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People harped on Elena for wandering the streets of the slums after dark, horrified at the thought of a young girl Out At Night, but those people usually lived up top. They didn't get that below the plate, it was basically always night. There was no time of day when you wouldn't bump into a drunk shambling around the parking lot of the corner store, when the creepy dudes catcalling from their daily haunts went away, when the riff-raff wasn't out and about. Security on the plate basically made sure of that, by so efficiently sweeping said riff-raff out of the sunlight whenever they wandered upwards.
And sure, if you didn't know what you were doing, it was dangerous. People got mugged or just plain vanished all the time. But Elena could take care of herself. She knew the streets, knew the troublemakers, knew when to fucking bolt if she needed to. So whatever. It wasn't like she wasn't used to getting hit on by now. She was twelve, and by Sector Six standards, more than old enough to merit lewd comments when she went out. Already the fuck offs came naturally to her lips. She wasn't some fragile pansy, just moved in from the sticks, who didn't know how to deal with life in the city.
Besides, what all those pearl-clutching worriers didn't realize was that nighttime was a walk in the park compared to the daily 4 o' clock commute home from school in her fucking stupid academy uniform. Elena had learned to sprint to the train station in order to get on board early enough to position herself strategically in a car, so if it got crowded she wouldn't spend the entire twenty minute ride breaking hands grabbing at her skirt like it was a magnet for old man fingers. She always wore shorts under it, even though by now her reflexes were fast enough to drop anyone who tried to flip it up as she walked through the maze of streets. Nothing in the world—not the pastie-clad girls luring men into the love hotels, not the busty waitresses serving drinks at the bars, nothing— brought on the whistles and unsubtle sidle-ups and crass hand gestures like a young blonde in a school uniform. Men really were garbage.
Elena was beginning to wonder if packing different clothes in her bag to change into at the end of school counted as running away, one afternoon when the end of a cold winter had brought every creep in the slums out of hibernation and directly into her path. There were too many to dodge. Most were just content to whistle and be ignored, but of course, with sheer numbers, there was no way that would last. Eventually, one just had to get insistent.
He was probably over ten years older than her, reeked of cheap cigarettes, and looked like his nose had been broken about a hundred times. Gee, I wonder why, Elena thought as he began trailing after her.
“Yo, cutie!”
Elena ignored him.
“What's your name?”
He wasn’t going to take the hint.
“Hey, did you hear me? I asked what's your name?”
This one was a really annoying, no sense of personal space or how bad his breath was, idiot.
“What, you shy?”
“ Fuck off, loser.”
“Aw, come on, I'm nice! Where we going?”
Elena could feel rage bubbling up into her chest. She whirled on the guy.
“ To murder you in a dark alley, Pizza Face! Do you not know what 'fuck off' means? Because you look like the type who hears it a lot!” She turned back to storm off while he was reeling from the sudden tirade, and hopefully she'd just lose him in the crowd with a last shout of dumb bitch or its variants.
Big mistake.
Before she knew it, she was being yanked backwards by the hair, arms wheeling to keep balance.
“Don't you fuckin' talk to me like that! Do you even know who I am?”
“Let me go!” She tried to wrestle herself out of the man's grip but he hadn't stopped dragging her backwards down the street, keeping her stumbling and unable to get any kind of hit at him.
“I'm one of the Don's top men, you know! I'm fucking paid to teach girls like you some manners. Your daddy's long overdue for washing out that mouth of yours, you know?”
“Fucking get off me!” Elena winced as she felt hair tear from her scalp, but she managed to twist herself around and throw a punch into the crook of the creepy fucker's arm. He let go of her hair on instinct, but almost immediately made another grab for her shoulders. Elena backed away and looked around with her peripheral vision, but the street was almost entirely empty—any people had booked it at the first sign of conflict, not wanting to get involved.
She spat in the dude's face as he lunged again, and decked him in the nose, leaving him bleeding and growling—worth the ache in her own fist from nailing him bare-handed.
Then she heard laughter from behind her.
“Aaron? You getting your ass kicked by a school girl? Man, it's like a wet dream come true. Let us join in, bro!”
Three more men had wandered over from a liquor store up the street. One of them eyed her uniform up-and-down and clicked his tongue.
“Dude, you don't know that uniform? She's a feisty army girl. You gotta be more careful with those ones. Can't just wander up to 'em like any slut on the street corner. Gotta be prepared.” On the last sentence, he flicked a switch blade open in his left hand, and Elena found herself quickly back pedaling into the open street to avoid being cornered. But the streets this deep in the slums were narrow, and she was already pinched in on both sides. It didn't do much to help.
“You need a knife to fight a little girl?” she mocked, hoping to at least wipe the calm smirk of the lead attacker's face, perhaps goad him and his flanking cohorts into giving her an opening to bolt. But it didn't even faze him.
“Yeah, I do, especially when she's already broken my buddy's nose.”
It was run now or never—Elena unhooked her backpack from around her shoulders and flung it at his face, then turned to sprint away, but the man behind her had recovered enough to trip her as she went, sending her sprawling into the gravel.
“What, not even a pantie shot for us?” The one with the knife jeered. “I thought kids these days were all supposed to be wearing thongs and shit.”
Elena scrambled back up onto her feet as quick as she could, but she could feel panic starting to build up in earnest now, making it hard to think of what to do next, to remember anything she'd been taught. Especially since she was pretty sure none of her training yet had included street fighting multiple opponents twice her size unarmed. She was absolutely going to complain at her teachers if she didn’t get stabbed to death first.
