The Black Swan Behind (Beauty of Fire)

Chapter 20: Troy Roner

In silence, Emma listened intently as she treated Calvin’s wounds. She wanted to hear more.

“37.1 AM? Are you still that crazy?” Troy laughed as he shook his head in surprise. “So what’s the result? I hope, from your injuries and your broken motorcycle, at least you managed to break a few bones.”

Hearing Troy’s chatter, Calvin chuckled a little. From that smile, it seemed that he had no regrets, “The leader, Steven, came right away with about twenty of his men. I finished them all. Sadly.. You can see how my motorcycle condition is. It seemed that some of his men changed their target when they felt it was no longer possible to fight me.”

“Hahaha! That was great. I’ll give you a discount on the cost of repairing your wrecked bike.” Troy said.

“I would be very grateful.” Calvin answered.

“By the way, why are you still doing it? Aren’t you age conscious?” Troy opened the drinks fridge. Then took two bottles of cold beer from it. He turned to Emma, ??”Hey, girl. Are you drinking?”

Emma thought for a moment, “Is there any juice?”

.....

Troy sighed and then looked into the contents of the refrigerator again, “How about a soda?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Emma nodded politely.

Troy returned to his chair and handed the drinks to Emma and Calvin, “It’s free. But someday you have to return the favour.” he chuckled.

Emma smiled amusedly, then turned back to Calvin, “You haven’t answered Troy’s question.” she said by rolling a bandage around the arm which had an opened wound that was deep enough to keep it bleeding, “Are you sure your bones aren’t cracked?”

“Ohoho.. Looks like this girl is curious about your story, Calvin.” Troy laughed.

Emma then realized that she had accidentally said something she shouldn’t, “O.. of course, I’m curious. I’ve never in my life seen anyone beaten by twenty people.” She lied. The reality was, she had even seen her father’s members kill other gang’s members.

“That’s right, Calvin. At least tell Emma your heroic story.” Troy taunted by lightening his voice tone into a woman voice.

Emma was about to lightly smack Troy’s arm jokingly, but he quickly dodged it and laughed along. But it seemed that he didn’t really like the way Emma joked.

Calvin smiled, “To me, standing up for what’s right is not a childish demeanour. When the others get older and the circumstances are forcing them to think about their personal interests. Unlike them, I feel that I have to change the circumstances. Not the circumstances that change me.”

“I like your spirit.” Emma nodded with fiery eyes. “By the way, what exactly is going on in this city? And to... you?” Emma continued by looking deeply at Calvin.

“Actually this has nothing to do with you, Emma. You better not get too close to all this. In Handway City, there are several groups of a young guys. They are delinquents who like to abuse and take advantage by force to other young people. Indeed, those young guys seemed trivial. But this has become quite serious because even the police do not have any power to stop them.” Calvin explained.

“You mean.. Like at the Jen Marie street?”

“You know Jen Marie street? Didn’t you just move here?” Troy asked in surprise.

Emma nodded, “A few weeks ago, Larry and his friends took me there.”

“Larry? That bastard..!” Troy mumbled furiously, “Then, did something happen to you there? Were you all right?”

“Of course. Maybe worse than you think. Suddenly, the street was attacked by a group of gangsters. Unfortunately, Larry seemed had have gotten into some trouble with them. At the last moment, those cowardly guys ran away, leaving me with their girlfriends. Long story short, we managed to escape and I would never set my foot on that street anymore.” Emma told, as rewinding the incident with annoyed faces.

“You’re lucky you got out of there safely, Emma. Maybe I really would have killed Larry and Brian if anything happened to you.” Calvin said angrily.

Emma stared at Calvin stiffly, then cleared her throat to break the awkward atmosphere, “Then... why are you choosing to deal with them? You knew it was dangerous, but you still approached it.”

Calvin paused and brooded as he stared at his bandaged arms, “I just don’t like them and feel sorry for the victims.”

“Of course, Calvin,” Troy replied full of sarcasm.

Then Calvin looked at Troy with a straight face, “At least I’ve heard of someone who single-handedly destroyed a large group in high school. Unfortunately, he was disappeared somewhere.”

Emma followed the direction of Calvin’s gaze, that exactly at the figure of Troy who almost choked on the beer he was drinking.

“What? It was because they harassed my group. I’ve never defended anyone. I only defended myself.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“You have a group too?” Emma asked accusingly.

“Hey.. Wait a minute, girl. My group hasn’t committed any crime. We’ve only been judo enthusiasts since middle school. I don’t know why those crazy bastards actually thought of us as a threat.” He tried to straighten it out.

“Yes, but every time you passed by.. As if you guys were a bunch of bulldozers that would flatten the way. Even though without you have to bully them, those school losers would throw their pocket of money in front of your feet.”, Calvin laughed, remembering what was really happened when they were still in school. Although they went to different junior high schools and high schools, the fame of the group that Troy lead was heard until the other schools.

“So, is your group still feared until now?” Emma asked.

Troy shook his head, “After entering university life. We finally found a real Judo club that could take us seriously to a prestigious tournament. Since then, we’ve been completely focused on the sport of Judo and didn’t care about the outside at all. Slowly the name of my group disappeared by itself.”

“Gosh.. There’s a lot of stories in this city.” Emma muttered.

“About Roger..” Calvin added. He looked at Emma uncomfortably, “If you see him being bullied, please don’t get yourself into it. Just give me a call. You are a girl. It’s very dangerous to deal with those bastards. They are part of groups that like to hurt people.”

Emma nodded and smiled faintly, “I know. I never intended to get involved in those gangsters matters either.”

“Because there aren’t any women involved. This is all a men’s world. We’re fighting muscles here. No one is allowed to hit a woman.” Troy added surely.

“I’m glad to hear that women wouldn’t get involved in the mess men made. And I hope that never happened anyway.” Emma said in relief. At least, because she was a woman, she didn’t have to worry about getting involved in gangster issues, which she had avoided as far as possible from the first place, “Okay. It’s already too late. I have to go home.”

“I’ll take you there.” Calvin rose from his seat.

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