she picked me up and moved me out of her way. Then again, I didn't look like I'd just had my face run through the bottom of a blender either.
"More," she said a minute later, holding the dirty rag to me.
The kid used the lull to stuff another cookie into his mouth.
I rolled my eyes at her command, but I took the dirty rag, went into the back, exchanged it for a new, clean one, and soaked it with warm water. I had started to push through the double doors to step back out into the storefront when the bell over the front door chimed - and two giants burst into the restaurant.
"There he is!" one of the men screamed, stabbing his finger at the boy. "You dirty little thief!"
Sophia surged up onto her feet, stepping in front of the kid and trying to protect him, but the first giant was in a rage, and he rammed right into her, driving her all the way across the restaurant and back up against the counter.
I gasped, my hand strangling the warm rag that I was still holding.
The boy let out a frightened squeak. He got up to run, but the second giant snatched him by the back of his neck and drove a fist into his ribs. The boy dropped like a stone to the floor.
Sophia let out a bellow of rage at the sight. She snapped first one fist, then the other, up into the giant's chin, driving him back. And she didn't stop there. She threw punch after punch at the giant, driving her fists, fingers, and even her elbows into his chest, throat, and groin.
My mouth fell open a little more at her quick, brutal, efficient assault. I knew that Sophia was strong - she was a dwarf, after all - but I had no idea that she was such a total badass too. I wondered if this was a result of the training that Jo-Jo said that Fletcher had given her.
Sophia threw another punch at the giant, but this time, he managed to catch her hand in his. He squeezed her fingers, and I heard her bones pop from the brutal pressure. Sophia grunted with pain, and the giant slammed his fist into her face. She staggered back, her legs going out from under her and her head snapping against the counter. She too fell to the floor, unconscious.
The giant loomed over her, but when a minute passed and she didn't stir, he glanced over his shoulder at his buddy.
"What do we do now, Mason?" he asked.
The giant who'd hit the boy, Mason, grinned back at him.
"I say we see how much is in the cash register, grab everything we can from the back of the restaurant, and then dump their bodies outside on our way out the back door. What do you say, Zeke?"
The other giant returned his friend's evil grin with one of his own. "Sounds like a plan to me."
Mason grabbed the kid's leg and dragged him over to where Sophia lay, while Zeke went around the counter and started messing with the cash register.
I held my position behind the door and tried to think how I could stop them.
Because I was going to stop them.
Sure, Sophia might not be my favorite person, but she was Jo-Jo's sister, and Jo-Jo dearly loved her. Besides, I couldn't let the men kill her, much less a kid they'd already beaten and tortured, without trying to stop them. That would go against everything that Fletcher was teaching me about how to protect myself and especially the people that I cared about.