Hurricane Heart

Hurricane

Scarrus pulled further down on my hair so that I was virtually bent over double backwards. Still he pulled me further, his large arm holding me securely to his front, trapping my hands
where they wouldn’t do enough to help me. I kicked out repeatedly behind me, but I couldn’t make the impact I so desperately needed.

‘Give me the key!’ Scarrus roared in my ear, spit flying about, mixing with the blood spattered and trickling down my face. I struggled and writhed, but from where he was holding me that hurt even more.

‘No!’ I screamed. ‘What do you need him for?’

‘There’s no reason I should tell you,’ he hissed back. In one last desperate attempt, I tried to see through the pain. Pain was merely a message sent to the brain, just like emotion...and I could stop that message.

With a shiver-inducing ripping sound, I pulled forward, screaming out a long, tortured scream as tears blinded me, wrenching my head free from where he held my hair too tightly, kicking out and pulling him forward so suddenly that he fell towards me, head-first onto the floor, yelling out, making the hall shake.

I was too fast. I whipped round, letting him fall, but escaping the calamity. Hurriedly, yet falling from side to side in my pain and disorientation, I grabbed the stun gun from the far end of the hallway, taking his one for safekeeping, pointing it into his face as he stood up.
I staggered slightly, falling sideways, but the barrel of the gun never really moved.

He was not even fully on his feet when I shot him. Electricity shot through the end of the gun, hitting him squarely in the upper chest, just where it hurt most, sending volts of electricity surging through his nervous system. He began to convulse, screaming and shuddering in pain, jerking jaggedly in all directions, and then another shot to the head resulted in him falling flat on his face.

He was not dead, but he was going to be unconscious for a long time. Even so, I still kicked at his head hard, just to make sure. I got hold of his great, muscular body, dragging him across the wooden floor by the arms, swiping the card through the slot in the door and pushing it open.

‘What the fuck happened!’ Arjan cried. I couldn’t tell whether he was excited or terrified. I had blood, both mine and Scarrus’s, spattered across my face and dripping from a small cut in my forehead; there was plenty more coming from various points on my arms and shoulders, and I probably looked a complete mess.

But Scarrus was the unconscious one, dragged across the floor, a trail of blood lingering behind him.

I dropped him and he fell with a thudding sound. Running to Arjan and staggering slightly, nearly falling forward in my confusion—I was barely conscious myself—I unlocked him from the drawers, leaving the shackles where they were.

‘Help me,’ I cried desperately. He got the idea immediately, helping me drag Scarrus to the drawers, where I locked his left arm into the cuffs. It hung, forcibly suspended in the air as the rest of his body slumped. I put the key neatly in my pocket before falling back on the bed, not caring that it was Arjan’s that I was closest to.

‘What’s going to happen to him?’ Arjan asked. ‘Are you alright?’

I fought against the darkness that was closing in all around and shrouding my view. ‘He’ll be out for a while,’ I said. Pushing myself against my will, I sat up, slightly dazed, blinking several times.

‘We need to go.’

‘What?’ Arjan shrieked. ‘You’re mad! You can’t go like this—you’re about to pass out!’

‘No...we have to,’ I said.

‘At least let me help you,’ he insisted. Even in all the drama, I began to see a side to him that I had never seen before. It was a side that proved he cared about me.

He ran to the desk and grabbed the box of tissues, sitting on the bed beside where I half-sat-half-lay, beginning to mop gently at the blood on my face. I pushed him away, shrugging his hands off as though I was allergic to his contact, but he wouldn’t relent, and I was so exhausted that I eventually gave in.

‘What happened?’ he asked softly, the insanity of the moment beginning to pass.

‘He’s called Scarrus; I’ve met him before,’ I explained. Ideally, I would have left it there, but I felt like I owed Arjan at least a brief explanation. I didn’t know why I should feel I owed him anything—he was my prisoner, but he was being kind to me. Perhaps, just for a moment, I could act the same way towards him, no matter how much it hurt.

