TITLE: The Little Princesses
CHAPTER/TITLE: Chapter Two/Prince Bobby
RATING: T (language)
A/N: Part Two & the conclusion of this 2 part short Halloween story. Thanks Maxiekat for the one review ;) You're awesome. To all other readers...follow this wonderful woman's example! Just kidding...sort of :)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Four Brothers
Chapter Two: Prince Bobby
The trio was already a few blocks away from Bobby when Jack spotted them. Jack stiffened at the sight. A group of college students were taking up drinking residence on the street corner. They were nothing like the kind of gangs of kids he could run into in his own neighborhood, but something still set off a warning in his spine. Before he could stop her, Amelia was skipping across the street.
"Where do you think you're going? There's a toll for anyone who wants to pass."
Jack swiftly stepped in front of his nieces as Amelia's small hand slipped into his. He recognized the pack immediately. They had been in his graduating class. They had also made a living out of terrorizing every weaker student in the school. Apparently, higher education hadn't changed that. One of the drunken delinquents was donning a university sweatshirt. Another was sporting the college's football team's jacket. Jack rolled his eyes, remembering when he had confronted the same character in a high school letterman's jacket. Despite everything he had experienced since graduation and all the changes he went through, even just in the two years alone, it amused him how some things simply stayed the same.
"Would you look who it is?" The jacket cackled. "I remember you."
"Congratulations," Jack spat in a low voice. "Now, move."
"This is cute, Mercer," The Sweater snorted, "doing a little trick-or-treating?"
Jack was distracted from the retort forming in his head by the sharp tugging on his shirt. He glanced down to see a terrified Daniela. The look and the small fingers shaking inside his hand on his opposite side was enough to bring Jack to Bobby-sized bravado.
"What? You follow in your dead mother's footsteps and adopt some worthless –"
The Jacket didn't finish as Jack's fist connected with his face.
"Don't talk about my mom or my nieces," Jack warned in a dangerously calm tone.
"Wait, wait," The Jacket was actually laughing, "let me guess. Angel's? He did get around to all the slutty girls who couldn't keep their legs closed."
"Shut up," Jack grunted and chanced a step forward.
"No way. You didn't pay the toll. Give us your candy, girls."
"Don't talk to them. You think you're tough, huh? Stealing candy from kids? You forget the neighborhood you grew up in? I've been mugged, jumped, and shot. You think I'm afraid of some grown men wanting candy? You aren't getting anything from them."
"Fine. If they won't give it to us, we'll take what we can from you."
Jack ducked the first intoxicated punch, but when he turned to glance at a squealing Amelia, the second made direct contact. Jack stumbled backwards before another fist found his face.
"Maybe you're like a piñata. What do you think, Mercer? If we bust you open, what will come out?"
Jack heard his name screamed in unison as three sets of hands pulled him off the sidewalk and behind a tall hedge. He managed to yell for the girls to run before a hand clamped over his mouth. Jack fought back futilely. He felt the weight of his wallet disappear from his back pocket. Candy or money wasn't enough though. Pain was the only payment they would accept now. He thought he got kicked in the head and was turning over to delirium when a smiling pumpkin suddenly swooped down on the side of The Sweater's head. The victim of the pumpkin attack stood and whirled around to face a now empty handed Amelia. He took a step forward when a heavy pillowcase came against the back of his knee.
"Leave. My. Uncle. And. Sister. Alone!"
Daniela swung the candy with each word. She made another attempt at his stomach but this time the pillowcase was caught. With one swift tug, the candy was out of her grasp and Daniela was on the ground. Jack writhed and swore against the palm that held back his cries and curses. Amelia lost her courage then and spun around, running in the opposite direction.
"Uncle Bo –"
Her plea for help was silenced as a lankier member of the pack with glasses wrapped his arms around her body and mouth.
"Hey!" Daniela leapt off the ground and charged at the boy. "Let her go!"
"Shut them up!" The Jacket commanded callously.
Alcohol was obviously altering The Glasses' limbs. He attempted to hold Amelia with one arm and catch Daniela with the other, but missed horribly. Amelia managed to squirm and slip out as the man turned to pursue Daniela. He spun around, caught between the girls as The Jacket and Sweater still were struggling to subdue Jack.
"Let's just go," The Sweater snapped. "We got his shit."
"No way," The Jacket grunted as his knee connected with my stomach. "This is getting fun."
Jack cursed him out again from behind The Sweater's palm. He could take all the beatings and pain in the world, but subjecting his nieces to even just watch it, let alone be hurt too, was far too much for him to handle. At least so far they were merely using their own bodies as weapons. The situation could have been much worse, much deadlier, had they been back in Jack's neighborhood. This was nowhere near what some of the more devious delinquents he knew of would imagine as "fun."
"Hey!"
Jack recognized that voice and those fiercely pounding footfalls. Apparently, his attackers didn't.
"Look, pal, this isn't any of your business, so –"
The Jacket's sentence was finished with an odd cracking noise of his jaw and a slurred curse. Jack glanced up as Bobby pulled his fist back.
