There are few quicker ways to spoil the romance of an Autumn evening than the sight of your least favorite person in the world walking towards you with a gun in his hand. Arnold and Helga froze in place, watching La Sombra advance on them. He was taking his time, fully aware that he held all the cards now, and enjoying his victory to the fullest.

"Oskar told me that both of you have used the rooftop entrance almost as much as the front door. I was willing to bet that you'd think it was the sneaky way into the building tonight. Looks like I won that little bet."

"La Sombra, you weasel! You're not going to get away with this!" shouted Arnold.

The older man stopped and blinked. "Did you seriously just give me the 'you're not going to get away with this' line, boy? Really? That's just plain disappointing. I was hoping for some witty banter like you see in the movies, and that's what you bring?" He sighed. "How about you, Señorita, got anything better?"

Helga was vibrating with contained anger, but didn't act on it. La Sombra had a gun, which was a massive advantage to begin with. He also had distance and surprise working for him. There was just nothing she could do right now, and that thought only further fueled the boilers of the steam-powered wrath engine churning within her. She gritted her teeth, but said nothing.

"So quiet? It doesn't matter anyway. Your boyfriend here is the one I need alive. I can barter his life for La Corazón. His parents and the green-eyes won't dare refuse me now. Then, finally, I can rid myself of this entire family. You though…"

La Sombra pointed his old German pistol at Helga's chest.

"You, I don't need. In truth, I don't personally care if you live or die, but an associate of mine has a definite preference in the matter."

Arnold leapt in front of Helga, wagering that La Sombra wouldn't risk shooting him to get to her.

"You'll have to go through me first!"

La Sombra shrugged, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Ok."

The gun lowered, and fired. Arnold's left leg erupted in searing pain. At that moment the world around him was completely eclipsed by the pain of the gunshot would to the muscle of his lower leg. He collapsed to the ground, screaming.

"Arnold!" Helga cried, and dropped to the ground with him. Her instinct was simply to protect him from further harm, but luckily this also protected her for the moment. La Sombra still couldn't get a clean shot at her without possibly hitting Arnold. He stalled for time, waiting for the right opportunity. He also knew that the gunshot would have been heard, so the police could be on his way at any moment. He didn't have much time now, so he started to inch forward impatiently.

Helga momentarily forgot the man with a gun was even there. She looked down at Arnold's leg. Her medical experience was limited to a bit of first aid training, and not much else. She knew Arnold was going to need a hospital soon, if only for the bleeding. She heard the scrape of flow footsteps, and realized that La Sombra was getting closer.

She put her face in her hands and began sobbing. Seemingly oblivious to the danger creeping towards her, she was wailing and sniffling in despair, crying as the gunman grew ever closer. He was only a couple feet away now.

"Don't worry, it'll all be over for you soon." Said La Sombra as he steadied his pistol once more, close enough to be sure about his aim.

Helga rocketed forward, reaching her feet instantly and ramming her shoulder into the man's sternum as she rose. She swept her arm viciously around and drove a knuckle-punch directly into the meaty underside of his left wrist, causing him to lose all sensation in his hand. More importantly, it caused him to drop the gun.

For a split second they locked eyes. There were no tears on her face, and no sign of the red puffiness that usually accompanied tears.

Growling, the young woman swung a powerful punch at his jaw, loosening a few teeth on impact. Another punch connected with his already bruised chest, and a third swung up hard into his eye as his head tilted forward. He staggered backward, and received a fierce kick between the legs, causing him to double over in pain once more. Stepping back once more, he found he couldn't get away. Two more punches brought flashes of pain to his nose, one breaking it badly, the second somewhat straightening it out once again.

Helga paused in her assault, and he took the opportunity to stagger backwards as quickly as he could, desperate to get out of her reach so he could regroup and fight back.

La Sombra stumbled backward against the knee-high brick wall that ran along the outer edge of the rooftop. He stepped up and backward reflexively, trying anything to catch his balance, but it was no good. His arms pinwheeled as he started to tip over the edge. A fall from this height, to the flat concrete of the alleyway below would almost certainly be fatal.

Helga watched this happen. La Sombra was going to fall, he was going to die, and entirely because of a clumsy misstep. He would be gone, their troubles over for good. Some part of her wanted to just stand back and let it happen. There was a stronger feeling inside her, a burst of ice coursing through her veins. This isn't how it should end. This wasn't good enough.