Be loud! Some old self-defense-for-girls mantra echoed in her head, so she took a deep breath and shouted “ Leave me the fuck alone, douchebags!” at the top of her lungs, as if there were any actual cops around here who cared enough to come running. As if she wasn't already surrounded and completely fucked anyway. Elena sorely wished she was allowed to just shove her gun in her book bag and bring it home with her, that the train security allowed any kind of weapons, even though her bag was laying uselessly out of reach a few feet away. Her hand still ached from her earlier punch—was probably broken. There was gravel embedded in her knees from the fall. Hair missing from the back of her head. And they hadn't even started kicking her ass yet.
Elena charged forward, hoping one last time to successfully break through and run away. She shoved her way into the largest gap between men, stumbling but keeping her balance as one tried to trip her again. The other—the one with the knife—swiped at her from behind, but from a bad angle. She bit back a cry as his switchblade sliced into her shoulder, but she was free of the circle and she kept running. She didn't bother looking behind her to see if she was being followed, couldn't hear anything but the sound of her heavy breathing and feet pounding the dirt. Just charged forward like a wild animal, get home get home get home the only thought flashing frantically in her head.
When her feet were lifted up off the ground by a pair of arms yanking up under her armpits, she screamed. The slice wound in her shoulder burned as it was pulled at by all her flailing, kicking weight. The other men jogged forward to catch up to the one who had caught her. She sent her foot towards the face of the first who was dumb enough to step close, feeling her boot crunch against his nose, but the asshole holding her just laughed.
“Aw, throwing a temper tantrum? You gonna cry?”
“Not so badass now, huh?” The first man, Aaron, nose now black and swollen, grinned viciously and sauntered right up into her face. She thrashed, and spat at him, right in the eye.
“Goddammit! Brat! Ugh!” He wiped his face as the other men laughed. “It's fucking lesson time! Lesson number one—payback!” He lifted a hand, moving to slap her across the face, and Elena braced for the impact--
And then he went flying.
Out of nowhere, someone had come to Elena's rescue, laying into the three surrounding attackers like a hurricane. Aaron was flipping over onto his back with the wind knocked out of him, the second punched in the gut and elbowed in the back of the head when he doubled over, the third managed to throw a punch that was easily caught, his arm twisted until he was crying out on his knees. She held him there, and turned to face the man still holding Elena tightly in his grip.
Emma.
The last man standing wouldn't know she was Elena's sister, but he sure as hell recognized the suit she was wearing.
“T-turks!” He practically threw Elena down, and made a break for it, along with his friends, at slower speeds. Emma released the last and let him stumble away into the streets as well, until it was just the two of them, Elena peeling her face off the ground for the umpteenth time that day. Rubbing dirt from her chin. Feeling shame bubble up in the pit of her stomach along with all the aches and bruises. She sat on her knees in the street, staring down at her hands waiting for her sister to say something.
Emma was quiet though. She knelt down in front of Elena and brushed her bangs away from her swelling face to get a closer look at it, clicking her tongue once and shaking her head. “Come on. You aren't hurt too badly, at least. I know you can stand.” Emma raised herself up and patted the dirt off of her pants. When Elena didn’t follow suit, she reached out a hand.
Finally, Elena looked up at her sister, a frown glued to her face, and she stood on her own, ignoring the offer of help. It was bad enough she just had to get rescued. If Emma hadn’t shown up, Elena would have been completely screwed. She stomped over to wear she’d flung her bag earlier in the fight, and swung it back onto her shoulders before marching silently past where her sister was waiting.
“Hey,” Emma’s voice as she fell into step at Elena’s side was soft, but the streets were still empty. Turks tended to clear places out even faster than thugs. “Saw you kick that guy’s nose in. Good aim.”
Elena glanced sideways at her sister to see the small smile tugging at her lips. She looked away, but felt the corners of her own pulling upwards. “Well I wasn’t about to just sit back and get pummeled.”
“I should hope not,” Emma replied. For a while they walked the route home in silence. Most people quickly skirted around Emma, a few looked worriedly at the slightly beat-up schoolgirl being escorted by a Turk before looking the other way, and a few who knew them gave a friendly wave. One of Elena’s neighborhood friends had the guts to yell “Damn, Laney, what did you do?” Elena just sent back a middle finger and a stuck-out tongue while Emma rolled her eyes.
As they rounded their own street, Emma finally spoke up. “You know, I don’t have a lot of spare time--” Elena snorted at the understatement, “--but if you’re gonna insist on getting into trouble, I could probably scrounge up just enough to show you some things.”
They stopped on the doorstep to their home, facing each other.
“Yeah,”Elena said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Sure thing.”
Emma stepped back then and gave her a wave. “I’ve still got some work to finish up. Try to go through the front door without causing a ruckus, if you can.”
“Actually I was gonna wait for you to walk away and then go sneak around the house to climb in the bedroom window, so I don’t get yelled at, but thanks for the vote of confidence, it’s really making me feel better.”
“This is why you’re always grounded!” Emma called as she turned back down the street the way they’d come.
“Well you’re bad at pep talks!” Elena called back, grinning as she hopped on a trash can to reach the window. Once it was open, she flung her backpack through before hauling herself inside, still smiling as she darted into the bathroom for the first aid kit.
Next time, she thought, those stupid men wouldn’t know what hit them.
______
Elena ducked under the right hook with a smirk. “Too high!” she teased, catching Rude’s leg and hip with her left, grabbing his still outstretched arm near the shoulder, and using his momentum to swing him flat onto his back on the mat. His sunglasses landed with a clatter several feet away, leaving him blinking up her face, shining with sweat and pride. “Told you I could do it!”
Rude sat up slowly, rolled his shoulders and walked to grab his glasses. “Where’d a teenage girl learn to throw a man like that? Kids these days.” he muttered, a smile causing the corners of his mouth to twitch.
Hands on her hips and bouncing on the balls of her feet, Elena just laughed.
“What can I say? I had a good teacher!”