NBR reviewers,

Since you will be jumping into the middle of a scene, pls do note that the scene has already been built in the previous chapter. If there are solid suggestions you can give as to how I can improve the description, with revised examples, I will welcome those ideas. But I will also appreciate you keeping in mind that this is the middle of an iintense situationse chapter carries on from a cliffhanger. (Don't tell me the scene setting was 'so bad' while you forget the presence of previous context. You are welcome at it if you can give me solid ideas in return)

Thank you.

Meli whirled around. I dropped the brush in my hands.

"Fred? Wha—" I started, but he paid me no heed.

"I am going to kill you, you back-stabbing—" He tripped against a table leg, catching himself just in time.

"Fred?" I said again, not knowing what to do. Meli backed away from the advancing man, inching along till she was pressed against the far counter.

She should have been scared out of her mind. Knowing her as I did, right about now she should have been clawing up the walls. But she wasn't. Instead, she was backing away really slow, a strange expression on her face, trembling like a leaf.

"Fred, what are you doing?" I shifted in front of my friend, cutting her off from the oncoming, furious man. "What's wrong?"

"Get out of the way, freak," he said by way of answer, not even blinking as he swept his hand against my shoulder and knocked me down. Meli screamed my name.

I gasped as I landed on my arm, my bum leg twisting under my weight. Fred stormed past.

Meli screamed again, and this time it wasn't a normal scream—if you could call screams normal. This time it was a scream from the soul, a scream you release with all of your being, a scream of desperation and shattered hope.

I turned to find Fred holding my friend by the pink halo of her hair, shaking her. There were tears streaming down her face, her eyes wide and bloodshot, her mouth frozen in a gasp.

"Think you can pull one on me, do you, you stinking piece of shit?" he said, spittle flying everywhere with the force of his speech. He slapped her face with his free hand. Meli whimpered.

"Fred!" I yelled. "What are you doing?" I tried crawling toward them, not knowing what I was doing but convinced I had to do something.

"Think you can rat on me and I won't find out?"

"Fred, please..." Meli blubbered through her moans. Snot dribbled down her upper lip.

I grabbed onto his leg, clawing with my nails. But the man only noticed me as one notices a fly: nothing to worry about, just a nuisance.

He shook out his leg and, when my grip faltered, kicked me on the shoulder with enough force to send me sliding three feet away and straight into a table laden with plates. The pile teetered and fell, one shattering over my head. I saw stars. A wet trickle snaked down my temple.

Fred didn't turn to look, so focused was he on his victim. "Think I won't get to you, huh? Huh?" He pulled her face back and slapped her cheeks again, first one then the other.

"FRED!" I could do nothing but scream, looking around for my crutches. Tears flowed down my own face. What was going on?!

"Hey, cripple? Wanna know what happens when you back-stab? I will tell you... ooh, I will!" and he pulled Meli's hair and punched her right on the nose. There was only a muffled gasp from her, followed by a crunch as something small cracked. Her eyes rolled back into her head.

"Meli!" I shrieked. "What are you doing, you monster!" My crutches. Where were my crutches? I swept a hand on the floor.

There they were, halfway under the table behind me. I grabbed them and heaved myself up with the help of the counter.

"Who will teach you a lesson, pinky? I will... Yes, I will!" He punched her again.

By now Meli wasn't responding. She wasn't screaming anymore and there were no further gasps. Only the wet squishy sound as blow upon blow glanced against blood.

"Stop!" I shrieked. "Let her go!" I limped toward them, picking up a knife on the way. "Let her go or I will stab you. Help!" I screamed at the top of my voice. "Somebody help us!"

Fred looked at me. There was a circle of blood on the floor around him, rubbed into the floorboards by their shuffling feet. Meli hung by her hair from his hand, her feet an inch off the ground. He laughed at me. There was a spray of blood around his nose.

"Party's over, cripple," he informed casually. Then he opened his fist. Meli dropped like a rag doll. He shifted her with his boot. "Nothing's gonna come out of this one for some time now."

"Somebody help us!" I yelled. "Meli!"

I moved toward her as fast as I could. Fred shuffled out of the way, wiping his fist on his shirt. There were pink hairs in his nails.

