Chapter 4:One Last Chance
Tyler and Jewel crept into the shop, keeping their gazes trained on the back of Nico and Pedro's heads. The pungent odors of motor oil, sweat, and exhaust gases were present in near-asphyxiating levels.
They tucked their shirts over their noses in an attempt to breath, which gave them some relief. Their eyes, however, were left unprotected and grew blurred from the secreted tears.
From somewhere up ahead, Rafael called out firmly, "Hey, Luiz! We got a big job for you. Where you hidin' at, amigo?"
All five humans strained to hear a reply, but none came.
Then, all of a sudden, a respectable brightness flooded the room, assaulting their vision once again with a blast of light.
Once they adjusted to the new-found illumination, the entire expanse of the room was revealed to them.
Tools lay strewn about the walls, coupled with a myriad of vehicle parts piled on the floor, no matter where they looked.
A pair of fresh-looking muscle cars sat to the left of the entrance, their hoods raised like two mechanical mouths. The car on the left was missing its engine, which dangled from a net of chains attached to an overhead mini-crane.
A rough, mature voice from the back of the room said eerily, "Looks like I have some guests! I better see what's up..."
The rusty creak of a door rebounded from the walls, preceding the appearance of a tall, imposing figure that melted out from under a beam of light. His features were incredibly similar to Tyler's, save for the crooked leg, sapphire hair, and lighter-hued skin of the latter.
The individual standing before them wore no shirt, exposing his buff, grease-stained, and glistening chest. The faded denim jeans he wore were also marred by black stains, along with a few ragged tears here and there.
"Long time, no see, Luiz!" exclaimed Rafael as he jogged forward and slapped the man on the shoulder.
"Rafi! Where you been? You look good, amigo."
"Just livin', Luiz."
"Really? Whatever you say. So, why you come here? Your SUV actin' up again?"
"No, no, no. You see, it's really complicated and crazy. Almost too crazy to believe."
"Jus' give me the basics."
"Alright, amigo. You already know Jewel, so don't focus on her. You see that boy standing next to her?" said Rafael as he pointed towards Tyler.
"Yeah, what about him? He looks American."
"Alright, this is what went down. Two days ago..."
As briefly as he could without cutting out vital details, Rafael recited Tyler and Jewel's tale, beginning with the trip Tyler and his mom took to Rio de Janeiro and ending with the ruined trolley ride.
All Luiz could say once he was finished was: "That's just crazy!"
Luiz took several moments to collect his composure, drawing in a series of breaths to still his nerves.
He sauntered over to the teenagers and grabbed the chains in his left hand, examining them carefully.
"So, you need me to cut these handcuffs off, so that you can go your separate ways?"
"Right," they replied in unison.
"You don't need no mo' help?"
"No," they responded once again.
"Well, that bums me out, yo. I thought yous needed my help fo' real."
He let the linking chains fall out of his hand before sighing depressingly.
Rafael walked up to him and said confidently, "But they do need your help. Come on, amigo."
After a slight pause, he hardened his expression and declared, "You know what, I'll do it."
"There you go, man!" said Rafael.
"Thanks so much, Luiz!" exclaimed Jewel.
"Hey, no problem," he answered with a smirk, "Come on, we'll get to work on the right side of my shop."
As Rafael and Luiz marched off, Pedro and Nico came up beside Tyler and declared, "Hot thang and big-muscle guy about to split. Too bad they ain't kissed yet!"
Jewel punched Pedro in his chest playfully and retorted, "You'd love to see that happen, wouldn't you?"
"Hey," he said while shrugging, "you still got time."
Jewel rolled her eyes, causing Pedro to chuckle and Nico to smile.
The crazy duo trailed after Rafael and the mechanic, rounding a wall that projected from the right side of the entrance and stopped halfway across the room.
"Well, I guess the journey's over."
"The end of the line, Jewel."
"Yep. Bet you never had an adventure like this in Tiny-Sota."
He drew back in confusion, frowning before realizing Jewel's error.
"You mean Minnesota?"
"Oh, right, Minnesota." she replied curtly.
"Heh, Tiny-Sota, that's a good one. I'll remember that for many years to come."
