Richter Ch. 01

Here's my new work, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Notice that this is a completely new work, with no relation at all with the previous one.

Thanks to JC_the_Continuer for his editing and suggestions.

About past events... I'm not going to allow my life be dictated by no one but myself.

**********

Rich's right hand was pinned to the wall behind him and over his head, immobilized by the grip that the fat bastard had on his wrist, so he prepared his left hand. Extending his joined fingers, gathering all the strength he could muster in that disadvantageous position, he threw the nukite to his assailant's throat.

His foster father (the good one) had taught Rich self-defense, especially Karate. During one their training sessions, he'd told him, "In a competition, you've got to measure your strength, but in a real fight make sure your first strike is hard enough that a second one isn't needed". Rich had done just that with his, "Spear hand strike", but something had gone wrong.

Something had gone very wrong, given his position, Rich should only have been able to muster enough kinetic energy to leave his opponent coughing and gasping for air. Instead, in the moment of the impact he had felt the pervert's neck give up under the pressure of his fingers.

Minutes ago, Rich had been sleeping inside a trash container when the nightmare came to him again, the usual nightmare with blood, screams and bodies being torn apart. The worst was always the screams; some of them human, while others where hard to believe could com from a human throat. Screams too horrific to be heard by a mere six-year-old boy.

Rich had woken up suddenly with a cry of horror that turned into a grunt and a curse muttered through clenched teeth as his head hit the container roof. A startled scream and an audible curse were the response from outside right before he was blinded by the light outside and a strong hand gripped him by the hair and dragged him out of his hideout.

He found himself facing a round-faced man with thick lips. His breath stank of alcohol. On impulse, Rich used his right hand to hit the inner side of the man's elbow, followed by a push of his left hand to his chest. The move had the desired effect and the individual staggered a few steps back.

"Sorry, kiddo, ya scared the shit outta me." Said the man, rubbing lightly at his chest where Rich's hand had hit him. "I came in this alley for a piss and almost piss ma self 'cause of that scream. Anyway, what'ta hell were ya doing in there?" He looked at Rich warily. If the smell wasn't enough of a give-away, the way he dragged his words left no doubt that he was as drunk as one could be.

"I was trying to sleep and had a nightmare". He answered plainly.

Rich didn't look at the man in the eyes, but all of his senses where focused on him to a level unknown for himself. He could smell not only the alcohol, but also his acrid sweat, he could hear his slightly ragged breathing, even the sound of the drunkard's clothes against his skin with each wobbly move. He didn't know how he knew it, but Rich knew this guy was much more trouble than he looked like.

"In a dumpster? Ever heard about shelters? There's one of those two metro stations down the Applegate line." The man scoffed at him.

Rich snorted and answered: "Yeah, I was there the first night. Three homeless ganged up on me, hit me and stole my duffle bag and the little money I had."

The man frowned and asked, "What you mean by 'first night'?" Rich stiffened when the man moved a step to his left.

Unrest was starting to show in Rich's voice. "I'm an orphan, I turned eighteen around six days ago. When that happened my foster parents stuffed a handful of clothes in a duffle bag, gave me twenty bucks and said, 'government doesn't pay us anymore for keeping you here, so hit the road, Richter'."

Tilting his head with a stupid grin, the man answered, "Richter? Whatta fucked up name is that? And you sure you'd be telling all this a stranger, Riiichteeer." Said the man dragging his name in a teasing tone.

"It's German. My grandfather on my mother's side was German and my mother named me after him because I'm supposed to have inherited his eyes. About the other question, someone told me once that it's good to get things out of your chest, and sometimes it's easier to do it with strangers." Answered Rich.

"In any case," The man went on ignoring or not picking on Rich's annoyed tone. He moved another step to the left, blocking almost completely the only way out of the dirty back alley. "Your situation is pretty fucked up. I think I can help you; treat you to a warm meal and give you the spare cash I have on me. You only have to do me a little favor."

