Next day I went back to that abandoned building and got into one of the rooms. I opened my backpack, took out the two broken covers of the magic book, all the loose pages, all the torn pieces, and some tape I had grabbed from home. I put everything on the floor and started gathering all the torn pieces. Since I had read that book so many times, I knew which pieces were from the same page, and I started arranging them like pieces of a puzzle. When I had put together a whole page, I used a lot of tape to stick it all together.
But it was so old that it barely stuck at all. I lifted the sheet, and the pieces came loose and fell to the floor.
Well, I piled all the pieces and ordered all the loose pages. Then, I took the book covers, arranged the pages in place, and used up all the tape to stick it back together.
But as soon as I opened the book, it broke again and all the pages scattered on the floor.
Seeing the pages like that reminded me of how those fucking clowns had torn up the book and I screamed and cried and started hitting the ground again and again and I really wanted them to be there so I could beat the crap out of them and my hand hurt a bunch but I kept hitting the ground again and again and again and again but then I noticed the pages weren't there anymore.
They were floating in the air.
And they fell at that very moment.
At that time, I didn't know what had happened, but I extended my hand and concentrated just as the book said, just as I had done again and again before to no fucking avail.
But this time the pages rose into the air and stayed there. I moved my hand to the right, and the pages moved there. I moved it to the left, and the pages moved there too. I moved it up and down; I put both hands together, and all the leaves gathered in the air; I separated my hands, and the leaves separated as well; I started to spin around, and the leaves surrounded me and started spinning around with me.
"Oh, how lovely," someone said nearby, and I found myself surrounded by a bunch of clowns staring at me. All the pages fell. "But don't mind us. Just keep doing whatever you were doing," said the oldest of them all. He was wearing a suit and had a gold chain with a skull. He also had clown makeup on.
At that moment I felt a shit ton of fear, but I also felt a lot more anger when I saw that those fucking clown returned and that they were not gonna leave me alone, so I moved my hands back, and the leaves floated towards me; I hugged the book covers and prepared to fight.
"Bring them," the man said to someone, and some clowns brought in two guys with their faces and bodies covered in bandages.
"Was it him?" he asked them, and they nodded. The other clowns laughed.
It was only then that I understood that those guys were the ones that I beat the shit out of.
The man approached me.
"You did this to them?" he asked me.
"So what?" I asked him, more scared than mad, but hoping I could scare him like I did those two clowns who ran away when they saw me beating the crap out of the other two.
Some clowns laughed at me. The man turned towards them, and they shut up.
He turned back and me and smirked.
"What a badass," he told me, then he pretended to be surprised. "Wait. Did they tear up your book?"
I didn't answer.
He then punched one of those guys.
"Apologize, you fucking assholes."
All the clows were surprised to hear that, but no one said anything.
The man pulled a golden pistol from his vest and put it on one of those assholes' face.
"Apologize, you fucks."
"Sorry, I'm sorry," they apologized.
The man grabbed one of them by the head and threw him to the ground.
"Kneel"
They knelt.
"Heads on the floor."
They lowered their heads until they reached the floor.
"Apologize."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," said one of them.
"Please forgive us, Darius," said the other one.
The man then shot one of them in the back of the head. The other looked up, but all he saw was the man shooting him too.
It was the first time I saw someone get killed. All that anger I was feeling vanished in an instant, and I only felt fear. I remembered that day when we saw Paco's brother, and he showed us his gun.
"This is my magic," he told us.
I also thought about Juan, and how right he was when he said magic was bullshit. What's the point of moving some fucking feathers and book pages with magic when someone can kill a man just by pulling a trigger?
The man looked at me. I couldn't even move.
"If a kid beat the crap out of them, then they're making me and my gang look bad, don't cha think?" He came closer to me, and then he squatted down to get even closer. I felt my hands shaking and tears running down my face. He smelled of alcohol and expensive cologne. "The thing is I'm gonna need some replacement. Don't you wanna be a clown? If you can do this" he pointed to the two dead idiots. There was a small pool of blood under their heads "to whoever I told you to, I can pay you what I used to pay them both." He turned around, and one of the clowns pulled out a big roll of cash.
But at that moment all I could see was how that pool of blood was getting bigger and bigger.
The man grabbed the roll of cash and offered it to me.
"Here, for all the trouble. Buy yourself another book, or a hundred more. But before you do..." Suddenly, the man hit me on the top of the head, and the blow was so hard it knocked me to the ground. The man grabbed me by the hair and pulled my face up. I could feel blood all over my mouth. "You beat my men," he said, slamming my face into the ground and pulling me back up. "With that you insulted me and my gang," he said, slamming my face into the ground again and pulling me back up. "And if I don't do something about it, my men will think I'm weak and turn against me," he said, slamming me back down. The pool of blood I was leaving behind was getting bigger and bigger. I could feel several of my teeth falling out and others stabbing my lips.
"That's why I killed those two assholes too, so everyone knows who's in charge."
He slammed me to the ground again and left me there. I couldn't even move.
He left that roll of cash in front of my face.
"Join me, and you'll do great. I have some of my men by the ravine. Just go there and tell them Darius is waiting for you."