"Oh, what have you done?" I moaned, dropping to my knees and cradling Meli's head on my lap, the knife falling from my limp fingers. "Meli, are you there? Stay with me, Meli," I whispered. "Stay..."

Her nose was broken, that much was clear. It lay awkwardly on the side on her face, blood gushing out. I wiped at it with my sleeve. Both her eyes were bruised black, her lips cut in more places than was possible to count.

"What have you done?" I kept saying. "What have you done? Meli..."

Her eyes flickered.

"Meli? Meli!" I gasped, just somehow refraining from shaking her. "Meli, are you there?" I looked up. "An ambulance. We need an ambulance!"

I put my friend's head on the ground and got up, making to limp out the door and into the main room of the pub. Fred didn't try to stop me. There was a sick smile on his lips as he watched me hobble past, showing rotten teeth. He was still examining his nails.

I emerged behind the counter, to the surprise of the people around the bar. I rushed to them. "Help me!" I said. "Please, help me. My friend needs to go to the hospital. Please...!" I grabbed a man’s arm. "Please."

But the man shook me off, bringing his glass to his lips and downing the whole thing. His hand trembled and the liquid escaped down the corners of lips is convulsive streams. Refusing to meet my eyes, he turned away. "Look,  lass, I ain't got no part in this."

"Please..." I begged, rushing to the one beside him. "Please!" When he shook me off too, I went to the next and the next. "My friend will die. Please!"

"I'll take you," a young man muttered. I looked at him immediately. He was sitting hunched in the corner and his face was red.

I almost fainted.

"Please...!" I begged. "I will pay you. Save my friend!" The world seemed to whirl around my head.

"Alright," he said, getting up and rolling his sleeves.

"Oh, thank you! Tha—"

"Howards, have some sense." I turned to the old man sitting beside the younger. He was looking up with worried eyes. "This is stupid," he whispered. "You will bring yourself on their radar. Your father," he glanced at me, "your father won't want that. Let someone else do it." He grabbed the boy's hand.

Howard shook him off. "I let it go on long enough. My father would like it less if the girl dies. And no one's helping. Not even you." He leaned down and glared at the older man.

The man looked away. "I have a family," he said through his teeth. "I stay here."

Howard straightened and took a deep breath. "So be it." He lifted his drink and polished it off. Then he looked at me. "Come on."

"Oh, thank you. Thank you so much!"

I rushed inside, knowing he followed by the sound of his boots. But I still looked back to make sure. In the state I was in, having hallucinated help wouldn’t have surprised me.

Inside, Fred was still where he had been, now having moved on to picking his teeth. He smiled when we entered.

"Aah... Howard. I thought it would be you. Filled with soft bones, aren't you?"

"Shut up, Bosley," Howard hissed.

Fred laughed.

I circled the table to where Meli lay. There was more blood around her, fresh and bright, and her clothes were soaked through. She turned slightly to the side. A moan escaped her cracked and bleeding lips. I dropped to the ground and crawled the rest of the way.

"What have you done, you animal..." Howard breathed.

"Meli," I said softly, soothingly, touching her face. "Look Meli, I got help. You will be alright, I promise. We will get you to the hospital and then everything will be fine. "

Meli only whimpered. More blood spluttered from her nose.

"Here, let me carry her," Howard said from behind.

I got out of the way to give him space. Slowly, he fitted his hands under her body and lifted her into his arms. I kept wiping hair out of her face and tucking her shirt under like a protective mother. "Everything will be alright," I said. "I promise. Everything will be alright."

When Howard had gotten to his feet and taken Meli away from my hands, I got up too. For a frightening moment, one of my crutches slipped on the blood-soaked floor. But I regained my balance quickly enough.

Howard carried Meli through the back door, saying that's where his car was. I collected my abaya and purse and followed suit.

In the doorway, I stopped for just a moment and looked back. Fred grinned at me. I met his gaze evenly and said in my most business-like voice. "You will regret this for the rest of your life, Mr. Bosley. I will make sure of that. And... Please consider this Meli's and my resignation." And then I walked out the door to where my friend and a total stranger waited for me.