She lunged forward, grabbing the lapels of the older man's bowling shirt and bracing one foot against the brick border for leverage. She pulled him toward her, but only slightly. As long as she held him this way, he wasn't going to fall, but it was likewise impossible for him to regain his balance. He was entirely at her mercy, and both of them knew it. He didn't struggle, he barely breathed, fearing any movement might loosen her grip.

Helga's eyes were like flickering blue-hot flames, the moderately low light of the rooftop making their gleam the brightest thing in La Sombra's world. He stared into them, wordlessly pleading for her to pull him to safety, though he didn't have the nerve to speak.

Helga began speaking in a conversational tone, an unsettling contrast to the blazing fury in her eyes. "You're a bully. You're a thief, a killer, and an amoral scumbag, but at the root of it you're just a bully. You've spent years trying to ruin the lives of three of the best people I've ever met, and all for what? Simple greed? You just want to find a stupid jewel for fame and fortune? You're pathetic."

A few stray hairs had strayed over Helga's left eye, she whipped her head to the side and blew the hair out of her face. The sudden movement made La Sombra cringe, but he was still safe for the moment. Helga saw his reaction, and smiled.

"You took Arnold's family from him, letting a little boy to grow up believing that his parents had just abandoned him. Despite all this torment, all of the hell you put him through, he never let you win. After all of that, he's still the kindest, sweetest, most considerate person I've ever known. Even after all you've done, that silly, amazing boy still has the purest heart you could ever find. He's as close to an angel as you're likely to find on Earth."

Helga pulled him a little closer, almost letting him catch his balance, but not quite.

"I'm going to tell you the real secret now, and I promise you that you're going to be thinking about it for the rest of your life. I love him. I've loved him since the day I met him. Do you know why?"

La Sombra stammered, knowing she demanded a response, "W-why?"

Helga, in her sweetest voice, replied, "Because opposites attract."

With a snarl, she gave a mighty push forward, releasing the river pirate's shirt as she did so.

La Sombra was too startled to scream, only managing to gasp for air on the way down. A fall from this height, to the flat concrete of the alleyway below probably would have been fatal. Instead though, his spine impacted full-force on the unyielding lip of a steel dumpster in the alley. There was a sickening crunching noise barely audible beneath a metallic clang. He hung there, bent backwards at an unnatural angle, before slumping to the ground.

Helga peered down into the alleyway at the unmoving and shattered body for a moment, then nodded once in simple satisfaction. She ran over to her fallen love, who was gritting his teeth and bearing the pain as well as he could. Examining his leg with her limited medical knowledge, all she could really determine is that it was far enough to the side that it seemed to have missed the bone, and with holes on both sides it was clear the bullet had gone all the way through.

Thinking quickly, she grabbed the first strip of cloth she could find and tied it tightly around the wound to slow the bleeding. That done to the best of her ability, she pulled the phone out of her messenger bag and called the number for the boarding house phone. An unfamiliar voice picked up, which was what she had been hoping for.

"Who is t-" the gruff voice began.

"Shut up. Did you hear that crash in the alleyway? That was your boss. Look out the kitchen window if you don't believe me. Take note of the angle his spine is bent at, and just how unlikely it is that he'll be able to sign your paychecks from now on. If I were you, I'd get out of here as fast as you can, because the fuzz are on the way. Your call, of course."

Helga hung up walked over to the edge of the roof once more, counting under her breath. By the time she hit fifteen, one of La Sombra's goons had gone into the alleyway for a closer look. By twenty-five he was running back into the boarding house, and at thirty-five all three men were running back out and piling into the car they had arrived in.

At thirty-seven seconds, the police were there blocking the men from escaping. Helga hadn't actually called them just yet, wanting to be sure the armed thugs left the boarders safely alone first, so they must have been responding to the gunshot.

Helga ran back to Arnold, throwing her arms around his neck and starting to cry for real this time. The adrenaline and rage had left her system, and she suddenly felt weak and vulnerable. All the fear that she had pushed aside earlier caught up to her now that the danger was done. Her long blonde hair fell across his face as she wept.

Arnold started to come back to lucidity. He looked down at his leg to survey the damage. Tied tightly around his aching calf was a pink ribbon. It was stained with blood now, and had quite possibly saved his life.

To be concluded… (epilogue)