Hurricane Heart

Hurricane

‘That’s ridiculous!’ the Master cried.

‘You’ll kill yourself,’ Carl insisted.

‘You said yourself that the Soulless are only after Arjan,’ I pointed out. As sick as it sounded, I loved using peoples’ words against them. ‘And he trusts me. If I so much as offer him a drink with an amnesia pill in it, he’ll take it, he’ll fall asleep, and he’ll wake up remembering nothing about the Dreamers. Or the rest of his life, for that matter.’

‘No,’ the Master said. ‘It goes against Dreamer policy to sacrifice one of our own for the sake of an ordinary citizen.’

‘Come on,’ Casper insisted. ‘One of us risking our lives could save thousands.’

I knew what he meant; ‘let Hurricane die for the rest of our sakes.’ But I wasn’t going to die, and for the purpose of making some progress in here I also wasn’t going to argue with him.

‘I won’t let you,’ Carl said. ‘You’re my friend, Hurricane. And friends look the fuck out for each other! I’m not about to let you go kill yourself.’

The Master gave a nod of approval. ‘Carl’s wise, girl. You should listen to him.’

My expression conveyed that I was not in the mood. And I was particularly not in the mood for Carl’s ego to swell to the size of a hot air balloon. That happened often enough. Tonight was not the night.

‘He will talk!’ Casper insisted, as though he had not emphasised that enough already. ‘There’s nothing binding him to the Dreamers. He has no reason to stay quiet, especially not after how I hear he’s been treated.’ That presented me with another stony glare.

‘You wouldn’t have done any better,’ I muttered coldly.

‘Like the Master said,’ Carl piped up, trying to keep a dark situation light hearted. ‘You lot should damn listen to me. I’m wise!’

‘No you’re not,’ I said. ‘You’re about to cost another life.’

Carl’s humorous but slightly irritating smile fell into ashes.

‘We can’t just leave him out there on the run,’ Casper said.

‘We’ve got to get him,’ I added, hopefully the only one who realised that ‘get him’ had another meaning for me. I wasn’t about to drug him. I was about to save him. I already felt enough remorse over what I’d done. I was going to make things right for once.

‘Well I never,’ Carl said in admiration, never relenting with the jokes. ‘Hurricane and Casper; working together.’

‘Fuck off!’ the two of us said in unison, both of our tones meaning business.

I glared at Casper. He moved away from me with a resentful mutter.

No, we most definitely were not working together.

‘The Soulless will get him before he has a chance to go to the police,’ Carl said. ‘You never know; it may be too late already. You might be risking your life for nothing.’

In fairness, I hadn’t thought of that. I also didn’t particularly want to, so, just like that, I blocked it from my mind.

Running.

‘Come on,’ Casper said, now silently begging the Master for an agreement. ‘One life against thousands.’

We all stared at the Master; two of us pleading for a change of heart, the third willing for things to stay the same.

‘No!’ the Master cried. ‘I’ve already told you. It’s too dangerous, and it goes against all our policies.’

‘Thank you!’ Carl cried in relief.

At the same time, Casper yelled ‘seriously!’ in a very bitter tone.

I turned.

I saw red.

I stormed out of the room, a true hurricane, practically knocking Carl out of my way, slamming the door of the office so hard that the walls shuddered in fear.

I knew what I had to do.

Arjan

I sprinted out of the hotel and onto the dark street, not paying attention to the shocked expression of the woman still at the front desk. No doubt I wasn’t the first unusual thing she had seen in the foyer tonight, nor would I be the last.

This road was quiet, but I could still hear the grumble of car engines on many roads close by. Perhaps if I could just get in amongst civilisation—maybe I could seek refuge in a bar or a busy street—then I might be a little safer.

Wizened, misty orange fingers reached for me from where they sat encaged in the little bubbles of streetlamps that lined the roads. Their glow penetrated the black, cloudless night in all directions, littered with stars that were too distant and too shrouded by pollution and damn oppression to see clearly. They were little more than a feature of my newly found imagination.

The pavement on this street not far from the city centre was easily lit by these lights, along with more lights from the hotel and other buildings and the odd passing car, the whole world swathed in a subtle orange hue, a dim, claustrophobic, yet mysterious feel reaching through the night.

I knew what Hurricane meant when she said there was going to be a storm.

And it wasn’t one of thunder and lightning and rain.

I rounded the corner to the left, and already I could see two figures striding closer through the semi-darkness of a city night. I couldn’t tell if they were male or female, and I certainly couldn’t see whether they were wearing masks or not from this distance, but something about the way they skulked, always lingering in the deepest shadows of the road, never going where the orange light touched, suggested they could well be Soulless.

My feet stopped so suddenly that the rest of my body had to catch up and I almost tripped over myself as soon as I saw them. I watched for a moment, not truly knowing who they were, but not trusting anyone whose movements could be described as ‘skulking.’ No. Tonight was not the time for trust.

Hurricane. Where was she? I couldn’t bear to believe that she had abandoned me on a night when so many Soulless were in the vicinity, every single one of them hunting us down, but maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe she always planned for me to die like this.

The thought hurt too much to proceed, but I couldn’t just ignore it. That made me as bad as she was, and that was not a person I ever wanted to be. She had betrayed me. She was gone. I’d heard no screaming; no gunshots; no proof of a struggle, which seemed ridiculous if I could hear her voice when she spoke on the phone, though not clearly enough to make out words unfortunately. Perhaps I should have paid more attention.

No. She had left of her own accord. She had condemned me.

I turned and ran. Somewhere further behind, I thought I heard the footsteps of the two skulking, silhouetted creatures break into a sprint.

Hurricane

Sometimes, authority had to be ignored. We were the choices we made in this life. We decided who lived and who died; who succeeded and who failed; who loved and who lost.
And no one was going to die tonight. Not if I could help it.

As I left the Master’s room with a slam that would set the entire base on edge, if not cause a natural disaster of its own, a plan was steadily forming through the chaos that was my mind.

I broke into a run as I headed through the tunnels.

I reached my room and all but threw my bag in, only stopping to take my car keys, phone and bullet gun. My bullet gun; not Scarrus’s that I had stolen. Tonight was not a time for mere stunning. Tonight was a time for blood.

They would be on to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire base had somehow been locked down in a quarantine style. But I still had to try. I wasn’t that person. Not anymore. I could be something more.

I turned, and I began to run again. I ran through the tunnels and out through the main door and through more tunnels and up the stairs and to the car, practically diving into the driver’s seat and slamming down on the accelerator the second the key was in the ignition. I manoeuvred my way rather recklessly out of the narrow side road, spinning round and speeding out onto the main road. I heard at least two horns blare in my direction, but I didn’t care. I was Hurricane, and I didn’t give a shit what those close-minded non-Dreamers thought of me.

I was about to save a life.

Power raged through my bloodstream in the same way as the adrenaline that pumped like a drug into my heart. My soul was on fire. My mind was ready to explode. I was not a mere person anymore. I was the hurricane that was going to make this whole city cower in fear. For too long had I run; for too long had I reclined in darkness, befriended shadows, hidden from love.

Now, tonight, maybe even if it was just temporarily for tonight, that would change.

Hold on Arjan. I haven’t abandoned you. I’m coming for you.

I took flight round another corner at full speed.