"Wrong. That's my brother and those are my nieces. Definitely my business."
"Bobby Mercer?" The Sweater spat.
"I'm touched. You remember me."
"Yeah. Yeah, I remember you. Go to hell, mother –"
Bobby's hand again found a mouth. Instead of his knuckles colliding with The Sweater's smirk, though, Bobby merely slapped his palm over the man's lips, silencing him in a more civilized way that didn't come naturally for Bobby. What did come naturally, was using his free hand to retrieve the gun from the small of his back. He discreetly tapped it against The Sweater's shoulder, sure that the girls wouldn't see it.
"How 'bout we watch our language in front of the kids, huh?"
The Sweater stiffly nodded as The Jacket abandoned his readiness to attack and assist his friend, dropping Jack to the ground in the process. Glasses, though, did not see the paralyzing pistol and made another move for the closest target, Amelia. Jack was off the grass and on top of the assailant before the scream left his niece's lips. Just as much as Bobby burned to put a bullet into each of these men's heads, Jack yearned to not cease only after one debilitating blow. He wanted to beat Glasses for even thinking about touching one of his nieces, and then end him for grabbing them earlier, along with the entire lot of them. The same girls that fueled his fists, also stayed them. The presence of the princesses held Jack's hands and Bobby's itching trigger finger.
"I suggest you leave now," Bobby's pleasant voice was harshly contrasted by his dangerously stormy stare. "And give back whatever you took."
Jack reluctantly rolled off his mark as the other two dropped Jack's wallet and hastily hoofed it down the street. Glasses stumbled, but swiftly followed suit.
Bobby secretly slipped his source of the scare back in its home before facing his family. Beaten and broken, Jack was already checking the girls over. Bobby suppressed a snort. In that moment, he wasn't sure if Jack reminded him of Evelyn with all the mother-henning he was doing – or of himself with the stoicism. He was a bloodied mess and had to crawl to their side, yet Jack acted as through Daniela and Amelia were the only concerns in the world.
"You guys okay?" Bobby echoed his brother's question as he knelt down and Jack released the girls from a tight embrace.
Daniela nodded mutely while Amelia gaped and pointed at Jack's face. Jack's brow bent in bewilderment at first. He brought a hand to his head and pulled it back. He hummed in surprise, as if having not noticed his injury until then.
"Sorry," Jack smiled sadly at Amelia.
"Gross," Daniela mumbled.
"Cool!" Amelia waved her still pointed finger, tracing the grotesque gash in the air.
"Oh no," Jack groaned. "You've been around them too much, Bobby."
"Just don't let your daddy hear you say that," Bobby shook his head, snickering. "You sure you two are okay?" Bobby wiped a tear from Amelia's cheek.
"I wasn't scared," Amelia lied as she wrapped her short arms around Bobby's neck.
"Me either," Daniela spoke softly, but somehow sincerely.
"Really?" Bobby arched his forehead.
"I knew you'd save us," she said simply.
"And how'd you know that?" Bobby's features were smattering of surprise, seriousness and smiling.
"'Cause," Daniela shrugged, "you saved Uncle Jack before."
And that settled it. Her small, but strong voice left no room for argument or confusion.
Bobby's gaze trailed over to a somber Jack. Jack tore his own eyes away from his nieces then and the two shared a silent moment. Bobby didn't hold it long before grinning.
"Well, I wasn't about to let anything happen to you three princesses."
Jack's face fell to a frown.
"Uncle Jack isn't a princess," Amelia scolded through laughter. "He's a prince!"
"A prince?" Bobby snorted out the words.
"Yeah," Amelia argued. "He saved us too."
"Prince always saves the princess," Bobby smirked and cleared away another dried tear from Amelia's face. "What were you doin', jumpin' all up on that fu – guy – Cracker Jack? Tryin' to send yourself back in a wheelchair? Or maybe, you just liked –"
"Don't, man," Jack killed the joke he could sense coming. "I wouldn't've had to if the two little princesses had run when I told them to." Jack eyed his nieces. "But those were some good hits," he winked.
"I just can't believe they risked candy to save your sorry –" Bobby cleared his throat as he glanced away from his little brother to his nieces. "But he's right. Somethin' like that happens again, you two run, okay? You run as fast as you can. Got it?"
Both girls nodded.
"Promise?" Jack tacked on for good measure.
"Promise," they answered in unison.
"Good," Bobby stood and carefully lifted Jack to his feet, a silent question in his eyes.
"Good," Jack responded, reassuring Bobby with a thin and crooked smile.
"More candy?" Amelia asked abruptly.
"Nah," Bobby sighed, collecting the spilled sweets, "I think you both have enough sugar to be up all night."
"Bobby, we ain't lettin' them eat it all," Jack whispered as he attempted to clean himself up.
"'Course we are." Bobby beamed. "Gotta give Jer' some sort 'a payback for this night. 'Safe neighborhood'. Right."
"Wasn't all bad," Jack said as he stared down at his smiling nieces.
"No," Bobby nodded, doing the same. "Guess not."