James pov:
Despite being a summertime Friday evening, I was walking alone back to my apartment just off campus. I returned to school for my final year only a few weeks ago, and classes were just getting into swing, so I still had plenty of free time, just like most other students. To that end, I had been invited to a start-of-the-year party thrown by one of the fraternities, along with my best friend, Kyle. Yet, when I met Kyle under the pretense of heading there, we concluded that neither of us were particularly invested in attending. Both of us had had our fill of that scene and largely grown out of it. The invitations were given to everyone even remotely acquainted with the hosts, and our absences wouldn't be noteworthy.
Part of my disinclination for attending a large rush party came from simply feeling under the weather. I had been feeling under pressure for the last month, a feeling that only grew more intense as the school year kicked off. The logical assumption was to attribute it to nerves. I was heading into my senior year, talking to professional recruiters and angling for positions when I graduated. In ten months, I would leave school behind and join the real world, becoming fully responsible for myself for the first time. My parents were a great help in financing school but that meant I was a bit less involved in the decision-making process. I didn't fully grasp the financial realities of running my own life because I hadn't been required to learn them. I figured the flutter in my chest and the aches in my bones were just nerves about growing up and taking control of my destiny.
After relaxing with Kyle for the afternoon, without really feeling any better, I headed home myself. Kyle lived on the other side of campus from where I did, his apartment located near where all of the greek life was -- hence why I met him at his place, as it was more convenient for heading to the event when we were still entertaining that idea. Now I was walking across town back to my apartment. It was a refreshing night out -- warm enough as summer came to a close, not a cloud in the sky, a pleasant and invigorating breeze passing lazily through with just a hint of the inevitable chill.
To get home, I had two choices. I could cut through the nightlife center that was just off-campus and frequented by every student with a fake ID each weekend, or I could walk through campus, detouring around the bars and clubs and taking an extra half an hour to get home. I wasn't in a rush per se, but I felt no reason to avoid the surely crowded streets and rowdy atmosphere.
As I walked through McKinley Street, the center of the action, I found myself repulsed by the raucous noise, overexuberance on display, and the tackiness, bravado, and desperation shown by the owners and patrons alike. I found that thought confusing because I had never had a firm opinion about this area before. Sure, I knew it wasn't my scene, but that just meant I didn't frequent it. Suddenly being repulsed by what was in front of me felt jarring.
The main drag of McKinley Street was a strip mall that ran adjacent to a green area in the town center. The buildings were several floors tall, and many contained a business on each floor with the college demographic in mind. A bar on the ground floor, a take-out restaurant on the second, and a bubble tea cafe on the third. A tanning salon, a gym, several trendy fashion outlets -- anything a 20-year-old with too much spending money and no parental guidance could be interested in.
Little alleys ran to the back between the ground floors of these stores to allow for deliveries and services. As I meandered past one of these, I heard some kind of altercation taking place and then winced as my curiosity got the best of me. A glance down the grubby path revealed two burly men in suits standing some ways off of a third man. This third man was wearing an old, beat-up pair of jeans and a tired shirt with some construction company logo faded on the back. He was yelling at a girl.
This girl was much smaller than he was, thin, wiry, and petite in every sense. She had cut her hair short, barely covering her ears. I couldn't see more clearly in the dark of the night and the dimly illuminated alley. The man had one arm against the wall, trapping and holding her in place. She wasn't going anywhere anyway, as she had pressed herself back into the wall and avoided his gaze, frozen in place and withdrawn to escape everything happening. He was yelling something but was clearly inebriated because the few intelligible words weren't coherent. I could tell he was raving about money, but not much more.
When I paused at the entrance to the alley, the nearer of the two suited men cleared his throat. The aggressive man must've missed the obvious warning because he continued yelling and berating the girl before him. She started crying quietly, and I felt compelled to step in. I didn't want to play a hero, but this entire situation seemed off, and the two suits weren't doing shit to control the other man.
I cleared my own throat and loudly said, "What appears to be the issue here, sir?"
The aggressive man spun on the spot, but as he turned, he grabbed the girl's arm and gripped her hard. She whimpered when he did. He wavered back and forth as he stood, no longer leaning on the brick wall, and slurred back at me, "The fuck you want, kid? This ain't your problem -- fuck off."
"If you can explain why you seem to be holding her here against her will, I'll be on my way."
"Fuck off, asshole, she took some of my money, and I need it now."
Oh. I understood what was going on now. The suits were here to collect money from him, and he didn't have any to give them. He was making a big show of trying to get money from this girl, who had 'stolen' it from him. She probably had no idea what was going on. What a mess.
"I think it's pretty clear she doesn't have your money, man."
He snarled at me. Something in the back of my mind clicked, and I realized I could smell fear from the man. He was performing being a tough guy to try and prevent anything from happening. He was desperate to avoid the wrath of the suits behind him. Wait -- smelled fear? That didn't make any sense. But now that I had realized it, I could feel that the entire alley was full of fear and loathing -- coming primarily from the girl. That's why I was so confident that she wasn't in on this game the man was playing, as she was genuinely terrified by him and the situation she was in. I didn't get anything but mild annoyance and impatience from the suits.