[Josh]LOOK, THE BEDBUGS REALLY BITE!

Joshua didn't mean to be defiant. He really didn't start the day off intending to break the rules that his parents put in place for his grounding, honestly. But as the day wore on and he became more and more tired of lazing around and doing nothing, the call of the outside air only grew more tempting. He went up to one of his windows and put his hand against the glass for a moment, feeling the warmth from the sun outside that had soaked into it through the day. It would surely be much better to hang around outside than just sit in here reading all the time, wouldn't it? Joshua adored reading, and when even he was on his last nerve about it... well, then you knew that things were bad. As long as he didn't get caught, it would be fine, right? But how was he going to get out...? It reminded him of his childhood as he sat down on the end of his bed, dark hair slightly messy from laying in bed all day. He used to sit and hatch elaborate plans for how he would break out of his house arrest and go to meet his fri--to meet the gang downtown somewhere. He couldn't think of those men as friends.

The answer came to him so quickly that it was almost brilliant. When the butler entered his room at the usual time to do a quick tidying up of anything that needed fixing, Joshua saw his chance. The man disappeared into the closet and Josh called, "I'll be in the bathroom, no need to clear up in there." He shut the bathroom door loud enough to be heard, and then simply slipped out of the now-unlocked room door and into a shadowy hallway. His heart immediately jumped to his throat, wary of each and every shadow and movement in the rooms. He was paranoid that his parents or sister would be lurking around every corner, despite the fact that he knew his father was at work and his mother was probably in her office on the second floor. Annabel might just be asleep, considering the fact that it was dark and that if he was going to be sneaking out, doing so at night was probably foolish. It would be too easy to run into trouble at night, but Josh wasn't thinking about that. Instead, all he could concentrate on was his boredom and the fact that he wanted a few hours of freedom.

By some stroke of luck, he managed to get down to the first floor without so much as hearing his family, let alone running into any of them. It seemed oddly suspicious until he passed the door leading into the garden and realised that Belle and his mother were chatting, their backs to him as they gushed on about flowers and garden plans together. He lamented the conversations he used to have with his little sister for a moment, then turned away guiltily and slipped out of the front door. "Sorry, Belle...' The words were whispered softly under his breath. She'd probably take a long time in forgiving him for the wrongs he'd done in being arrested and lying to her about so much in his life. He'd tried to preserve her perfect innocence, but in doing so he'd only hurt her more. I only hope she can forgive me.

Josh tried to push his sister from his mind, cheer himself up as he got beyond the gates of the mansion--or rather climbed over the gates of it. He was a little rustier at fence-hopping than he had been in youth, but at least he avoided getting stuck or breaking an ankle on the landing. He didn't know where was was going, so he ended up simply walking in a random direction. It did not help when he came upon the park, remembering the last time he had been here with his little sister and the fact that everything had been fine back then. She hadn't known. Stop thinking about Annabel! It seemed the fates also wanted him to drop any thoughts of his sister, for at that moment his gray eyes fell upon a scene unfolding before him. A girl was being antagonised by a couple of older men, something that made Joshua feel mildly distressed and uncomfortable for a moment. There were about four men and only one woman, and the fact that they were stumbling slightly suggested drunkenness. A selfish part of him didn't want to get involved--Josh didn't play the hero, that wasn't his role in life.

At the same time, the girl was in trouble. Clearly in trouble, and if he didn't step in... what did that make him? An asshole, that's what, he thought bitterly. It would be stupid to think that he could take on four guys alone, even if they were drunk. But he had his knife, and it was with that simple weapon that he did one of the stupidest things he'd ever attempted. Striding up to the scene without so much as a 'hello' to whatever damsel in distress he was aiding, Joshua clocked the nearest one in the side of the head. "Hey, asshole, look at me!" he called out. "The fuck do you think you're doing?" Of course, that got the attention of the others. Pulling the knife, Joshua held it up to keep them at bay. "Don't think I won't use it, because I will fucking shank you if you--Freya!" His gray eyes registered shock as he realised that he knew the girl they'd been harrassing. Shaking his head--now is not the time for pleasantries, Joshua--he said, "We should run. Now. We can't take all four of them, drunk or not." But he wanted to make sure she was ready before he took off or anything. Josh took a wary step back as one of his possible opponents advanced. "The hell did I walk into? Did they do anything?"