***

Howard wasn't driving to the hospital. How did I know? Well, when one drives toward the hospital, at least as far as I had noticed, the world starts to fill with hope at every turn. And I don't mean the metaphorical kind. I mean the kind where there are more cars on the streets, more functional street lamps on the side of the road, and a general sense of wellbeing associated with places that brought health.

But for what felt like hours, but must only have been fifteen minutes, Howard continued to drive through the same dismal streets the Ugly Swan inhabited. I knew for a fact it didn't take that long to get to town.

"Howard?" I asked from the back seat, my fingers gently caressing Meli's soaked hair. She had lost consciousness again. But she was alive. I knew because I kept checking her pulse every five minutes. "How long is it going to take us to get there?" I didn't want to disturb his concentration, but the more time it took, the clearer my friend saw the doors of heaven. I had to know.

"We are almost there," he said shortly.

Five minutes and one pulse read later, he stopped in front of an apartment complex. Turning off the engine, he got out and came to the back.

When he opened the door, I had the business end of my crutch pointed right at his face. "This is not a hospital," I hissed. How could I have been so stupid? This man had let Fred beat the pulp out of Meli while he sat outside and drank through her screams. How could I have thought that he was going to help us? How? I kicked myself so hard in my metaphorical butt that I fell down and broke my other leg. Metaphorically.

Howard looked impatient, slowly grabbing the foot of the crutch and moving it aside. I tried holding on to it, but the fulcrum was off and it was easier for him to handle my weapon than for me to hold it in place. "Of course this isn't a hospital. Have you any idea what you are going to tell the doctors when you show up at their doorstep with a girl half beaten to death? The police will get involved and trust me," he glanced at Meli and something strange skittered across his face, "your friend won't want that."

"They will save Meli's life," I said, gripping the crutch harder.

"And so will my father."

I stared at him, not understanding. "Your father?" The man at the bar had mentioned his father too. Who was he?

"My father is a doctor," he said with forced patience, "and he has dealt with cases of this kind more times than he cares to count. This is the best place for Meli right now."

"Well, why didn't you say so earlier?" I asked. "Come on, we have to take her inside."

Howard threw me a glance like he wasn't sure if he could trust me or not. I withdraw the crutch as a sign of truce. In a trice, he had Meli out the car door and was striding toward the building. I followed suit.

We climbed four flights of stairs before he stopped in front of a plain steel door. He shifted his grip on Meli. She looked like a child in his arms, small and vulnerable. The blood on her cheeks was starting to clot.

"Ring the bell," Howard instructed.

I leaned against the wall and pressed the little white button. It rang inside the house.

"Howey?" a sweet, perky voice asked from inside. The chain rattled. "I thought you would be late—"

The door opened and before us stood a slip of a woman in comfortable brown slacks and a sweater that said 'Unicorns Rule'. I stared, not expecting something like this.

"Howard?" Her voice didn't sound so perky anymore. She glanced at her son's—for this fact was as clear as day—face and then at the broken one of the girl in his arms. Her expression changed so suddenly one would think a light bulb flipped on inside her. She waved a hand at us, already backing into the hallway, holding the door wide open. "Oh my God. Bring her in, bring her in. Gently now! I will go and wake your father. The guest room, Howey. Make everything ready and get her comfortable." She shot off down the corridor, only a slightly larger version of Tinker Bell.

"Come on," Howard said as he stepped inside. I hesitated only for a moment before following. Meli was inside. How could I stay out?

Once in, I shut the door. Now it was only me and Meli in a total stranger's house, so far away from town no one would hear our screams.

***

Welcome NBR reviews. Here are the questions. Have at it...

1. Before this chapter, the story is tame, with just a couple of snippets from another character, and the prologue, that hint at suspense. This chapter is supposed to jump out and grab attention. Does it? Please explain.

2. The action here is very important. I have been told that my narrative has a tendency to drag. I have been working on it, and want to know if there is an improvement--as in, does it still drag?

3. Howard’s tame reaction to the abuse and then offering to help has been called into question. (Spoiler alert) His sister went through a similar fate. Can you sympathize with his reaction or does it seem odd? Explain how it can be made smoother.