Race With a Heart -
Chapter 109: Looking For the Truth
Chapter 109: Looking For the Truth
"How many attackers were there?" Moore asked suddenly, surprising Martin.
Martin took a deep breath. He tried to calm down, but was unable to do so. It was hard for him to focus his thoughts.
"Five," he replied. "Maybe... maybe six. I saw four, but someone was still a little further away. There it was... it was darker there, but someone was moving in there and escaped with the others. It could have been one person or more."
"Good. So you’ve seen four, but there could have been more," Kevin concluded. "These four were in a better light. Have you seen the colors? "
"Colors?" Martin was surprised.
"Yes, the colors. You see four men and Steve. What colors do you see? "
"I do not know. It was rather dark. Dark colors. And I think yellow. One of them was wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt like some students wear. There was a darker stain on the back. Not a logo. Dog? Some animated animal. "
"Excellent" praised the delighted Kevin. "You’re doing really great. He was different because he had a light jacket. Have you seen this jacket before? "
"Yes!" Martin exclaimed in surprise. "He stumbled over, bumped into our table and almost spilled his beer on us!"
"Was his hair pale too?"
"Yes! And he was young. He was very young! As if he had just finished high school. "
"Excellent! You saw his clothes and you saw his face. Do you remember where he was sitting in the bar? "
"Hmmmm... Martin was clearly thinking. "Against the wall. There were three of them. When I left the bar, they were inside. "
Moore looked at Jack with satisfaction. Lambert did not understand this strange interrogation as much as Martin did.
"Did you talk to this man after he bumped into your table?" the professor continued.
"He apologized and left. Just that."
"Did he seem angry to you? Furious? Pensive?"
"No. It was a normal drunk guy. Only..."
"Yes?"
"Then, in the back of the bar ... He didn’t look drunk."
"Why do you think so?"
"He stood well. Not as if he was about to lose his balance. Like in a bar. "
Moore smiled, pleased but more serious.
"This is very important information," he announced.
"Why?" Jack asked.
"Wait a minute. Martin, you said when you left the bar, they were still in it. And Steve? "
"Steve went to the toilet. After the second beer, he was slightly drunk. "
"Paxton got drunk on two beers?" Lambert asked incredulously. "Impossible."
"Okay, you went outside and Steve stayed inside. What happened next? "
These questions were more like the interrogation Martin had expected.
"I was waiting in the car, behind the wheel, because I only had one beer. Steve wasn’t coming so I got worried and went looking for him. "
"Why you got worried?"
"Jack said Steve should be under surveillance after the accident. I thought maybe he passed out. But I haven’t seen him anywhere. He wasn’t in the bathroom. Everyone in the bar was normal. "
"And the boys? The one in the yellow jacket? "
"I haven’t seen them."
"Did you see them leaving the bar?"
"No, but I wasn’t looking at the door." Martin sighed. He wanted to tell Kevin as best he could, but the memories brought him pain and... guilt. If Martin had been with Paxton all the time, or had he started looking for him sooner, Steve wouldn’t have been in such a bad condition now.
"You don’t think it was an accidental bar brawl?" Jack’s question snapped out of his reverie.
"That’s correct," admitted Moore.
This answer surprised Martin.
"But that would mean that someone really wanted ... that he wasn’t just angry, but someone really ... wanted to kill him!" the shocked boy exclaimed. "But it..."
"I can’t imagine it either," Lambert stated firmly. How could anyone want to kill another human? For what?"
"Martin, think about if Steve has been acting weird lately?"
"No, I don’t think so ..." the mechanic replied hesitantly. "It means ... Very."
"Very?" Kevin was surprised.
"I don’t know how much you know about us, but Steve didn’t want to get involved with me for a long time, but a week ago he decided to give us a chance. That was weird. I wanted to be with him, but I did not expect it ... Then he got some strange text message and for a few days he did not show any sign of his life, but then, just before leaving for race, we decided to be together completely. And before the race itself..." Martin blushed slightly. Some things are not even discussed with friends. "He was a bit weird. I had a bad feeling. "
"You’re not thinking ...?" Jack looked at Kevin, but Kevin nodded at him not to bring it up.
