CHAPTER 71

A/N

First of all, thank you so much for all of the kind messages, both the private and public messages. I really appreciate the support. And I really appreciate those who have said that I can take a break from writing for a while if I want to. Honestly, I haven't written much. I've stared at my computer for hours without really making much progress, but it's been good as it's provided me with a bit of a distraction from everything. Thank you for the concern and the messages though. It truly means a lot.

"This ain't okay! We need some payback!" Kyler ranted that afternoon, pacing back and forth in the Cobra Kai dojo as the students waited for class to start, their senseis not having arrived yet. Marcos, Shawn, Kenny and a few other Cobra Kais listened to him shout and spit venom.

Reluctantly, Marcos had told the other Cobras about what had happened. He didn't want to, but after an interrogation about the nature of the black eye he had sprouted the night before, he had no other choice but to tell them. He had two options: lie and tell them that it had been Robby who had given him the bruise; or tell the truth and tell them that it had been his father after he had gotten home that night. There was no way in hell he was going to mention the latter, so he decided that it was the lesser of two evils to claim that it was the former. Despite this though, Cobra Kai was immediately in uproar when they found out what had been done to their champion the night before, and they were all frothing at the mouth, bloodthirsty and eager for revenge.

Marcos slowly stood up from his stretching position and he stood face to face with Kyler, putting a hand on his shoulder and locking eyes with him as he spoke up.

"We're not doing anything back to them. Do you understand?" Marcos demanded quietly, in a voice full of authority. He really had become the leader of the dojo, and the other students had little choice but to fall in line and respect his command. Unfortunately for Kyler though, it looked like his plan for revenge was dead in the water.

"We can't let them get away with it!" Kyler spat. Marcos nodded.

"And we won't. Trust me. We'll wipe the fucking floor with them at the Taikai. And if they want to attack us earlier than that like they did yesterday, we'll be ready for them then." Marcos responded. "But we're not going to go looking for a fight against them anymore. Do you understand me?"

Eventually, Kyler was forced to nod and respect the decision of the alpha. At that moment, the doors of the dojo swung open once more and all of the students turned around, expecting to see at least one of their senseis walking in, as neither had arrived yet. However, they found that it was neither Kreese nor Kim who had walked into the dojo, and instead it was none other than the female champion of the dojo, Sarah.

Marcos immediately looked up when he saw Sarah step inside and he tried to move towards her but from the moment Sarah entered the dojo, she made it pretty clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. It was fair too, given how their encounter had gone the night before…

"Hold still." Sarah demanded, 12 hours earlier, as she dabbed the large gash Marcos had on his abdomen with a cloth.

"Ow." Marcos murmured, hissing in pain but not saying anything more to protest. Just as well too, as Sarah looked like she was a few seconds away from murdering him herself. After the fight, Marcos had limped his way over to Sarah's house, a totally unfair thing to do to her, but it was at least less harmful to himself as it would be going home. When he rang the doorbell, Sarah had been stunned to see him in such a state - bruises and gashes covering most of his sides, abdomen, head and legs - but when her shock had worn off, anger had overtaken her.

Other than to instruct him, she didn't say a word as she helped clean up all of the various wounds and scrapes all over his body, and Marcos could feel the rage emanating from his girlfriend. She had forced him to go through the entire story of what had happened so Marcos had to retell the entire story. By the end of the story, Sarah was done helping him clean up all of his injuries and the couple both sat back in their chairs in Sarah's bedroom.

Marcos could tell that there was so much Sarah wanted to say to him. So much she wanted to scream at him. And she had every right to, after what he had done. However, when Sarah eventually spoke, it was in a much softer tone. It was in an almost pleading tone.

"Marcos. Talk to me. Please. What's going on?" She practically begged him. Marcos shook his head.

"Pardon me?" Marcos asked. Sarah sighed.

"Come on. You're acting so differently. Picking fights. You seem constantly distracted. Constantly on edge. Something's up."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Marcos quickly replied, forcing on a poker face. Sarah's eyes narrowed slightly at him.

"Don't give me that bs!" She snapped, emotion beginning to seep into her tone. "Don't treat me like I'm someone else! I'm not. I know you. I know you better than anyone and I know something's not right."

"Sarah, trust me. Everything's fine." Marcos told her. She couldn't help but laugh loudly at this.