"We better not keep them waiting, Tyler. I can nearly taste my sweet freedom..."
As they trekked towards Luiz and their final destination, Tyler couldn't help but become saddened by the events that were minutes away from unfolding.
"I've only known her for less than a week, and yet, I can't deny that there's something in between us. I can't bear to leave her here, living a disgusting life, when there's so much more opportunity and pleasure in the United States. I just want to protect her, but she's so stubborn. She'll never leave Rio. I was a fool to think that she'd come back with me. Would Linda take her in, or have her adopted out to some other family? It kills me to realize that... I'll never know..."
Tyler had lost track of time while busy musing. The sensation of his forward motion being halted tore him from his thoughts, bringing him back to the just-as-painful reality.
Rafael, Nico, and Pedro were leaning against what seemed to be the right wall of Luiz's garage. Luiz, himself, was scouting the walls in the search for an adequate tool.
He passed the reclining trio and skimmed the far wall, announcing his choice via a loud clanging noise.
He reappeared under the glaring light hanging down above the middle of the space, the sweat on his skin appearing like an oily sheen to his tanned body.
He approached them with a powerful smile, a large pair of bolt-cutters held securely by both his hands. Once close enough, he fastened the fearsome jaws of the tool around the chains between the cuffs.
The teenagers were intimidated by the apparatus, but ever-hopeful it would get the job done.
"If I break these first, it'll be way easier to work with you guys. You ready?"
"Uh, ready as we'll ever be..." said Tyler shakily.
"Alright then. Watch this..."
Luiz increased the pressure on the links by squeezing the handles closer together, the effort he was instilling made visible by the bulging of his arm muscles.
He continued to squeeze, but nothing happened.
He released his grip and drew in a heavy breath before trying again, beads of sweat dripping from his forehead.
Still nothing.
On the third try, his moist left hand slipped from the deadly tool, causing it to jerk violently and fly off, nearly dealing a painful blow to Jewel's legs.
"Droga!" yelled Luiz, {Damn!} "Those chains are tough! I've never seen metal that strong."
"Great! Now what do we do?" demanded Tyler, "they could be more than just ordinary handcuffs. Who knows where the hell Marcel and Nigel got them."
"I'll have to get out my cutting torch and melt them, yo..." responded Luiz.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Sorry, Jewel. I'm not. That will split them apart for sure!"
He walked once again to the back of the room, creating more raucous noise before rolling out a large dolly bearing two fat tanks.
The tanks were bound to the dolly and each other by grimy bungee cords and loops of wire. A round valve with a flow rate gauge and a pressure gauge projected from the top of each tank.
A length of green hose was attached to the left valve, and a length of red hose was fastened to the right valve.
In his hand was a long, golden-hued shaft of metal, bent down at a ninety degree angle at one end.
"Let me get this set up, and then we'll make some progress."
Tyler and Jewel watched as he fitted the hoses into the straight end of the torch, making sure they were nice and tight. He checked the torch over and played with the flow knobs near the hose end. Lastly, he checked the responsiveness of the oxygen-blast trigger, a small metal rod projecting halfway down the torch.
"Well, everything looks good. Let me go slap on a welding mask real quick, yo."
"Hey, you don't happen to have two more masks for us, do you?" asked Jewel worriedly.
"Nope. You'll just have to close your eyes. You'll go blind in about five seconds if you don't..."
He breezed past them, rummaging in a line of tool chests against the rear wall.
The teenagers were legitimately nervous, but Tyler even more so, due to his knowledge of the fearsome temperatures generated by the cutting process.
Luiz soon returned with a painted steel mask strapped to his head, a small, pitch-black window projecting from the front. He reached his hand around and flipped up the filtering screen, allowing his eyes to be seen through the clear glass rectangle behind it.
"If something goes wrong, scream really loud, 'cause I can't see too good while the torch is on. Are yous nervous?"
Tyler and Jewel replied, "Yeah."
"What?"
"Yeah!"
"What did you say?"
"YEAH!" they shouted.
"Oh yeah, I can't hear too good either!" he warned while hitting his mask pointedly.
"WE KNOW!" shouted the bonded duo.
