‹ Prequel: Chasing Imagination
Sequel: Martyr's Run

Hurricane Heart

The Secret

Arjan

The Soulless stared me down. She was a woman, unlike most of them. Her mask was small but elaborately decorated with silver, her outfit a short, tight, black dress.

‘Well, well, well,’ she jeered, speaking English, but her accent most definitely German. ‘If it isn’t the Secret himself.’

I clutched the gun so tightly my hand trembled. But I wasn’t about to be a coward. I raised it into the air, pointing it right in her face. I knew that two more Soulless, though I had moved a little further into this other road, were about to arrive any minute--I had seen them coming down the road towards me.

I tried to dodge round her in desperation, but she just laughed and caught me in the act.

‘The Secret,’ I challenged, not relishing being called by that name, but realising that I could work with it. ‘What’s the Secret?’

‘You, of course,’ she said smoothly, totally unfazed by the fact there was a gun not six inches from the end of her sharp nose.

‘But what is this secret?’ I asked.

She laughed mockingly. ‘Ah, what a sad world you come from. You still don’t know? How pathetic your little Dreamer friends are.’

I clicked the safety off, my hand shaking violently. I couldn’t deny that I was afraid, however much I tried to pretend. For now, I could be like Hurricane. I could leave emotion behind and focus just on getting out of this alive.

‘Don’t insult them!’ I roared threateningly. I was conscious of loud voices in the street that meant the arrival of the other two Soulless.

Still she stared down the barrel of the gun. She knew it wasn’t going to kill her, therefore she didn’t care. The Soulless with their sparkling emerald and sapphire masks appeared in the mouth of the road behind me. The emerald woman cheered loudly as she and her sapphire friend entered the darkened side road. I was cornered.

The gun quivered in my hand. Could I seriously use it? It wasn’t killing, it wasn’t killing, I just had to keep telling myself that.

But it was still inflicting pain mercilessly on another human being. I wasn’t that monster. Of course I was never going to kill; that was simply out of the question; but stunning? Could I send those electrical volts slashing into another person, ravaging their insides as they screamed in pain?

Unfortunately, now was the time to find out.

‘Lower the gun, boy,’ the sapphire man; a tall man with fair hair and a leather jacket, jeered.

‘Not until you give me some damn answers!’ I cried, pointing it frantically between the three of them. The woman with the little dress was in front of me, and emerald and sapphire masks were behind me. I couldn’t physically keep an eye on all of them at once. I had shot my gun once tonight. In fact, I had shot it more than that.

And my aim had been good.

In fact, it was incredible.

I had never fought before, so there was no chance of me being any good at that. But what if I just naturally had brilliant hand-eye coordination? On a night like this, it was a skill that could save my life. I’d always been quite naturally good at tennis and golf and similar sports, so maybe this was my thing.

Like I said, now had to be the time to find out.

‘I’m afraid you may be disappointed there,’ emerald woman said coolly.

I closed my eyes.

I aimed.

I fired.

I hit.

The world went cold.

I was screaming. I was on the floor as pain tore through my limbs like a beast. I convulsed and shuddered with the powerful electricity, falling on my shoulder and rolling over. But the gun was still in my hand.

Which was more than could be said for emerald lady. Her gun, as she had collapsed with my insanely great shot, had fallen from her shallow pocket and clattered to the ground by the wall. I saw the sapphire man running towards it to my left, and I saw the other woman standing there, her stun gun in her hand, preparing to fire it back at me.

I had a choice.

Once again, I closed my eyes and let fate decide.

The woman screamed.

It was only a shot near her pelvis, unlike the other woman, who by some miracle I’d got in the head. She was sprawled on the floor, convulsing with the remnants of electricity, barely conscious. The second woman staggered back into the wall, but she was still there, still with a gun in her hand, and I watched in helpless slow motion as the sapphire mask man dived for the woman’s gun, reaching it, spinning round, leaping to his feet.

I forced myself to my own feet, lurching slightly, still off balance as the pain from my first ever contact with a stun gun throbbed through my veins, aching every limb. It was far from unbearable, though. The woman’s aim had been poor, and she’d only got me in the lower back. A brain or heart shot would have likely left me near unconsciousness.

And with whatever strength I had left in me, I fired at him, once, twice, and again.

I knew for a fact that one of them hit home.

The force of the stun, though it only got him in the stomach, collided with his forward motion, sending him reeling backwards into his comrade. He tripped over her, as she lay there on the ground, groaning with the groggy pain of a stun to the brain. He collapsed backwards, falling over her, landing with his legs across her chest, and I heard far too clearly the crack as his head smashed against the concrete road. The nauseating smack would haunt me for a long time to come.

Nevertheless, there was still another woman to deal with. She was wounded with stunning, just like me, but I was too fast, and I got her before she had time to retaliate. I had been shot first, therefore I had also recovered first.

I got her once in the shoulder, missed once, and then got another shot in her chest. She, like the others, fell to the ground as she ran, lurching forward further down the street, going down headfirst.

I had to see the other man. Guilt surged through me so strongly that it threatened to overcome reason. I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. I certainly hadn’t meant to kill him.

He still seemed to be breathing, but he must be seriously injured with a crash like that. A pool of blood, small at the moment, but growing in size with every crimson drip, was gathering around the back of his head. What if he suffered a serious injury?

One of the women would wake up soon. He was not my business. They could tend to him. But I hadn’t meant to hurt him.

However, I had no choice. I ran out of the small road, back onto the main, four lanes wide street with cars still streaming past on a regular basis. Above was a rusting bridge running across the road and further into the distance, a train storming past along it so that the entire structure rattled. It momentarily deafened me and I stood, mesmerised by the hundreds of tiny window lights flashing past, too quick to make out individually.

For the moment, I couldn’t see any more Soulless. It wouldn’t be long before more came, but I had a chance to seek refuge somewhere, anywhere. I had no idea how they could sense me—it was almost as if they could smell me out, tracking me across the city like a predator would track prey, but I knew that was impossible. Whatever they were, they were still humans, and humans didn’t—couldn’t—behave like that.

As I ran—I chose left, mostly because I could see the glow of yellow lights that hopefully meant a shopping mall or a supermarket that was still open—it dawned on me that I could be running forever. I was acting as though I would be able to pick off every Soulless in the city, but that was never going to happen. And more would come. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of them out there. It felt as if I just needed to survive for so long; until morning perhaps, and then they would all vanish with the rising sun like creatures I had learned about in Historic Mythology classes back at school—creatures too strange and too unbelievable to comprehend. That too was never going to happen.

I was out here now until I was captured, died, or witnessed a miracle. And that thought was what truly broke me down.