Arthur slammed on the brakes too late and the borrowed car careered into the other MCPD vehicle the girl had just jumped out of. Great, more damage to explain.
He didn’t know who the hell she was but she was fighting like a stray cat to get away. He suspected she’d broken his nose, it was bleeding freely down the front of his shirt.
He jumped out and followed the Special sprinting after the girl. Damn these guys were fit. Maybe it was time to lay off the fast food, everyone was out-running him today. Arthur was dreading filling out the forms for this. Oh, and the stick he was going to get back at the precinct. This was the kind of story you never live down. Some fourteen year old girl had escaped custody, broken his nose and stole his car.
All with an arm that looked suspiciously like it was out of the socket. When he’d seen her jump… He’d thought she was, you know, ending it. The relief at seeing her moving in the snow, but then she got up.
No, she wasn’t trying to hurt herself, just so scared that jumping backwards out of a window with her hands cuffed behind her back was a better option than going with them.
What had she done? What the hell were the Specials going to do to her?
She was already a quarter of the way across the bridge when they he reached the side of the guy. He’d stopped for some reason – was he giving up? The bridge ran parallel to some colossal pipes, god knows what for. They didn’t look like they’d been used for a century. The walkway looked like it was held up by rust and habit.
The agent beside him flicked the catch on his holster. Arthur frowned, was he…? Motherfucker, he was drawing his gun! On a kid.
The man pulled up the sidearm, expertly flicking the safety and sighted down the barrel.
Arthur spent half a second frozen, undecided on what action to take. One part of him screamed to stop the guy, the sensible part reminded him of what kind of shit he was going to get into if he did.
Fuck that.
He threw himself sideways, just as the shot went off. Was he too late? The agent turned and shouted at him, but Arthur’s eye watched as the girl fell.
She rolled, slipping between the rusted railings and plummeted into darkness, and silence.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” they shouted at each other.
A Grey World 
Bonus chapter! Because this one was annoyingly short and would have involved uploading two at once again which I’m not a fan of.
What are people’s opinions on these switching POV chapters? Any good? Is going over the same events from a different point of view frustrating/saying too much?
Thanks for keeping me really high on Top Web Fiction everyone – kept third place for a long time even with some tough competition. I really appreciate it.
I’m a fan of the style, but, then again… I’m a writing group. We switch pov, all the fucking time.
The POV stuff is good, it helps show just what’s going on better than a straight Alexis view. It’s best when the switch adds something that couldn’t be seen from another POV.
That said, this chapter is short. Main points seem to be that the cop threw off the suit’s aim, and Alexis fell. What was being shot, and what she fell into or onto are up in the air at this point. We’re really not much further in the story than we were last chapter.
Depending on how things go, it would be nice to see a return to this cop later on. Fallout from his decision, an explanation of just what the suit was planning, whatever. I’m a sucker for seeing bit characters expanded on.
Yeah, this chapter is *very* short, hence why it is just a bonus (not being one of the monday or friday uploads) – normal sized chapter on Friday.
Expect to see a little more of him at least!
I like occasional pov changes, but I’d like them to actually show us something important that we didn’t already know. The person knocking the gun doesn’t tell us anything except that he’s not a complete Dick. I’d rather see one that shows us more about her background, or a new threat, like the previous one of them entering the hospital. This one doesn’t have any new information; it doesn’t really seem necessary.
“Is going over the same events from a different point of view frustrating/saying too much?”
Au contraire, sometimes you have to see whats going on behind main characters back, how does it all look like from other than main perspective. Main characters viewpoint is often distorted, especially in these dark fictions, insanity, pain, injury and whatnot. And sometimes you need to contrast main viewpoint to some other viewpoint.
If so desired, event repetition can be avoided, just play the event through only from secondary viewpoint where needed and make a timejump in main character viewpoint.
For example this and last chapters could have been combined into one (longer than this)chapter, from Arthurs viewpoint only.
Here its not really a problem, but indeed in some fictions event repetition from different viewpoints can go crazy, example try reading early chapters of Wheatly Academy, same events repeated over and over from 6+ different viewpoints, insane. Obviously caused by having many authors, every one with his own pet character and everyone wants to tell the tale of this super awesome event. Cant really happen with single author fiction, author gets sick of writing about the same event before reader does from reading it.
Fuck he thought she was, you know, ending it.
Fuck,
The different perspectives are nice. Similar to what’s already been said – not much added to the story as a whole, just a different look. Won’t complain about a bonus chapter, that’s for sure.
The POV I had hoped for – or asked for, as one may see it – and a drop of that good old grey humor at the end. Nice. Short, but there’s a place for short interludes and such.
Typo: “He thought she was” => “He’d thought”
Oh, and I for one am glad to see Alexis not falling into the claws of The Man. At least, not yet. I think. I hope.
Next chapter link is broken, the one saying “next chapter,” not the one saying “chapter 24.1.”
Thanks, fixed. Hope no one got stuck (especially considering this is an extra chapter)