"Let's get busy, then. Come here."
He grabbed the chains with his left hand and dragged them over to a spot merely one foot in front of the compressed tanks.
"Remember, don't look at the flame at all!" He turned away to the others and repeated, "You too. Keep your eyes closed until I'm done!"
"You got it!" responded Nico, Pedro, and Rafael forcefully.
He faced his subjects again and said, "It's going to get hot and loud. There's gonna be sparks goin' everywhere, yo!"
"We get it!" retorted Tyler, "Less talk and more cut!"
"Alright, American boy..."
Luiz reached up to the valves and cranked them on one by one, adjusting them until the pressure and flow rate measurements pleased him. He then flipped the filter screen back down and felt along the torch until locating the ignition button.
He clicked it twice, causing a spark to jump from the angled torch head. A drawn out rushing soundlike the din of a match being lit ensued, and then the room was filled with the glare from a rich blue flame – which strongly resembled the hue of Tyler's hair.
Luiz fiddled with the pair of control knobs at the base of the torch, manipulating the flame carefully until it was composed of a deep blue outer ring and a light blue inner ring.
Tyler and Jewel shut their eyes and braced themselves against the heat that was flooding their faces.
Luiz oriented the blazing tool towards the ground and pulled their hands apart until the chains were tight.
"I hope he knows what he's doing! He's going to be working with a five-thousand, eight-hundred degree Fahrenheit combustion reaction just inches away from our arms!" stated Tyler over the roar of the flame.
Jewel shook her head and screeched, "You didn't have to tell me that!"
Moments later, they felt the force of the fiery jet contact the first chain. Luiz was cutting it away in the middle, rather than attempt to sever it at the base.
Doing this in such close proximity to living humans was a perilous and perfectly illegal act, but he knew his witnesses would not rat him out.
The metal links may have been able to refuse being snipped by the bolt-cutters, but such was not the case now. The links were utterly liquefied under the wrath of the burning acetylene, dripping to the floor in sticky, red-hot globs, accompanied by thin streams of jittery sparks.
The severed first chain split and fell away like two ends of a collapsing bridge, dangling limply from their respective cuffs.
Luiz then set about slicing the second chain, working with all the skill of a master, being as he had brandished the welder's trademark tool as soon as it was legal.
After ten seconds of baking the resilient metal, it too broke apart.
The sudden lack of resistance caused Jewel to jerk away and nearly stumble, while Tyler tumbled to the dusty floor, as his one good leg failed to keep him upright.
Luiz rapidly clicked off the torch, allowing a tense silence to settle among the humans.
From behind his forest-green mask, he asked, "Is everyone alright? Where did you guys go?"
"I'm... over here, dude! Why don't you take your mask off?"
"What did you say, Tyler?"
"TAKE YOUR MASK OFF!"
He reached up behind his head and peeled the zip tie-like straps apart, pulling the bulky metal mask off with a flourish and setting it down on the floor.
He studied Tyler for a moment, and seeing that the boy was shaken, but unhurt, scanned around for Jewel.
She was shaking her left hand rapidly, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Hell yeah! Finally, I'm my own person again!"
She then began dashing around the room, doing a myriad of tricks and stunts that awed everyone else.
"Luiz, you did it! Way to go. Hot-thang is lovin' it!" shouted Nico and Pedro.
"Great job, amigo!" added Rafael.
Tyler remained silent, unable to share her joy due to his disability and the blow dealt to him by his epiphany.
"It's all over now. She's going to run back to her favelas and fade from my life like a fleeting shadow. All she'll be once we leave this place is a memory to me. A memory of a wonderful girl. A memory of what could have been..."
He watched with a heavy heart as she trounced about like a gymnast, when suddenly, something happened.
The cuff caught on the projecting edge of a table that held a reciprocating saw, which sat half-submerged under the languidly rocking light.
Her arm was stretched to its max, and, as she continued to move, the handcuff was torn from her wrist. She immediately froze and clutched her wrist as the cuff clanked on the floor.
"Ow! Damn, that hurt! Wait a minute..."
Rafael donned a shocked expression and exclaimed, "Jewel, your handcuff came off! How did you do that?"