Joshua had never really had a hero complex before. He actually was the type of guy that would rather pretend he'd seen nothing and move on than to get involved, but even his questionable conscience didn't like the idea of rape. He didn't think he could just walk on past this situation and sit at home later wondering if they had used her up and left her dead in an alleyway, which would have been the most likely outcome in this sort of situation. He wasn't foolish, at least. Joshua didn't have some idea that he could just bust in, kick ass, and leave. He wasn't trained in any sort of fighting style and even if he was, there were four of them. If he'd been allowed to use his powers it would have been a snap to just wave his hand and incinerate the guys, or at least threaten to, and then walk off all nice and calmly with Freya. However, that wasn't allowed. The last time he'd accidentally lost control and snapped on someone, the government were about to get involved. Thank goodness for his mothers connections in the political world that could erase evidence and call off the search for the elemental in question--her own son. None of Mum's coworkers knew that their own Patricia Dale, Member of Parliament, was an elemental herself, else she'd probably have been their next victim.

Freya tugged on his arm and his next instinct was to bolt, though he did try to remember that she probably ran a little less quickly than him thanks to the fact that his legs were a lot longer. He would have liked to have turned around and decked the one that had grabbed her ass in the face, but he wasn't stupid enough for that. As mentioned earlier, Joshua didn't have a god complex or a hero complex. He usually didn't get involved in this kind of a thing, so he wasn't brave enough to go all kung-fu on their asses and try to impress the 'damsel in distress' in this situation. He led the way into the forest seeing as it would be the best place to hide from a bunch of drunken idiots that would probably lose most of their interest as soon as they lost sight of the girl they were pursuing. Panting from the exertion and bracing one hand against the trunk of a nearby tree to try and catch his breath, Joshua gave her a strained sort of smile. "Well, that was eventful," he said with dry humour. He really didn't find this whole situation funny at all, but he was trying to make light of it at least.

Once his heart rate started to slow down a bit and he could breathe without it sounding haggard and stressed, Joshua wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Gray eyes seemed concerned as he glanced toward the way they'd came, but there was no sign of them nor any sound of footsteps through the trees. Good. It was kind of dark underneath the canopy of the trees and might have been creepy to anyone who didn't like the dark, but it barely seemed to have an effect on Joshua. He'd been raised to understand that scary movies were fake and that you were a whimp if you thought there were monsters under your bed or skeletons in your closet. "What happened back there?" he asked her. "Before I showed up, I mean. Did you know those guys?" He wasn't accusing her of being a slut--oh, no, nothing like that. He just wondered if she'd been hanging around them before they got totally drunk off their asses and started to hit on her and go for her.

A sardonic laugh brushed past Joshua's lips. "I wish I could have broke a few bones, but I don't really want to end up in jail." He tossed the knife up and caught it as if to indicate what he'd meant. If he had really carried through with his threat to shank them or if he had instead decided to snap someone's arm, it wouldn't go well. At the Academy during the war it had been alright to go through with a few acts of violence, because people tended to blame whomever they were angriest at over the real culprit and so the Academy officials couldn't do any accurate investigations into the injuries. Here, however, out in the real world, Joshua was already in trouble with the law. He was grounded by order of his parents and the cops now knew his name for speeding down the street in a Lamborghini and evading arrest. He didn't want to add assault or attempted murder onto his list of offences. "Are you okay?" he wondered, furrowing his brow. He didn't see any visible injuries, but he hadn't witnessed the whole scene. He'd just come upon it midway. "Stupid fucking idiots. I hope they stumble into the street and get hit by a bus." It was a vehement threat that he didn't really mean, but he didn't like it when guys did that kind of thing. It was a violation, it wasn't 'alright' just because Freya was pretty. His parents had taught him to believe that rape and taking advantage of women was most definitely not okay, so he had very negative views of anyone that saw it differently.