[Garrett's P.O.V]
I woke up the next morning, bright and early, even though I had barely any sleep. I'd gotten used to Elena by this point; the point where I was able to do everything she asked for. Of course, I still had my limits.
"Garrett ..."
I heard a faint voice come from my bedroom an hour after I woke up. Elena looked like she was asleep; she slowly sat up, yawning.
"I made some breakfast, help yourself. I uh, need to go get some stuff."
"Stuff? What stuff?" She asked, questioning me. She sounded pretty awake then.
"G-Groceries."
"On a Sunday? I saw your fridge, you've got enough stuff for us both."
"Yeah. Stay inside till I get back, okay?"
"O-Okay ..."
"Just be careful ..." I muttered as I ran out the door, immediately locking it behind me.
I felt bad at the time, since I lied to her. What the hell, I can manage until after the brawl. I was going to be involved in a brawl, an important one as well. It's something us brawlers planned. The Brawl of all Brawls. Lame name if you ask me, but I did not come up with it. Even after everything I had been through with Elena, brawling was still my drug.
"Hey, you ready?" Turk said, latching brass knuckles onto his fists.
"Of course. Wouldn't miss it for the world." I said with a wide grin.
"By the way, Garrett ... we're sorry we haven't hung out lately." Carson said, sounding a little upset for the first time.
"I-It's my fault too, don't worry about it." I tried denying what he said, since I had been neglecting my friends and brawls for Elena.
"That's in the past now. What matters is we come out on top in the brawl of all brawls!" I said excitedly, rolling up my sleeves and tightening my fists.
We soon reached Flanning Field, a gigantic public park untouched by the urbanization. It was the meeting place where every brawler would assemble.
"Shit is going down, huh?" Carson said, breathing out the smoke from his cigarette.
"Oh yes." Turk and I said together. Dylan remained silent, as he always did.
Soon, gangs from many schools gathered around, and waited for the rest of the other brawlers to come. Some junior brawlers from my school joined us, but we were going to do most of the work. That's all that mattered.
"Best for last punks. Prepared to be beaten."
It was Derrick, leading off his large group of brawler guinea pigs. He didn't look like he was going to leave this brawl defeated. Jared was with him too, but I was ready to beat the shit out of them both. What they did to Elena pissed me off, but I just hated them in general. I was going to have a lot of fun. Soon, all the brawlers had gathered. We all stood in our stances, ready for anyone to come at us. Derrick's group yelled out a crappy war cry, splitting up into three sections, taking down other schools' groups one by one. My school's group came charging in, and beat down a shit load of amateurs within minutes. Soon, it was just Derrick's group, my group, and two other schools standing. My group and Derrick's group already knew what we wanted: to face each other as the deciding battle. We both quickly beat down the last two schools, now being the only groups standing. My group was at a slight advantage, since we only lost one or two members. Derrick's group had lost over ten, since they had a lot more people, who were weak as well. What is this, an RPG? The final showdown began, with me taking on Derrick and Jared, while Turk, Carson, and Dylan, dealt with the lackeys. Turk and Carson and the other amateurs of my group were beaten, leaving Dylan and I, against Derrick and Jared, who were also the last ones standing from their group.
"This is it, douchewad." I said with a smirk on my face, wiping off some sweat.
"Of course asshole." Derrick said, spitting onto the ground.
Both Dylan and I charged towards Jared and Derrick, shouting with fighting spirit. We had a good fight with Jared and Derrick, but Jared managed to knock down Dylan after kicking him in the face repeatedly. It was just me now; wonderful. Luckily for me, Derrick was exhausted, which would make my job a little easier.
"Take this, you piece of shit!" I punched Derrick fiercely, knocking him out. The one-on-one I wished for was finally happening.
"I'm glad it's just you and me now. Guys, bring 'er out!" Jared signalled to a couple brawlers, who were holding someone. It was Elena.
"She's got nothing to do with this!"
