102. Attack on Koushik

Koushik came to the back of the restaurant and heaved a sigh of relief. He ruffled his hair and undid a few buttons of his shirt. Closing his eyes he relaxed in the cool breeze blowing across his face.

He looked at his watch and said, "There's still some time before the meeting starts. I'll take a walk. It was so stuffy in there."

A little away from the restaurant was a big field. Koushik decided to stroll around it and stretch his legs.

"Ooof. It's so good to be out in the open. I wish the gate was open. It would've been fun to walk on the grass." He stretched his admiring the green stretch before his eyes.

He was sauntering along the fence when suddenly a hand covered his mouth and eyes and started dragging him.

"MMMFPH! MMM! MNFF! NGGH" He clawed at the hand and kicked his feet.

"You fcker! Stop struggling, argh!" Someone's muffled voice came from behind him.

But Koushik kept trying to wriggle out of the attacker's grip. He was trying to open his mouth and bite the person's hand but a sudden hard blow on the back of his neck knocked him out.

When his consciousness returned, Koushik found himself seated against something with several people sitting a little away from him. Their faces were covered with masks and the dim light from the street light floating above his head was not helping him much in identifying their faces if he could. He groaned slightly from the throbbing pain in his neck but when he tried to massage the area he could not move his hand. Still a little dizzy he tried harder to move his hands but found out that they were tied behind his back.

"Hey, look, he's up." One of the masked people said.

"Huh, finally." Another one said.

"Yooo, little prince, how are you feeling hm? Does it hurt?" One of them held Koushik's chin and said.

Koushik violently shook his chin out of his grasp.

"Hmph! Feisty." One grunted.

"Who are you guys? What do you want?" Koushik said eyeing the people looming over him.

From what he saw and heard, the six people before him seemed to be all men.

One man said, "Oh, right you don't know why we brought here, do you? Well, let me explain it to you. You stole the most popular upcoming idol award from my Kush."

"Yeah, you used underhanded methods to snatch our baby's award!" Another man spoke up.

"Right. Else how come you, with such ugly looks completely with our sweet, gentle, cute and beautiful Kush?" Another one said.

"So, we're going to teach you a lesson for using such dirty tricks to steal our darling's award." One of them cracked his knuckles.

He lifted Koushik by his collar and slapped him.

"Move, let me get a chance too." Saying that he kicked Koushik's leg.

Meanwhile, Koushik managed to wriggle his hand out of the cloth strip that was not tied properly. While the men were gloating over his pathetic situation and how undeserving he was of the prize, he managed to free his hand completely. Taking the chance of their distraction he gathered himself on his feet the fastest he could and beat a hasty retreat.

He raced as fast as he could to wherever his legs took him. After running for what he felt like ages, a busy road met his eyes. He looked back at the men on his tail who were shouting profanities at him. Seeing them catching up to him he made a break for the other side of the road ignoring the honking of annoyed drivers.

Slipping around buildings and going through narrow alleys he tried to lose the bulky men but they were quite persistent in their chase. Suddenly his foot got caught on something and he tripped

"Heh, finally done with your I-run-while-you-chase-me game?"

"Now it's our turn to play a game." A man yanked Koushik's hair and pulled him up dragging him towards a secluded corner.

Olivia came out and headed towards the empty unused streets across the club. The last earthquake had quite an effect on that area and as a result, several important narrow streets that got badly broken were left unrepaired. Olivia crossed over the rubbles of broken infrastructure and followed the faint sound coming from behind a broken wall.

Upon going around it she saw a few masked men surrounding Koushik and one of them was about to land a heavy punch on his face.

"Please leave him."

The men heard a monotonous voice behind them. They all turned around at the same time, including Koushik. The area was not properly lit so they could not see much. All they saw was a tall human figure with a faint light from some distant street light acting as a halo around it.

One of them clicked his tongue and said "Whoever you are, get your sht out of here. We don't wanna involve more people unnecessarily. Don't try to play saviour. You don't wanna mess with us."

He turned towards Olivia purposefully deepening his voice and making himself look bulkier to scare her off.

With complete ignorance towards his words, Olivia repeated "Leave."

Her indifferent tone did not affect them. They felt her to be a mere nuisance.

One of them even shouted "Hey! Get lost. Can't you fcking hear? Scram before we beat the sht outta you!"

He raised a thick rod which he grabbed from somewhere. Koushik's eyes were still hazy from the fall and could not focus on the stranger's face but he felt the voice to be familiar.

"Excuse me, I don't know who you are but please go away. These people are dangerous. I'm grateful that you came to help bu.."

Koushik started but his sentence was cut off as a masked man pulled him by the neck and raised a solid fist in the air aiming towards his face.

"You're still talking you goddam* thief!"

Crack.

"Aaaaaahhhhhhh!" The man fell to the ground holding his hand.

His companions looked over stunned by what happened. They saw that the girl who was standing in front of them a second ago was now standing behind him. And the man's hand was badly twisted and seemed to be broken given how much he was screaming and rolling on the ground. When did she go there? Was the question that swirled in their head. Three of them were surrounding her. So how was it possible that she crossed all of them and reached that guy and even broke his hand in that mere moment? They did not even see her move! Did she teleport?