My Name Is

My name is Alexei Maximov. I have lived in this apartment for 17 years. For 17 years I took. I extorted my neighbors for protection money on the mobs behalf. Now, I don’t know anymore. I was young and eager to be a part of something, so I picked the mob. It didn’t hurt that the money was good.

When the green light hit, I discovered my powers soon after. I shoot out pressure. I exert pressure on things in a straight line from my body. I tested it a while ago, and I broke the gauge, so something above a 20,000 PSI. I decided not to tell my boss, I figured no good could come of it. I think I’ll eventually tell him, but I’m a bit preoccupied right now.

I had been having trouble with room 103 for a while. Tonight would be the end of that. They were sending in some more advanced enforcers to take care of it. Only thing is, I don’t really want 103 to get ‘taken care of’. See, there’s a girl that lives there… She can’t afford protection, and probably wouldn’t pay it if she could. I feel a little bad about the whole thing, but what can you do? Either way, it’s almost nine, so that means they’re almost here.

I walk down the stairs and wait for them on the curb. Soon enough, a black van pulled in and 3 burly dudes stepped out. I haven’t seen them before, but they’re all wearing tool belts, and I don’t think they’re there to fix her sink.

“Where is girl?” The meatiest of the bunch spoke up. He had an incredibly thick Russian accent, and I’d wager he’s the only one of these fellas who speaks any English.

“Right this way.” I sigh quietly. I don’t know what this is, but I’m not okay with this, with any of this. I’m not okay with this awful feeling, I’m not okay with this girl getting her fingers broken, and that’s if she’s lucky. It’s not like I can do anything though. Even if I did get rid of these guys, 3 more would come and they’d be after a lot more than fingers.

I walk through the halls of my apartment. “Hey, wait here, I’ll signal for you to come in.”

“You have 5 minutes.”

I nod and bang my hand on the door. I know she won’t answer, but I don’t like busting down doors as my first resort. I wait a moment and then sigh. I back up and get ready to kick it in, when she opens it. She’s wearing a tank top and flannel pajama pants. As I look at her, I think about all the things that I’ve seen guys like this do. I don’t think I’ve ever felt sick to my stomach about something like this before.

“What?” she says flatly. She looks at me with sheer annoyance. She has no idea what’s coming. She has no idea what these guys are like when someone tries to stick it to them.

“I need to come inside.” I don’t know why I didn’t have anything better than that, maybe it’s because I’m putting too much mental energy to not throwing up.

“Are you sick or something? Fine you have five minutes.” She stepped inside. I don’t think she saw the men standing off to the side. I step inside and close the door behind me. “So? What do you want?”

“I’m here with three very angry men from the mob.” I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s not like her coughing up the money would change anything, at this point it’s about the symbol.

“Is that a threat? You can-” She didn’t even look a little afraid.

“You pissed off the mob. They are going to hurt you and your kid.” And there’s nothing I can do about it.

Her expression changes, she looked a mix of furious and terrified. “Do you like this? Going around and ruining lives? You know I can’t afford that kind of money! You’re disgusting!” She began to yell. “How can you work with these men! Are you going to go upstairs, and count your money while you hear us screaming?”

She’s right. I’m the bad guy. I am nauseating. I am a coward. I can’t do this anymore. “Do you have any way out of the apartment besides the front door?” What the hell am I doing? I am asking to end up on the front page as the man who committed suicide by shooting himself three times in the back of the head.

“Are you trying to help me?”

“I can’t do this anymore…” I truly can’t.

“You know we don’t have fire escapes here, the front door is the only way out.”

The door came flying down. I was out of time. There was no escape, I could fight and ruin my life, as well as the lives of everyone in this building, or I could ruin just two people’s lives. Who am I kidding. I’ve already ruined the lives of everyone in this building, it’s only fit to ruin my mind too.

I send a wave of force at the man who busted down the door. He flew through the brick wall of the apartment out onto the streets. The other two Russians stood dumbfounded for a moment before raising their guns and firing. I send another wave at the bullets. One of them went through the Russian who fired it, and the other through the wall. The one who was shot falls to the ground, the other freezes.

I knock the gun out of his hands and push him to the ground. I apply pressure to his chest, I think I broke some ribs.

“Tell the boss, he needs to step off of my block.”

The man runs out the door and back to his van.

I step out into the hallway. This is my block, they’ve been paying for protection for years, it’s about time that they started getting some.

My name is Alexei Maximov, and I am the protector of Shady Grove.

 

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Hello all! This is just a one off I wrote the other day that I thought was pretty good. Let me know what you think! Good? Bad? Do you want more of this? As always, thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!