As Tyler took in the sight, he quickly deduced the science behind it.
"The heat from the torch must have flowed into the handcuffs via radiation and conduction, expanding the metal just enough so that it was able to slip off of her wrist. Hey, I better take mine off quick, then!"
Tyler gripped his cuff with his right hand and pushed mightily. He felt the metal slip and slip, causing him a great deal of pain as it ground into his skin.
After five seconds of effort, it scraped his knuckles and flew off, skittering a few feet away.
For him, the feel of it being removed bore a symbolic significance just as fortuitous as its literal significance. It was like a long-awaited release; a return of his individuality and the removal of his restrictions.
He suddenly sympathized with how Jewel was undoubtedly feeling.
This was the essence of being free: no one holding you down, following you, or challenging you. She was now capable of living just as she had done for the past few years; capable of choosing where to steer her life.
His positivity was smothered when he realized something dreadful: he couldn't stop her.
Now exhausted, her initial euphoria having wore off, Jewel planted her back against the wall next to Nico and gripped her knees with her hands in a half-upright position. The three humans next to her stood up and surrounded her expectantly.
Pedro asked, "What you gonna do now, Jewel? You wanna come with us to the club? You wanna get loose?"
"Sounds good... to me. Let me rest... and then we'll head out..." she gasped between rich breaths.
"You comin' too?" asked Pedro as he faced Rafael.
"Sorry, Pedro, but I have to get back home to Eva. She's probably wondering where I'm at, and on top of that, I really miss her. I'll stay for a little while longer, though."
"Cool, man..."
Now that Jewel's fate was finalized, and that his chance to persuade her to join him on his travels was completely blown, he saw no reason to stay any longer.
Since everybody else was so absorbed with the female, Tyler caught Luiz's attention.
"Hey, Luiz, come help me up, so I can get out of here."
The mechanic complied and assisted the cripple, hauling him to his feet with little effort. With concern in his eyes, he asked, "You okay, man? Where you goin'?"
With a semi-angry, semi-hurt tone, he replied, "Anywhere but here. I'll have to try and find my way back to Tulio's lab. I just hope that my mom is there."
"No way, man. That's all the way in the North Zone! You'll never make it on one leg."
He brushed the mechanic's hands away and retorted, "Does it even matter? The only person I depended on, the person I admired, is going to a damn club, knowing full well I can't accompany her. I swore to take Tulio's cure, and if I'm going to steal it back from Marcel, I'll need their help."
A shocked Luiz said, "Go ahead then. I can't stop you. Take care, amigo..."
Tyler nodded in agreement and hopped over to the dividing wall, reaching out to grip it for balance. Now that he could walk without losing his balance, he rounded it and moved along it, making steady progress until he arrived at the entrance.
With one final, grave step, he exited the garage and immersed himself in a flare of warm sunshine.
"Such a perfect day. Too bad it's making an absolute mockery of my life right now..."
He calculated where the afternoon sun was going to set and determined roughly the location of the North Zone. Seeing an intersection at the end of the street he was on, he trekked his way slowly down the buildings, crawling away from Luiz's place steadily.
Shortly after, he heard a burst of rich laughter behind him, recognizing the masculine tones of Pedro and Nico melding with Jewel's milk-and-honey lilt.
Tyler ceased his walk and turned around, catching a glimpse of them from behind, momentarily stunned by her angelic outline. The view only stabbed his soul with the dagger of loss, and so he turned away as Luiz and Rafael emerged, blocking her from view.
By the time he had taken seven sullen steps, someone approached him from behind and spoke to him.
She spoke to him: "Tyler? Hey, where are you going?"
The burning innocence and concern in her voice melted him, but he was too forlorn to let it show. He rotated himself around to find Jewel staring at him inquisitively.
"Is something wrong?"
He snorted quickly and sarcastically.
"No. Everything's perfect. You'll be off to your sheltered favela. I'll be back with Linda. Exactly like we planned from the beginning, right?"
Nico and Pedro charged up behind Jewel, skidding to a stop behind her and slightly off to her right.
"Hey, quit stallin', Jewel! The club ain't gonna be open all day!"
