Hurricane Heart

Arjan

I was running. I knew I couldn’t fight them. Nor could I escape them. So I was just running; running until...well, I didn’t know when. Until something happened. Until they confronted me. Until I was saved. Until I died.

And I still didn’t even know why they wanted me!

I rounded another corner, and I saw a man walking towards me. At first I relaxed; he was walking, striding, as a normal man would do. It was only as he walked directly beneath a streetlamp that reflections danced off the tiny beads of glitter on his face.

A mask, undoubtedly.

I turned.

But it was too late.

He had seen me.

We were on a large road, shops, a few of them open late, lining the far pavement, their artificial light spilling out onto the cracked concrete. There were cars driving past, albeit not very many of them. What could he do to me?

The tiny but inevitably powerful gun he drew from his pocket was my answer.

I could only hope to turn and run.

I sprinted clumsily back the way I’d come, tripping over the cracks in the old paving slabs as I went, already breathless from my recent dash.

A crack ripped the eerily still, temperate air in two and, as something powerful and weighty caused a window so perilously close to me to shatter into a million pieces, the glass ricocheting off in every direction and narrowly avoiding slashing through my cheek, it dawned on me how close I could be to death. It could come at any moment, and I would be totally unprepared.

The only thing that I had left to hope for was that they wouldn’t kill me just yet. They needed me for something in the same way that the Dreamers did, though only the Soulless knew what that reason was. And as long as they didn’t want my blood or my brain, they had no reason to kill me. Maybe these were only stun guns or tranquilisers or something. I just wasn’t in the mood to hang around and find out.

There was another small explosion behind me as the night was torn apart at its seams, and once again I could practically feel the bullet close to me, missing the side of my arm by less than a foot.

I hurried so quickly round the next corner that I skidded in the same way as a car would do and almost lost my balance, crashing into a brick wall. I was back down the hotel road, though further up. From the other direction down the more populous street were the two skulking Soulless. They would have seen their comrade running, effectively towards them, with me trapped in the middle, and they would know exactly who they were looking for.

And yet, even through all of this, the thing that hurt more than anything was the ache as my heart tore in two, knowing that Hurricane wasn’t here. Whatever she said about love; whatever I had seen hidden but not unnoticeable behind her deep eyes tonight, it was all a lie. It was all an act, just to get me on her side, so that she could go and betray me.

Maybe this was always the intention. Maybe she always needed me to die—I had no idea why, but she wanted me for something. She just had to get me to trust her, and then she would come and tear the world down. She was too afraid to kill—whatever else she did, it was something I had never seen her take part in, so she was going to get some of her enemies to do it for her.

Fucking cowardly bitch! If she wanted me dead, she could at least have the guts to attempt it herself. Not that I was about to go down without a fight. I wasn’t annihilated yet, and until then, what didn’t kill you made you stronger. I could damn well utilise that.

I continued to run, back down the hotel street and then down another and another and another. The Soulless back there had shown that it made no difference whether I was on a populated street or not, so I had nothing extra to fear in being down the quieter roads. I just realised that, if they had guns, somewhere with corners and alcoves and turns and hiding places was better than any long, straight road.

I came out of the back roads onto another main street, though this one was quiet now that the night was getting late. I had momentarily lost the three from back there, but I could see two more, a man and a woman, their masks glinting emerald and sapphire under the streetlamps they emerged beneath, coming out of a small lane on the other side of the road. They were too far away for me to see where their eyes rested, but I could see the emerald woman’s eyes lock onto something, certainly in my direction. Her long, slender arm grabbed that of her comrade and they began running right, towards the crossing, towards me. The road was four lanes wide; there was no way they were going to be able to cross just yet; but that hardly meant I was safe.

Especially not when I could see the butt of a gun.

I gripped mine—Hurricane’s—tightly in my pocket, not daring to let it slip out. It was my last hope. I had never fought anyone before, and I really hoped it wouldn’t come to that tonight, but it seemed inevitable that it would. Hurricane had betrayed me. There were no Dreamers in sight. I was alone now. I was going to have to fend for myself.

I turned 180 degrees, ready to head back off down a smaller alleyway-like road.

And came face to face with another fucking Soulless.

Hurricane

The car tyres screamed for mercy as I screeched to a halt at some traffic lights which I had been so sure I was going to be able to skip. I was barely two minutes from the hotel now.

At the same time, my phone rang. I thought about ignoring it, but any help could be useful right now, and I might just be able to persuade normally stubborn Carl into doing something for me. I pressed the accept button, turning it onto the speakers so that I could hear him without having to pick it up.

‘Hurricane, where the hell are you?’ he demanded the second I connected through. There was a brief pause. ‘You’ve gone, haven’t you?’ His tone was accusing.

‘What do you think I’m doing?’ I challenged, ‘just sitting around on my arse all night waiting for the news that my friend’s dead?’ Yes, he was my friend, for now at least. For the purpose of this conversation, Arjan was my friend.

But nothing more.

You just keep telling yourself that.

‘Hurricane, the Master told you to stay here!’ Carl protested. ‘You know it’s practically a suicide mission.’

‘They’re after Arjan,’ I said. ‘They don’t have a clue where I am.’

‘But they assume you’re together. They recognise you, you idiot!’

I was too on fire to care that he was sitting there insulting me. The heat of the action made me strong. It made me powerful. Why did I ever walk away from this in the first place?

‘Then at least I can die a hero,’ I shouted down the line, unsure whether it was anger, fear or passion that was making my voice so loud. ‘It’s a thousand times better than living as a coward.’

‘Hurricane don’t, for God’s sake!’ Carl yelled. ‘It’s not being a coward. This is one life in the world.’

‘One life?’ I challenged, roaring down the line like a wild animal. ‘That life has a mother and a father and brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles and grandparents and friends! That is not just one life. And not to mention that the Soulless still might kidnap him. Haven’t you thought of that? They might not need Arjan to win a war or something, but they’ll sure get a hell of a lot of Dreamer information out of him if they push hard enough.’

I knew I was good, because I had rendered Carl silent. For just a moment, he was speechless, nothing to come back with. The traffic light turned green and I screeched forward.

‘Come back,’ he said, but it was a plea more than an order.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to live like that. I always said; everyone always said, that the one good thing about me being the cold, emotionless, heartless bitch that I am is that I have nothing to lose. I can do anything; complete any mission; fight any battle, because I have nothing real to be afraid of. If I die, then who cares?’

‘I care, Hurricane!’ Carl complained. ‘And you know how it kills me to talk to you like that.’

Carl, always giving it the humour. I admired people like that. In these times, my humour was usually a little darkly tinted.

‘Well, you can help me,’ I decided, speeding round a bend. ‘Send some people out. I don’t care what the Master says about ‘false alarms’ and all the rest of it. This is a chance to fry some Soulless!’

‘You’re insane,’ he insisted, but I could hear the joke in his tone. ‘And don’t come back with that same old line again.’

‘It’s what I do best,’ I said, smiling even though he couldn’t see it. This was our time to shine.

‘You’re not coming back, are you?’ Carl said.

‘Nope.’

‘Then I guess I’ve got no choice.’

‘Yep.’

I could imagine him here, now, rolling his eyes at me. But I was winning him over.

‘Whatever then,’ he said. ‘I’ll go grab whoever I can and bring them out. But if you’re killed, the operation’s over.’

‘Right,’ I agreed light-heartedly. Then, a little more serious, I added softly, ‘thanks, Carl.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ he replied. I knew that, when he said that, he meant it a little more literally than most people. ‘I’ll see you in a while.’

I hung up as the car screamed to a stop outside the hotel.

Oh God, Arjan. I’m coming.