Rich's inner alarms where ringing like crazy, and they got even worse when he saw the look in the man's eyes and the sickening way he liked his thick lips. Rich was getting into a defensive stance when the individual grabbed his right wrist, hard. He smelled of alcohol, but his reaction speed now showed that he being drunk had been an act to get close to his prey.

With a hoarse voice, the man spoke into Rich's face. "I haven't been able to get it wet tonight, so I could use a blowjob."

Rich struggled to escape while he stuttered an answer. "Sir, let me go! I don't have that kind of interests! I..."

His objections were cut short by the slap of the fat pervert. "How dare you, you fucking homeless bitch!? I'm trying to be nice! I even offered to pay you!"

The man went on with his rant, but Rich no longer heard him. Indignation, rage, embarrassment, and other feelings started to boil inside him, mingling with everything else that he'd kept bottled up inside until all of it exploded in the shape of an animal wrath. His sight clouded in red as his only coherent thought was to harm the thing that threatened his safety in a way that he would never dare to go near him again.

Now the man was on the floor, gurgling and grabbing at his neck as blood poured out of his ripped throat. Rich looked at his left hand, fingers still extended and joined imitating the blade of a spear, and for a second he could have sworn that his nails were a shiny black, but he discarded the thought, blaming it on the tension of the moment, the darkness of the alley and the fact that his fingers were smeared in blood.

Not even thinking about hiding the soon-to-be corpse, he dashed away from the crime scene. "Why is the world so fucked-up? And why does it have to be me it happens to be in front of it whenever the shit hits the fan?" Rich lamented with a labored whisper as he ran through the night.

Twenty minutes later, the gargoyles of the Forrest building stared at him with their rocky visage. Rich stopped at a public fountain in MacArthur Park to wash his hand and have a quick drink, trying to think of when and where had his life gone down the gutter. Maybe four years ago, but the truth is that everything had gone to hell long before that.

Little Richie, as his mother used to call him, had asked for a family outing to the cinema and the shopping mall for his sixth birthday. He pouted when his mother told him that his dad was busy with work, but at the last minute, his father had cleared his schedule for the evening and Richie had what he wanted.

Later, he would need specialized help to overcome the guilt and sense of blame. As the shopping mall suffered a terrorist bombing where Rich became an orphan, escaping by mere luck. Even with that, the images and sounds of the slaughter still haunted him, especially the image of his dismembered father.

For a reason that still eluded him, Rich's surname changed; the reason they gave him being that, as his parents couldn't be properly identified, relatives who could take care of him couldn't be found, so the legislation at that moment stated that he had to take the name of his assigned orphanage as his new surname.

Richter Maynard was born at the age of six, and he'd immediately entered the adoption program, but that was just the beginning of his misery.

His first two foster families took him back to the orphanage, alleging that the boy had something wrong with him, something that scared them, and the psychologists and psychiatrists weren't able to pinpoint anything aside the post-traumatic stress disorder. One and a half year after becoming an orphan, the third one did the trick, as they say.

Arthur and Ellen Jefferson had grown up together, started dating around the age of fifteen, and married right after getting out of university. They focused on their respective careers and put off having children until it became too late: when they approached their mid-thirties, Ellen developed a womb complication that left her unable to bear children, so the Jefferson's turned to the option of adopting.

That was the moment Rich, now a nine-year-old, started to regain his faith in what it means to have a family. Far from throwing in the towel the moment they had a bad feeling from Rich, they took him to a famous (and expensive) therapist who helped him get out of his chest everything he had been bottling up. Seeing how Rich needed an escape valve, and with the therapist's support, Arthur (passionate about Japanese culture) started teaching Karate to Rich; not only the combat moves, but he also instructed him in the philosophy behind it.

His relationship with his foster mother couldn't have been better. Ellen was a very loving and attentive mother, making Rich feel a part of the family almost from the moment he arrived at their home. He would never forget the way Ellen hugged him and cried when Rich suggested changing his surname to Jefferson.

Though not everything was as perfect as he would have wished for. That particular trait of his made other people wary of him; schoolmates bullied him and teachers often brought him in for questioning, asking him if he was doing drugs or if he had joined a gang.