Jewel's expression lost some of its previous jubilation.
"I... thought that... maybe..."
He exhaled quickly through his nostrils in response.
"That what? That you'd come back to the States? To Minnesota? Great! I guess I'll knit you a fancy scarf."
Jewel frowned at his frustrated attitude.
"No, that's not what I meant, Tyler. I-"
"Look, Jewel, I can't spend the rest of my life trailing you to every place you go."
If he was going to respond to her fiercely, she could do the same.
"Hey, it's not my fault you can't walk correctly."
He turned away after registering the bite in her words.
Rafael came sprinting down the sidewalk, sticking himself in between the dueling humans.
His expression worrisome, he declared, "I think you two need to clear the air. Just be completely honest with each other!"
At this, Tyler whirled around, his face tight with anger.
"You want honesty? Here's some healthy honesty for you! I never wanted to come here in the first place. I only did it to give my mother-slash-aunt hope. Had I never met you, I might have had a chance at a normal life. Or maybe even died and be given a more divine existence. Either way, our little 'adventure' prolonged the inevitable. I'm tired of living a life that really isn't a life at all! I'm done fighting."
This set her off like a missile taking flight.
"Fine! See you around, cripple!"
She spun around and returned the way she had came, hooking her arms around Nico and Pedro's necks and dragging them away.
As the raging humans went their separate ways, Rafael glared at the ground and muttered, "Ah, young love. Always so melodramatic! Reminds me of how Eva acted in our early years..."
Pushing away the reminiscent musings, he targeted Tyler and went after him – at a humorously slow pace. Casually falling in beside him, Rafael shoved his hands in his pockets coolly.
"Why are you still here? Isn't your house in the North Zone?"
"Is there some way I could help? I know you like Jewel, and even though it's not obvious, she likes you back. If you could just let her know how you feel, she might do the same for you."
Being as they had arrived at the intersection, Tyler braced himself against the corner of the last building.
"And if I do, how's that supposed to help me? That won't help me get through the treatment for my paralysis, will it? If I live, then that's just fine. If I don't, what can I do about it? I swore I was going to take the serum, but I'll need Linda and Tulio's help to get it back. I'll make it to Tulio's lab eventually."
Taken aback by a number of flaws in his argument, he replied, "But Tyler! The North Zone is at least an hour away, and that's if you drive. You'll never make it!"
Tyler glared at him with conviction in his eyes and responded, "I might as well try. That's all I've done ever since I was crippled. Try to live normally. Try to feel positive about my situation. Try to make it from one day to the next. 'Trying' and 'accomplishing' are completely different achievements..."
This time, his argument was solid; Rafael didn't know how to respond to Tyler's accurate portrayal of his life.
The distraught cripple took a step down the side street, only to have his progress be frozen by a panicked triple shout from behind. He revolved around and watched as Rafael was assaulted by the frantic bodies of Luiz, Nico, and Pedro.
"What is going on, amigos?" he shouted over their incoherent babbling.
The din of the three male voices died down, and it was Pedro who spoke up: "We gotta... he... car..."
Tyler drew closer to them as Rafael grabbed Pedro's shoulders and shook him.
"Slow down, dude! I can't understand your crazy talk."
Pedro sucked in a desperate breath and answered, "We gotta go! He pointed a gun at us. A silver-haired guy and some afro dude... got Jewel! They tossed her in a red car... and sped off!"
Tyler felt an explosion of dread at Pedro's description. He approached Rafael and jabbed his arm.
"It's Marcel and Nigel! They came back for her instead of me. This is all my fault!"
"We have to go after him! I could take us, but my car's back at the station."
Luiz threw his arms out in a flourish and declared, "I got us covered, yo! Wait right here!"
The mechanic dashed back towards his garage, leaving the others in a terrified silence.
A muffled growl was heard almost a minute later, followed by a startling sight.
With a raucous clatter, two aluminum panels – which had formerly constituted part of the entrance to Luiz's workplace – broke free of the building and landed in the middle of the street, mangled and bent. One of the muscle cars previously stationed in the garage exploded out with them, swerving in a wide arc with its tires squealing.