"Everything's fine?! So competing in a fight to the death is fine?! You're lucky nothing worse happened to you! You could've been killed! You could've been arrested! Do you have any idea how bad it could've gone if it was someone else who had interrupted the fight and not your friend?!"

"Look, it was a mistake, okay?! I made a mistake!" Marcos exclaimed. "Nothing more to it than that."

"You're lying!" Sarah snapped back, absolutely livid by this point. She knew that there was something more to it, something that Marcos wasn't telling her. And she was right. Everything that went on as soon as Marcos stepped into his apartment was something that he was prepared to risk everything to keep in the dark, even if that meant not telling Sarah.

"I'm really not." Marcos replied, lying through his teeth. "And I don't appreciate being accused."

He felt horrible. He felt absolutely horrible about this, blatantly lying to quite possibly the last person in the world who truly, truly cared about him. But he had no choice. Like his father had said, if anyone ever found out about the abuse and reported it, chances were Marcos would be removed from his custody and deported back to Brazil, doomed to live a life in the slums for the rest of eternity.

Sarah sighed and stood up.

"Fine. If you don't want to talk to me, or anyone else? Fine. I can't force you." She said. "But I can ask you to leave my house now."

"W-what?" Marcos asked. Sarah crossed her arms.

"You heard me. I'm not going to be with someone who lies to me. Period. Not anyone. Not even you."

Marcos slowly stood up himself and nodded, not saying another word as he turned around and walked out of the room, leaving Sarah's house and stepping out into the night…

Since then, Marcos had had a lot of time to think. He had thought all night about what had happened. He thought about whether it was worth it at this point to just tell Sarah about everything. Was keeping this secret worth jeopardizing his relationship for? Marcos was actually leaning towards telling her about it, at least during the walk home back to his apartment. However, after a long beatdown at the hands of his father almost as soon as he walked through the door, he ended up deciding against it. He was reminded of the severity of what he was going through. He didn't want to dump that burden on her shoulders. He couldn't risk her getting hurt by getting close to this situation. She needed to stay as far away from this as possible, he needed to keep her as far away from this as possible.

Which is why Marcos did not end up telling her about it that night, nor did he the next morning, so by the time they arrived at the dojo for training that afternoon, things were still extremely frosty for the couple, if they were even still a couple.

Marcos was going to walk over to her and talk to her, but before he could, the doors of the dojo swung open once more and their sensei walked in. It wasn't Sensei Kreese, but instead was the other sensei of Cobra Kai, the malevolent Sensei Kim.

"Fall in!" Kim instantly ordered, the students all leaping to their feet and standing at attention in evenly numbered lines. "Mr. Oliveira, warm them up."

"Shouldn't we wait for Sensei Kreese to arrive?" Marcos asked. Kim shook her head.

"Sensei Kreese is not here today." Kim replied.

"Is he okay?" Marcos asked. He had just spoken to the man that morning, when he had told his sensei all about the fight the night before.

"He's fine." Kim replied shortly. "Now enough questions. Lead the warmup, Mr. Oliveira."

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BEEP!

The next morning, a man awoke roughly from his slumber at the sound of his prison cell beeping open, and then shortly after, a guard rapping hard on it with his baton.

"WAKE UP, SILVER! YOU HAVE A VISITOR!" The guard bellowed at the top of his lungs. Silver groaned and slowly stood up. It was 7 in the morning and he was already being woken up. It was Sunday too. Every prisoner's favourite day, as today was visiting day. Prisoners were granted a couple of hours to see family, friends, whoever had the courage to see a loved one imprisoned behind bars. Well, every prisoner but Silver loved that day. Nobody had come to visit him since he had been tossed behind bars, and he was starting to expect that no one ever would.

As Silver shook the sleep out of his eyes and out of his system, he slowly trudged out of the room, putting on his handcuffs and following him into the visitor's centre. The man did a double take when he saw who was sitting on the other side of the plexiglass window…

Sitting down, he smiled at them, picking up the plastic telephone that he was mandated to talk to them through. There was no face to face contact. The closest you could get was through a plexiglass screen. But at that moment, Silver didn't care. He slipped into a faint smile as he lifted the phone to his ear, the person opposite him doing the same.

"Hi." They said to him.

"Hello, John…"