"I don’t think anything yet, except that Martin, you’ve provided us with a lot of information. Thanks to them, we will know where to start looking for the perpetrators. From what the doctor said, Steve should be awake tomorrow and you can see him, so today you should get some rest. There is little time until dawn, but even two hours of sleep will do you good. "
"But..."
Kevin smiled warmly at him.
"Do it for Steve. You don’t want him to worry about you, do you? "
"Do you really think he’s going to be okay?" Martin wanted to make sure. It’s funny that in times of the greatest fear, people need reassurances and guarantees so badly, although no one has really been able to give them. But this is what makes their hearts last until these better days. In such situations, the usual ’everything will be fine’ will really work.
"Of course," said Moore. "Now try to sleep. You don’t want to pass out by Steve’s bed, do you? "
"Say what you think," insisted Lambert. Jack was just a little less moved by what had happened to Paxton than Martin. Martin witnessed someone trying to kill the man he loved, Jack knew his friend was under attack. "You think the two things are related?"
"Jack, it’s too early for such conclusions. But I would also like to question you. "
"Me?" Lambert was surprised. "You know, if things were different, I’d gladly let you handcuff you and give me an interrogation, but Steve was attacked ..."
"I’m not talking about that." Moore shook his head resignedly, but made a mental note to buy plush handcuffs. "Did you notice anything weird about Steve’s behavior?"
"Yes," admitted Lambert. "Steve was nice to me."
"Nice?" Kevin was surprised. "Strange..."
"Yea, I know"
"I thought he thought you were too loud."
"Because it is so, but I think Martin influenced him to open up to people. Yes, to me too. Either I stopped irritating him so much or he decided to change himself. "
"So you think it’s because of Martin. And these track situations? "
Jack shook his head.
"I really don’t know," he announced. "Steve was acting like nothing had happened, you heard his interview but I think everyone would be shocked by it all. Only to what extent? "
Exactly, to what extent?
Kevin has never spoken to Paxton before. He only knew him from Jack’s stories, from the media, and from how much Martin loves him. Martin was a good boy, but not stupid, and he was definitely not the kind of people who almost fanatically believed that they could turn a beast into a good prince. If Martin saw good in someone, it was really there, not only in his imagination.
Anyway, Moore had never doubted that Paxton’s aggressive, irresponsible behavior was merely a defense mechanism he employed to deal with the guilt over Hannah’s accident. Every human heart wanted to live and be happy. Those were primal instincts that weren’t so easy to drown out. So Steve, too, though his consciousness had grown insensitive, wanted to experience the intensity of life. When Paxton was involved in fights, paradoxically, he did it to feel life within himself. On the one hand, alcohol drowned out the pain, and on the other, it gave him intense sensations. Sex was emotionally empty, but it gave his body an atavistic substitute for passing on its genes. So all of this was an unconscious desire to survive. It did exist in the realm of primal instinct, but it did.
So when the new threat emerged, of course he wanted to survive it too. Steve wanted not only to live, but also to live like a human, with his head held high. At that point, he was no longer driven solely by instinct, but by conscious choice. It was Martin who helped him make this transmission between the unconscious and the conscious. If love did have any miraculous powers, the relationship between Martin and Steve was the best example of this.
For some, love may be ridiculed as an invention of poets, by others it could be treated as the most important value of human life. Kevin liked to think of her as something in between - love was a pleasant feeling that motivated people to live.
Martin’s love must have given Steve the strength to face the new attack and the invisible enemy. Paxton finally had a new motivation to live. Knowing that you are loved is a beautiful, motivating feeling, especially if you like the person yourself.
Moore looked at his Jack. Before he met this crazy driver, he was living a quiet, enjoyable life. Acquaintance with Jacek, and above all his love, made Kevin’s life take on new, wonderful colors. For this dear idiot Moore, if he had to be forced, he would even be able to do something wrong, and he probably wouldn’t feel guilty about it. So thanks to Martin, how much must Steve’s reality have changed?
If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.
Report