THE JOURNEY (DESTINATION IN OBLIVION)

JOURNEY TWENTY-NINE

The three burly men were heavily smoking. When they saw us, they started moving towards us. The look of worry in Jade's eyes betrayed her thoughts. She knew them and was scared of them.

It seemed those guys were bullying the old people in the neighborhood, turning it into a shadow of its former self. Many people were leaving or even refusing to come out. And if there was anything I hated to the bone, it was bullies!

Suddenly, one of them, who seemed to be the one leading, spoke. "Hey, pretty girl, where's the money we asked for? Five grands, no less," he said, stretching his hands with a dirty smirk on his face. Then he looked at me and said, "Or do you want pretty boy to pay for you?"

I sized them up. There was no energy pulsating from them, neither was there any strength in their cores of energy to speak of. If there was anything I learned from emotion, it was that the right choice of words deals the greatest damage.

So I quickly retaliated. "Just because you came here with your leg