It plowed straight for the stunned humans, but at the last moment, fishtailed around and presented its right side to them. The passenger side window scooted down fully, revealing a fierce Luiz peering at them from the driver's seat.
"Get yo' asses in! Let's go catch those foo's and save Jewel!"
Without issuing a word in response, they threw open the doors and heaved themselves in. Tyler buckled himself down in the passenger's seat while the rest clustered in the row of seats just behind.
"Do you know where they went?" asked Luiz to no one in particular.
"I bet they're going to their warehouse! It's somewhere in the North Zone!"
" 'Somewhere' don't help us any, man."
"I'll try to remember where exactly it is. I only saw it once. Just drive already!"
"You got it, Tyler!"
He gunned the engine, blasting down the avenue and leaving a cloud of noxious smoke in his wake.
As Luiz barreled down the street, barely avoiding the occasional car that blocked his way, Tyler asked, "Is this your car?"
While carefully managing the twitching steering wheel, the driver replied, "No. I just 'borrowed' it."
Tyler panicked and said, "You stole it. This is grand theft auto! You better hope the Brazilian cops don't decide to engage in a pursuit."
"We ain't got a choice, dude. What would you do?"
That blunt reply shut Tyler up.
While hanging onto anything he could find for grip as the car careened like a V8-powered missile, he prayed, "God, please let me survive this! I have to see Jewel one more time, and maybe even rescue her. But for that, I need to make it to the lab alive..."
Tyler scrunched his eyes closed as he tried maniacally to fabricate an illusory picture of where Marcel's hideout was.
He easily recreated the side of the shack where he and Jewel had first entered, but the surrounding area was much more difficult to replicate.
With his sense of vision just a sea of blackness, he placed the image of Marcel's residence behind his eyelids, tacking on new information bit by bit.
He was on a time crunch to locate that house of horrors, and if Jewel was to be saved, he needed to know precisely where it was located.
Some time into the ride, Luiz informed Tyler that they were now cruising rapidly through the North Zone. He peeked his eyes open briefly to snag some of the scenery before slamming them shut again.
After another long pause, Luiz warned, "Oh man, the gas tank's nearly empty! Hurry up dude, we ain't gonna be drivin' for much longer."
As the car bounded over a small dip in the road and pounded the pavement after landing, Tyler was bestowed with a rush of knowledge. He stared out of the windshield, noting an intersection that was rushing towards them.
"I have it! I know where Jewel is. At the light, turn right!"
"Way to go! You call the shots..."
The car lunged past the light, nearly clipping the vehicles waiting to turn.
The mechanic obeyed Tyler's every call: turning here, going there, plowing straight down this road or that for so many feet. The possibilities were endless.
Luck was on their side, as the Brazilian police had not been alerted to the disturbance Luiz's hurried maneuvering was causing throughout the city.
After taking a silent cue from his whirring mind, he ordered the driver to stop next to the third shack on the left side of a narrow street.
"This is the place, Luiz. Wait here for me to come back out, so we can bail."
He then caught the attention of the three humans cowering in their seats.
"Rafael, you come with me as backup. Be ready for anything."
He gulped with fear, but still managed to nod his head.
Tyler unbuckled and limped his way around the hood of the muscle car, leaving his door open for his return.
Rafael caught up to him and assisted the cripple as they loped for the supposed rear of the two-story shack.
A curious entrance that carried a unique familiarity to Tyler beckoned to them, and so they went for it. They pushed past the strangely unlocked door and were greeted by a deathly silent living-room, motes of dust sent whirling from their break-in.
"Stay on your guard, Rafael. Watch my back..." cautioned the young male softly.
"Alright. She better be in here. But where?"
The staircase was the most obvious option, but would quickly give away their presence due to its destabilized nature.
They carefully ascended to the second floor, hearing a defiant shout as they departed the last degraded step: "Go ahead, give me the serum, idiot. I'd rather die than be your little experiment."
An uncannily gruff male tone countered, "Watch your mouth, young lady! I'm the one with the gun, you see."
A muted crack was heard, followed by a scream of pain from the female.
"It's Jewel! Nigel's probably got her in one of these rooms."
"Let's spread out and search. I'll call you if I need your help. I just hope you can take down an armed criminal with one working leg."