Obviously, his foster parents defended him, declaring that he was a good boy who was usually misunderstood. As it happens in many cases like this, disciplinary measures only served to enrage the bullies, and Rich ended up having to change schools.

At the age of fourteen, his first crush, Rosemary Landon, nicknamed "Boobsmary" by the boys in their class because of her using a double D at such an early age, asked him out, only to break up with him three days later. Rich followed her a whole week asking for a reason, trying to be reasonable and asking (more like demanding) that if he had done something wrong she should tell him instead of breaking up right away. In the end, she lost her temper and yelled in front of the whole class that she only asked him out to see if the boy she actually liked would get jealous at seeing her with most pathetic freak of the school.

Despite the ups and downs, Rich had attained a certain measure of peace and happiness that he hadn't known in ten years, but that's the moment the hammer fell once more on his hopes and expectations.

According to the report, Arthur Jefferson, age forty-two and profession architect was surveying the works on the roof of a five-story building when he suffered a sudden heart attack, falling from the scaffolding surrounding the project.

The loss of her life-long partner was too hard on Ellen. The depression triggered a dormant condition, worsening her womb illness into cancer. Rich was sent back into the system given her terminal condition.

Richter, now sixteen-years-old, ended up in a strict and religious house with three sisters, ages ranging from twelve to seventeen. He didn't last a year at the house, due to the filth hiding behind the mask of purity: the head of the family sexually abused his daughters on a regular basis. Rich only reported this when the man went after him too.

Another blame that weighed heavily on Rich's and fueled his nightmares was the muffled cries of his step-sisters while being abused. He still asked himself, "What if I'd acted sooner?"

After that, and with his heart dulled over the past experiences, Rich ended up at your typical, overcrowded shelter where the " parents" didn't really care for anything or anyone as long as they got their government payment. During that time, Rich found his second girlfriend and lost his virginity to her. Only to find out the hard way that she was secretly having a relationship with his current foster father, using him as cover in case she got pregnant from the older, married man.

At that point in time, he was so sick of everything that he almost didn't even bat an eyelash when his foster parents threw him out on the street, just like that. His first options where to turn to the police or the government sheltering system.

Legally speaking, his foster parents didn't have any obligation to keep taking care of him, and given that he'd already come of age, he'd no longer be accepted into any institution. With infallible precision, Rich had been turned into a beggar, and now most probably, he was going to end up in jail for murder.

His laments were cut short by a loud crash, accompanied by the breaking of glass and the screeching scream of metal tearing and being dragged along the pave. Turning by instinct to the origin of the sound, Rich found a car that had been toppled to the side of the passenger by a lateral impact.

Rich ran to the car, so focused on helping the victims that he didn't register the absence of the vehicle that should have provoked the accident, or the total lack of vehicles, for that matter. In one jump he was on top of the car and fighting the door to open it, but the impact had deformed the metal, which couldn't be opened.

Smoke started rising as well as a surge of the same rage he had felt in that dirty back alley. "Not this time," he thought. "This time I won't allow anyone to suffer if I can do anything to prevent it."

Affirming his feet, and with the red mist surfacing again, Rich pulled with all of his strength, even when a muscle of his back sent a flash of pain through his body. With a tortured scream, the door opened and was almost ripped from the car.

Toppling backwards, Rich fell to the ground, the car door landing nearby. he was upon the vehicle in an instant. He found an unconscious middle-aged man, with his left arm bent at a strange angle. Taking care to move the man's injured arm as least as possible, Rich pulled him out of the car and to the other side of the road.

Pain suddenly brought the man back to consciousness. Holding his arm, he started to stand up clumsily. Rich tried to stop him, but the man, with his noble factions transfigured by worry and fear, tried to get Rich off of himself while screaming, "My daughter! Why hasn't my daughter got out yet!?"

"You stay here! I'll go and get her!" Answered Rich, though he was already halfway there.

