Abbott wasn’t sure if he wanted a passerby to stop and intervene or if he was terrified that would happen.
[…]
But of course he would take everything. This is how it always went. Here was another bully who’d sensed that Abbott was on the verge of actually having some kind of good thing in his life, which could never be allowed. The monsters just took what they wanted, and they got away with it, every time.
— Abbott in Jason Pargin, I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, 2024, St. Martin’s Press, Ch. Day 2, p. 132