"I'll manage, Rafi. Let's get moving."
Tyler trudged his way down one end of the hall while the father of four headed in the opposite direction.
The first door the cripple checked lay on the right, but led to a space filled with assorted weapons and ammo.
The next door switched sides, revealing a small table cluttered with medical instruments and scattered papers.
He tried to slip away, but a gunshot tore through the soft wood, instantly startling the male.
"Who's there? Tell me, so I can shoot you through the wall!"
"Jesus, that was Nigel! It's now or never. Jewel's well-being depends on it..."
Tightening his muscles for use, he shoved the door aside and skipped awkwardly into the room.
He was nearly turned to stone by the image of Jewel slumped over in a chair, fastened tightly to it by several lengths of rope.
The demon known as Nigel was rooted across the table from her, black pistol clutched in his hand. Nigel was but two feet away from him, close enough to attack head-on, but also close enough that any bullets he fired were unlikely to miss.
He let out a bestial roar and lunged for the gunman, his arms stretched out for a secure grab.
"You! I just knew you'd come back for her!"
Nigel raised his gun for a point-blank shot, but his aggressor was already too close.
Tyler struck him full on in the gut, winding even the resilient and cocky Nigel. The table was sent grating across the oak floor as they collapsed to the ground, its slide hampered by Jewel's immobile form.
Nigel let out a deprived scream of anger, glaring maliciously at his attacker.
"I've always wanted to... do this to you!"
He brought his left fist up, ramming it into Tyler's side with the force of a UFC fighter's punch. He was thrown off and sent rolling away, doubled over on his hands and knees.
He looked up to see a blurred Nigel walking towards him.
"You're so weak," he said scathingly, "I could kill you. But Boss wouldn't like that. I'll settle for this, then!"
As Nigel's foot came towards him, the world seemed to slow down as if it had been plunged into a sea of clear gelatin.
"I may be down... but I am not out..." chanted Tyler mentally.
He inexorably reached his left arm out and waited for Nigel's ankle to run into it. The instant it did, he secured a powerful grip on the ankle and pulled his arm back in the same direction the foot was traveling.
The world flowed back into normal reality as Nigel lost his balance from the maneuver, finding himself tipping backwards under the influence of gravity.
Tyler's other hand then shot out and squeezed down on the other ankle. He jerked his right arm as hard as he could, feeling his biceps flex and ripple.
Nigel flipped backwards and fell to the floor directly on his back, the impact tossing the gun from his hand.
Seizing his chance, Tyler scuttled over to him and straddled the villain, crushing Nigel's midsection with his full weight.
"And I've always wanted to do this to you!" he shouted to a dazed Nigel.
He gripped the head of the man with the silver locks with his hands, placing them firmly over his ears. In one brutal motion, he raised it up and bashed it into the unyielding floor.
On the first hit, Nigel cackled as if drunk, his hand coming up to land another blow to Tyler's ribs. The hand fell back down as Tyler repeated the impact, augmented by a barely audible crack.
Nigel's eyes rolled back into his head. The criminal ceased to move as runny blood began to trickle out, slowly tracing the gaps in the floor boards.
His chest heaving and his gut aching, Tyler sat up and immediately threw his focus on Jewel.
"Are you okay, Jewel? Answer me!"
She lifted her head languidly, revealing a large wound on her forehead.
"What are you... doing here?"
Her tone was slurred, and he judged it to be an aftereffect of the cranial wound she had.
"I have to... get you out!" he retorted, still panting.
"No! Marcel is... coming..."
"What do you-"
Before he could react, a stunning blow to the back of his head provided the answer. He rolled over in a half-conscious state, catching the grim smile of Marcel looking down at him.
"So, you stopped Nigel? Well, you can't stop me. And it turns out, neither could your dark-haired friend."
He tugged him up by his sapphire hair, sending a wave of fire across his scalp.
"Your worst nightmare... has just begun..."
Tyler was knocked out cold as his head met the floor from the action of Marcel's hand. He felt not a shred of sensory input or emotion as he plummeted into an abyssal canyon of shifting shadows, unable to dredge himself out.