Free Oakaigus #1: Red Bloom by Nathan Sanders Page B

STOP!”
     
    Lilah
noticed people who glanced in the alley but kept walking by. Her fist shook as
blood rushed to her face. “I HATE these people.”
     
    Lilah
pulled her safety belt off and jumped off her cart to look in the back cart.
She grabbed a toolbox and pulled out a short, sharp blade.
     
    Lilah
dashed into the alley with the blade behind her back.
     
    While
the man tried to tug the woman’s pants off, he stopped the moment he heard
footsteps.
     
    Lilah
shouted at the top of her lungs, swinging the blade from behind her back. In an
instant, Lilah’s blade sliced through all the meat in the man’s wrist.
     
    The
man hollered as his forearm burned with a bloody sting. He pulled the bottom of
his shirt over his bleeding arm and fell down. He squirmed in the dirt with
drool leaking from his mouth, tensing every part of his body to fight the
shock.
     
    Lilah
swiped her blade through the air and splattered blood in the man’s eyes. Lilah then
snorted up a ball of saliva in her mouth and spit in the man’s face.
     
    Lilah
reached out her hand to the woman. “You okay,” she asked.
     
    The
woman nodded a “yes” with tears in her eyes as she fixed her clothes back on.
The woman stumbled to take her first step, but caught her balance and ran away.
     
    “Wait,”
Lilah shouted.
     
    “THANK
YOU,” the woman replied as she kept running.
     
    Jogen
watched as the woman ran away into the street. “Hope she’s alright,” he said.
     
    Lilah
left the man wallowing in the alley and hopped back on her cart.
     
    “Damn,”
she said, “I was trying to see if we could help her. Guess we better get
going.”
     
    Jogen
and Lilah resumed pedaling.
     
    As
the minutes passed by, Jogen and Lilah rode through the town quietly, focusing
on the road.
     
    “Hey,
Li,” Jogen said, “what made you do that back there?”
     
    Lilah
let out a slow, deep sigh, “It’s just…I feel like nobody cares about girls
around here.”
     
    “Hm?”
     
    “When
something like that happens here, people act like they don’t see it. You saw ‘em! People walked right past her and didn’t even think to help!
And what makes it worse, when people DO pay attention, they act like it’s the girl’s fault.”
     
    “Why?!”
     
    “I
really don’t get it. I just can’t wait ‘til I’m bigger so I can change all
this.”
     
    “How?”
     
    “Not
really sure. I just know that I wanna’ fight for girls to be treated right.”
     
    “Sounds
good.”
     
    “What
about you, Jo?”
     
    “H-Huh?”
     
    “You
thought about what you wanna’ do when you get bigger?”
     
    Jogen
felt his heartbeat punch against his chest. “O-oh, I, uh…I’m gonna’ be an ‘ architect .’ Yeah …”
     
    “…You
don’t sound too sure…”
     
    Jogen
exhaled as he relaxed his body. “You’re right,” he said, “truth is, I really
don’t know. Just thinking about it kinda’ scares me…I just need more time,
that’s all.”
     
    “Okay.”

 
    CHAPTER 3
     
     
    After
a long, quiet ride through the countryside, Jogen and Lilah arrived at Badigeon
Fields. The Fields were filled with stubby, old trees and tall, thick grass.
     
    Jogen
and Lilah slowed their pace to scan the whole area.
     
    “...Wait,”
Lilah said, “I see ‘em!”
     
    Across
the field, they gazed at the bushes with spiky leaves around pink & yellow
berries.
     
    Jogen
and Lilah hopped off their carts and dug through their toolboxes. They each
pulled out a thick saw.
     
    When
they walked over to the bushes, they went straight to chopping the thick roots
of two bushes.
     
    “Why
are these leaves so damn sharp,” Lilah said with a grunt.
     
    As
they continued chopping, Lilah paused for a minute to rise to her feet. When
she rose up, the skin of her ankle scraped against the hard, sharp tip of a
leaf.
     
    “Ow,”
she yelled.
     
    She
looked down at the small line of blood slowly leaking from her wound. “Well,”
she said, “it doesn’t look