Chapter 23 – When All Else Fails, Train

“What are you doing—”

Jake lifted his leg and stomped on her other leg, causing her shriek to pierce through the halls. Some of the doors lining the corridor swung open, most remained shut—fearful of monsters having broken in.

Sloane was first on the scene, her jaw swung open. “Jake, what the hell?!”

Saying nothing, Jake grabbed Chloe by the scruff of her neck. When he detected more mana swelling in his surroundings, he smashed his fist against her jaw. “Use mana against me again and I’ll break more than just your legs.”

The static mana fell, reverting back to its dusty state. Chloe continued screaming as he dragged her to the main hallway. A large crowd had formed, watching Jake in horror as he dropped Chloe to the floor.

Arthur pushed through. “Jake—” his eyes widened upon seeing the state Chloe was in, broken and bloody. “What are you doing!”

“Ask her,” Jake said.

Arthur looked between them. “Chloe, what happened?”

“He just attacked me.” Her voice broke in exactly the right place. “Out of nowhere, Arthur. I was just—I was trying to help someone and he came out of nowhere and—”

“She was telling someone to smash the window,” Jake said.

“What?” Arthur frowned. “Why would—”

“Because it would summon the Janitor.” Jake looked at Arthur, the meaning was clear. “She was pointing the man toward it.”

“That’s insane,” someone said from the crowd.

“I would never—” Chloe sucked in a breath, genuine-looking tears tracking down her face. “Why would I do that? I’ve bled for this floor. I’ve fought alongside all of you—”

“Someone go check on him,” Edwin said quietly. “The man she was with.”

“Edwin,” Chloe sobbed. “Surely you can’t believe him? This is… is crazy!”

Edwin didn’t say a word.

A woman broke from the crowd and headed down the corridor.

People murmured between themselves, glancing at Jake as if he was a monster. Chloe kept crying. Three neighbours were already crouched beside her, one holding her hand. Jake watched Arthur’s jaw working, trying to figure out which way to land.

The woman came back. “He’s against the wall at the end of the hall. He won’t talk to me. He’s shaking really badly.”

“Because she spent twenty minutes telling him there was nothing left to live for,” Jake said.

“You can’t know that,” Arthur said, his voice hardening. “You can’t just—Jake, shit, you broke her legs. Both of them. Whatever you thought she was doing, you can’t—”

“The water pipe,” Sloane said, stepping forward. The corridor shifted slightly, people turning. “Someone smashed it deliberately. Jake told me he thinks it was Chloe.” She looked around the crowd. “And on the floor above, during the fight, something snapped Glenn’s bowstring right before the goblin ambush. Jake said he saw a mana trail. And the fight in the flooded corridor—Arthur, your knee. She nudged you. Jake saw it.”

Murmuring spread through the crowd.

“That’s a lot of maybes,” a man near the back said.

“It’s not maybes,” Sloane said. “It’s a pattern.”

“Or it’s two people deciding they don’t like someone,” another voice said, “and dressing it up as evidence.”

More murmuring. Louder now.

Chloe looked up at the crowd from the floor, face wet, and said nothing. She didn’t have to. She just let them look at her—broken, bleeding, small—and let the room do the work.

“She’s been helping people,” a woman said. “Since day one. She came on the food runs when she didn’t have to. She sat with Susan when nobody else would.”

“Jake,” Arthur said, and his voice had shifted into something official, something decided. “We need to talk about what you’ve done here. As a floor, we need to—”

They still think the monsters are the only thing to worry about? Even now?

Jake saw as the other neighbours refused to believe him. Or maybe they did, and were just ignoring it?

Did having a pretty face absolve her of her sins? Whatever they had in mind, Jake had no part in it. He’d promised he’d break her legs if she acted out again, and so he did. if she did it again…

He turned and walked toward his room.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You can’t just walk away from this,” Arthur said. “We need to deal with this properly. You don’t get to—”

“Try and stop me.”

Arthur opened his mouth. Closed it. His hand moved toward Jake’s arm and stopped an inch short.

Edwin said nothing from the back of the crowd. Just watched.

Jake kept walking.

Nobody followed.

He closed the door behind him and stood in the dark, listening to the corridor. The murmuring went on for a long time. Chloe’s voice rose and fell in it, controlled and gentle, and gradually the other voices softened around hers.

Sloane was on his side, but the sentiment amongst the others was that it wasn’t enough to make Chloe a criminal.

He heard his own name several times.

None of it was good.

***

Jake sat on the floor, cracked his knuckles, and started doing push-ups.

The murmuring from the corridor had died down an hour ago. Whatever they’d decided, they’d decided it without him. That was fine. He had things to do.

He pulled the first Elite Growth Stimulant from under the loose floor panel he’d pried up near the bed. Small, dense, a deep amber colour that caught the light like compressed honey. He rolled it between his fingers once, then swallowed it dry.

It hit his bloodstream like a fist.

Every muscle in his body lit up at once, a deep, cellular warmth spreading from his core outward. His arms felt different, more dense.

He dropped to the floor and started once again with the stimulant rampaging through him this time.

The first set burned out fast but he pushed through the wall the way he always did, healing through the degradation, resetting, pushing again. The stimulant was doing something he couldn’t fully articulate—the gains were arriving faster, each threshold hit sooner than the last.

Strength +1

He didn’t stop.

Strength +2