‘He wanted to get you,’ I continued, ‘and he managed to knock away my gun. Then we fought.’

A shudder rippled across him. ‘I could hear it. Did he hurt you?’

He pressed the now blood-spattered tissue to the small but still bleeding cut on the edge of my hairline, holding it there until most of it had been soaked up. I was so exhausted that I practically fell into him.

‘A little,’ I said, playing it down like always. ‘But I hurt him too.’

Arjan glanced down at the broken body chained to the drawers. ‘I can see that. Anyway, what are you going to do to him?’

I shrugged. ‘Leave him.’

‘Chained up?’

‘That’s his problem, isn’t it?’ I smiled a slightly dazed smile, looking down at my handy work. I had not killed him, and I never meant to. Perhaps I could leave the key in the room, hidden somewhere. A maid would probably come along tomorrow, and he’d get her to sort things out; that much was self-explanatory. It was all a game to him; I’d just taken things up another level.

Arjan picked up my wrist gingerly, as though he was afraid he might break it. I had gone outside in a short-sleeved t-shirt, and I had paid the price. Scratches laced my skin, and already the first of what was likely to be many bruises were beginning to show up.

‘I’m afraid there isn’t a lot I can do about this,’ he murmured, looking at my sorry wounds.

‘I know,’ I said, picking up another tissue and mopping at one of the scratches that had drawn blood. ‘Thanks.’

I turned away, suddenly feeling almost unbearably awkward. Despite the fact that my legs were bruised and close to buckling, I stood up and wandered to the window, pushing it open, feeling the cool, spring night air on my face. It was soothing, making my head spin slower and my breathing become easier.

Down below shone thousands of city lights. Shops, buildings, streetlights, car lights, every kind of light one could imagine. That was but for the one true light: the light of freedom; the light that shone like a burning star in a distant galaxy within everyone, but one that I simply couldn’t see anymore. It had faded even within Dreamers’ hearts. Older Dreamers spoke of these lights; freedom, hope, imagination, dreams, the idea of achievement. They were all things that had once been seen, but now were replaced by a dark, dull abyss.

‘We need to go,’ I repeated, suddenly re-energised, ready to face the world.

‘We can’t,’ Arjan protested. ‘And you said the cities were safer anyway.’

That was a good point, and one that I’d forgotten.

‘We can’t stay here though, can we?’ I pointed out, indicating the unconscious man on the floor.

‘Move to a different room,’ he said, as though it was simple.

And then I could hear voices outside. Just like that; quiet, distant, but growing closer down the hallway, accompanied by footsteps.

I shook my head. ‘No. We’ve got to go. Pack up and come on.’

I gathered together anything I’d taken out in the short time of being here, putting my jacket back on and storing Scarrus’s rather larger gun in the bag, putting it onto safety lock.

I could hear voices outside. I’d locked the door, but if they tried to knock it down, we’d have but seconds.

‘Come on!’ I said urgently, trying not to act afraid, hearing the voices grow louder. I tried to hear individual words and begin to make sense of it, but all I could hear was noise over my frantically pounding heart, beating in my ears. No. I wasn’t afraid. I was Hurricane. I was never afraid. No, not ever...

I walked over to the window, still open, gazing out, looking down more than anything. We were four storeys up, but there was a slight ledge between each floor, and there was a twisting metal fire escape on the end of the building, not far from us. We were only three rooms from the end of the corridor, and beyond that lay the steps.

‘What do we do?’ Arjan cried frantically. ‘We can’t get out!’

Then he noticed me leaning over the window sill.

I looked up, my eyes full of new hope.

‘We need to go,’ I whispered.

It dawned on him.

‘No!’ he cried. ‘No, no way are we going out there!’

‘There’s a fire escape,’ I murmured. ‘We can get over there. Come on.’

His eyes practically popped out of his head. ‘You’re insane!’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s my job.’