Entering the smashed vehicle, his breath caught in his throat, though not due to the smoke. When the man had talked about his daughter, Rich had imagined a little girl, not the twenty-some blonde goddess he saw still tied to her seat, awake but stunned.

But Rich had no time to revel in the beauty of the woman he had in front of him. The smoke was growing thicker and that could only mean one thing. The seat belt buckle didn't work, but Rich had no problem breaking it open in his surge of strength. The woman moaned and wiggled slightly, but Rich was already carrying her out of the car towards her father.

The man was saying something, but Rich heard it as if he was underwater. The exhaustion of the efforts that night, coupled with days of malnutrition and nights with little to no sleep brought him to his knees. He was already unconscious when his head hit the pavement.

**********

As Judecca Curwin walked down the street, gazes turned at her, men staring with desire and women with envy... though some with desire too.

Even though she was a twenty seven year-old university teacher, right now she had the looks of a powerful and successful businesswoman. The dark gray tube skirt tightened at her hips, with the matching jacket buttoned over her smooth belly emphasizing the shape and size of her breasts. Together with that, her perfectly oval face had stunning honey-colored eyes, a beauty mark at the right corner of her seductive lips was framed by a toasted-blonde lush mane, halfway between wavy and outright curly. The set was completed by an elegant leather satchel which seemed to hold a thick book with a purple cover.

Against her own will and better judgment, Judecca was hurrying to a date she didn't want to attend, and even worse, one she was getting late to; Alexander Doubon was selfish, self-centered, arrogant, looked down on everyone and had the firm belief that he was above everything and everyone because he had been born. Your basic definition of a douche, but a douche with a father who held a prominent position on the Council.

Judecca arrived, almost fifteen minutes late, at the Forrest building and headed directly for the restaurant, stopping only to let the maitre-d guide her to the table where her unwanted date was waiting for her.

"You're late." Alexander complained in an even tone, without taking his eyes off the smartphone screen he was flicking with his thumb. Turning to look at the maitre-d, he dictated and order, more than placing it. "Bring me a bourbon, and my partner will be having a white wine."

Trying to hide her reaction at her date's attitude, Judecca corrected with a calm she didn't feel, "Cancel what he asked for me and bring me a Scotch whiskey on the rocks."

The dinner passed by without incidents, Judecca answering her date's questions politely but briefly. Most of the time, it was Alexander talking about Alexander and praising Alexander's greatness, something that was gnawing at Judecca's patience at a steady rhythm. It was a test of will power for her to not look at her watch.

The waitress had taken away the dishes of the dessert and served the coffee when Alexander finally asked, "So, what was so important for you to go out of your way and make me wait?"

The emphasis he had put on the me didn't slip past Judecca, who frowned for a moment trying to keep the irritation from showing on her face. Taking out a silver cigarette case from a pocket of her satchel, she opened it and chose a white hand-wrapped cigarette and lit it.

Puffing out the smoke, Judecca apologized for the sake of a civilized conversation. "Sorry to be late, but I had to attend a last-time tutorship with one of my students."

Alexander scoffed at that. "My fiancee, the abnegated educator."

Judecca stiffened at that remark, and for the first time in the whole night, her self-control broke. She looked at Alexander in displeasure and answered in a cold, steely tone, "I am nothing yours. You made your proposal, I rejected it. Despite your demonstration of disproportionate ego, I warned you that any future proposal from you would be rejected as well."

Far from being intimidated by her outburst, Alexander laughed, dismissing her words with a wave of his hand. "You have rejected each and every proposal you have received, and they haven't been just a few. Very prominent men have sought to bind you and you've looked down on all of them."

Alexander had been all the night sitting slovenly in his chair, as if the whole place belonged to him, now he straightened up to look at Judecca seriously in the eyes. "What do you seek in a man to reject even me, the son of a second-tier member of the Council?"

Judecca straightened herself as well and answered raising her chin proudly. "For starters, I seek a man who doesn't think that the political position is everything, a man who doesn't despise everyone he thinks inferior to him... a man who loves me for who I am, not for my physique or my family's position."