"She does! You don't know what shit she's put my family through!" Jared said with an overly serious face, ready to punch me.
"If you lose, I get to beat you however I like till you're not breathing, and get your girl. If you win, you win this brawl and I won't disturb you again."
"You're that confident? I'd say you're logic is a little fucked up."
"You little ... !"
Before Jared could hit me, I kicked him right in the throat, and smashed his face to the ground. He reacted pretty quickly, hitting a rock against my head, beginning his retaliation. He began to overpower me; I felt like I couldn't do anything. Was I going to end it like that? I would lose the brawl, and Jared would do what he wanted to. I came to my senses when I saw Elena watching me, looking like she was crying.
"Stand up Garrett!" I could hear her say in a sobbing voice.
Jared was about to land his final punch, but I dodged it at the last second, punching him straight in the face. I wasn't going to lose to the likes of this guy. Not while she was watching. I had to win. Since my life has turned into a fucking movie, I'll take him down.
"Take this, you son of a bitch!" I landed my last punch right into his gut; Jared spat out a bit of blood and fell to his knees. "I ... lost?" His face went blank as he fell to the ground. I glared at the people holding Elena hostage, who immediately got scared and ran away. I swear, weak brawlers don't have any willpower if they have no leader. That didn't matter, since I was feeling dizzy and couldn't think straight. I fell to my knees as well, and saw a blurry version of Elena running towards me. She came closer, and held onto my tightly before I could lose balance.
"I won ... right?"
"Yeah ... you won." she said in a sweet, caring voice.
"Yay ..."
She hugged my tighter, sobbing onto my shoulder.
"You were great, Garrett..."
"Thanks ..." I felt really tired and exhausted, my eyes just shut down. I was so ... sleepy.
I woke up in the hospital, with one of the nurses staring at me and smiling. I couldn't quite hear what she was saying, but she was calling out to someone. Soon, I was fully awake, seeing Elena walk in with a smile on her face.
"Hey."
"Uh ... why am I here?"
"You're here cause you got hurt in the brawl, silly."
She sat down beside me, and had this pouting expression covering her whole face.
"What did I do?"
"You lied to me. You said you had to get groceries, if I can recall correctly." She mimicked my tone earlier, putting emphasis on the word 'groceries'.
"S-Sorry, jeez ..."
"It's okay. I'm just glad you're not hurt too badly." She said smiling again.
A couple other medics came in, but they looked like the same people who towed away Elena's parents. I signalled to Elena to sit on the other side of me when they walked in. One of them was tall and muscular, and the other had a sleek and curvy figure. It must've been Sheila.
"I'm sorry, the patient here is-"
The muscular guy and (presumably) Sheila shot the nurse, and stared at us with a scary glare. I instinctively jumped out of my medical chair and ducked behind the chair with Elena, dodging the bullets. I flipped the table towards the fake medics, jumping out the window with Elena, since we were on the ground floor. I took off the medical jacket I was wearing, and realized I didn't have a shirt because of my injuries. Luckily, they didn't take my pants off, cause I knew there were some bruises on my legs and feet. Anyways, Elena and I continued running, and kept on running till we could hide.
"What was that all about?!" Elena said, panting slightly after we finally found a hiding spot in the urban area.
"Sorry I'm telling you this so late ... but those were the same people who towed in your parents to the hospital."
"Are you telling me my parents are in danger again?!"
"Unfortunately. One of those people was-"
I stopped myself in mid-sentence, and looked down at my ankle, and saw Sheila's ankle weight thing was gone. It had fallen off just from jumping out the window, since I felt something slide off. I knew that shit was unreliable; I just needed to give it time.
"One of the fake medic people was Sheila. You know, the Sheila that's friends with you."
Elena gasped, her eyes widened in disbelief.
"No way ..."
"I have a feeling she's involved in this whole fiasco more than she should be ..."
"What do we do now?"
"I don't know. We don't have anywhere safe to stay, not in the city; I know a place, outside of here."