Kristen Cohen went for a walk around the neighborhood. She was getting fed up with the gaggle of women who were currently in her living room debating about the latest Newport party. Kristen was beyond caring about the decorations and the theme of the party. She was just wandering around the neighborhood when out of nowhere, she was tackled to the ground. Not expecting this attack, Kristen had no time to get her hands up to break her fall, so she landed quite hard on her front, her face scraping along the sidewalk. The person who had essentially trucked her seemed fairly large in size, but Kristen's face was firmly pressed into the pavement. He was yelling at her to keep quiet, and to not make any sudden moves because he had a knife.
Being so close to dark, Ryan Atwood thought it would be prudent to end his run and start heading home. This was probably the best decision he could have made. He heard a commotion just up ahead and there were two people on the ground. Ryan sped up to see what was going on. There was a wrenching sensation in his gut when he saw blonde hair on the ground. "Kristen?!" he shouted as he was only a few yards away. The guy on top of her looked up at the new person. Ryan came over and saw that this wasn't a Good Samaritan, but someone that needed some encouragement to leave.
Ryan pulled the guy off of his 'mother' and let his fist loose. There was punch after punch to the guys face before Kristen got her wits about her once more. "Ryan!" she cried out. Ryan looked up and saw her hurt. The guy was out of commission and out of his mind.
"How bad are you hurt?" Ryan asked, kneeling down next to her. He put his hands on her face gently, looking at all the scrapes and cuts that covered her face and chest, hands and forearms.
"Just scrapes I think, I don't feel like anything is broken." She replied. By a sheer stroke of luck, a police cruiser was passing by at that very moment. Ryan flagged him down.
"What seems to be the matter?" the officer asked as he approached the scene.
"I was out for a walk when I was attacked from behind," Kristen said. "He said he had a knife."
"I was out for a run and coming home, when I saw Kristen on the ground," Ryan said. "I pulled him off and hit him a few times."
"You hit him?" the officer asked.
"He was assaulting my mother, what do you expect me to do? I was going to do more, but she got me to stop."
"I'll be taking him in, but I still want official statements from you two," the officer said.
"I'm going to be taking her home," Ryan said firmly. He gave the officer the address and then watched at the guy was handcuffed and put into the back of the car. When the officer drove off Ryan picked Kristen up and carried her the few short blocks to the house.
"Ryan, you don't have to do this, I can walk," Kristen insisted.
"You don't know what really hurts, because you're still in shock. I've been in enough scrapes to know that you accept the help because then something might be wrong."
"Fine," she acquiesced. "But take me into the pool house, I have the Newpsies over."
"Call Sandy, he can get rid of them and have him meet us in the pool house with the first aid kit," Ryan said. He needed to get her cuts cleaned as soon as possible to prevent infection. Kristen did as Ryan said. Sandy sounded really worried on the phone, but he did what he was asked and was sitting on Ryan's bed when they got in there.
"What happened?" Sandy asked, as soon as the door opened. He saw his wife in Ryan's arms, blood on her face.
"I was attacked," Kristen said. Sandy's eyes went wide. Ryan walked over and set her down on the bed. He knelt down in front of her and got the first aid kit opened. "He came up behind me and knocked me to the ground. He told me not to scream or move because he had a knife." Ryan got out some clean gauze and the peroxide. He started to clean the wounds on Kristen's face. She had some 'road rash' that probably wouldn't scar, but would take a while to heal. He was very meticulous about his cleaning, most likely because he had to do this to himself and his friends growing up. "I thought he was going to really hurt me, but then I heard Ryan yell my name." Ryan moved to clean her chest area, careful not to get too far down, but he cleaned everything that he saw. "He pulled the guy off of me and made sure he wasn't going to get up."
"You got in a fight?" Sandy asked, looking over at Ryan. Ryan nodded and continued cleaning.
"No one hurts Kristen and gets away from it," Ryan said darkly, moving on to clean her hands.
"I'm proud of you son," Sandy said. "Did you guys let the authorities know?"
"As luck would have it, a cop drove right by. Ryan flagged him down and they arrested the guy. He is going to come by later to take our official statements."
"That was some luck," Sandy agreed. "Thank you for calling me. But are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?"
"I think I will be alright," Kristen said. "Ryan is really cleaning these good, as good as I would do."
"Thanks," Ryan said, moving on to her forearms.
"The Newpsies didn't ask too many questions when I told them you weren't feeling well and needed to get some rest. You are going to come in and rest for the night, and for the rest of the week. You are calling out of work, and there will be no more about it."
"Okay," Kristen said. She could feel the adrenaline wearing off and all of her scrapes were throbbing. Ryan must have seen the look on her face, because he went into the kit and got her out two ibuprofens.
"Take these before the pain gets really bad. This will help with the swelling and pain."
"Thank you," Kristen said gratefully. "You're hands a hurt."
Ryan looked down at his knuckled and indeed saw that they were bloody. "I didn't even realize."
"What you did today was very brave, and we are eternally thankful," Sandy said, patting Ryan on the shoulder before taking the cleaning supplies and working on the young man.
"I don't want anyone messing with my family," Ryan said with a note of finality in his voice.