‹ Prequel: Chasing Imagination
Sequel: Martyr's Run

Hurricane Heart

The Warzone

Arjan

There were more gunshots, not on this street, but certainly not far away. I was on edge, even as I sat there, holding Anke’s bloodstained hand in mine. We had to get help, and fast.

As if on cue with my thoughts, there were loud, running footsteps coming down the street and I peered out, instinct telling me both to look and to hide.

It was Mark.

‘Mark!’ I cried out, more for Anke’s sake, so she knew that the footsteps did not belong to an enemy. He ran in, concern all over his face, bending down on the other side of Anke’s body as he pushed her pale hair, now tinged red with blood, back from her face, looking into her eyes.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘It hurts,’ she replied in a whisper.

There were more gunshots, perilously close by, and Mark looked up at me.

‘You need to find Hurricane,’ he insisted. ‘And you need to stay where there’s protection.’

‘No—it’s too dangerous!’ Anke cried through gasps of pain. ‘You...get hurt.’

I stood up regardless of her fears.

‘Mark’s right; I have to go,’ I said, softly but firmly. ‘But I’ll see you soon. He’ll take you to wherever you need to go—you both know more about it than I do. And I really hope you get better.’ I didn't know what else to say.

She forced a weak smile. ‘Thanks.’

I nodded at Mark and took one step back when he spoke again.

‘Hey, Arjan.’

‘Yeah?’

He smiled at me through his fear. Only now, though, could I see the blood that Anke was coughing up. I didn’t want to admit it; not even to myself, but she would be incredibly lucky to survive this. I had to blink back the tears as I smiled down at her.

‘Congratulations on making the right decision,’ he said. Anke coughed and his smile faded, replaced by an anxiety even more intense than before. ‘And good luck.’

I nodded. ‘Thanks. And to you too.’

I departed, feeling the tears beginning to fall, made worse by a sudden moan coming from back where Anke lay.

Hurricane

Arjan had run down a road, but that was at least twenty minutes, maybe even half an hour ago. He could be anywhere right now. So my only guide was to follow the sound of guns, ever-present in the distance towards the north, and hope that he had done the same.

I took every street at a run, my gun always preceding me as I turned the corners. There were too many thoughts in my mind to even comprehend at this stage—thoughts of Arjan and his dreams and myself and the Dreamers and the Soulless and everything that had happened tonight. It was a maelstrom in there; an ocean in a storm. But I was the Hurricane. And I had experienced insanity more than this before.

As it happened, before getting any sight of Arjan as I ran towards what sounded like the apocalypse, I charged quite literally straight into Jonas. I leapt round a corner as he did the same. There was a second of madness; my eyes wide and my gun pointed in his face, him doing the same to me, before we lowered them and laughed at the drastic release of tension.

‘Oh God,’ I breathed, lowering my gun, stumbling over myself, ‘it’s you.’

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I thought—‘

I cut him off by saying ‘same.’

‘Where have you been anyway?’ he demanded. ‘It’s turned into a full-blown war round here.’

‘Have you seen Arjan?’ I asked, not even bothering to answer his question. I knew it was typical of me—I couldn’t be bothered to explain about the kidnapping and rescuing and everything else, but more than that, I possibly didn’t want to admit that I had actually been tied up and chucked in the back of a van. It was something Jonas would otherwise inevitably remind me of for years to come.

He shrugged. ‘No. Sorry. Did you ever find him again after you came to see us?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, suddenly impatient to get going. ‘But lost him again during a fight.’

‘That sucks,’ he muttered.

‘Where are you going anyway?’ I noticed how my voice had sped up. Everything I said was making it longer before I got to Arjan. And there were reasons more than just that he was ‘the Secret’ that I wanted to know that he was alright.

‘I was chasing a Soulless, actually,’ he said. ‘Ben—y’know, the one with long hair.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I said, ducking past him. ‘Well, good luck.’

‘And you.’

I carried on running.

I knew as soon as I had hit Warzone.

A main road; four lanes wide but totally deserted of traffic, with a train track running above, was full of fighting. The first person I saw was Emilie—her artificially red hair a spark of vibrancy in the night-time landscape. She whipped round to fire her gun at a Soulless man who was marching towards her and, rather impressively, got him right in the chest. Sadly, though, it was only a stun gun. He clattered backwards, heavily injured but not yet unconscious until she had run at him and fired three times more.

‘Em!’ I cried out as soon as she had finished with him.

‘Hurricane,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Have you seen Arjan?’

She pulled a face. ‘I don’t actually know what he looks like.’

‘If you see a guy acting like a Dreamer who you don’t recognise, it’ll be him.’

‘Ok then,’ she said, her tone characteristically upbeat. ‘But no, sorry, I haven’t seen him.’

A bullet flew past the side of my face.

I was in battle mode within nanoseconds, leaping into action, my gun drawn, whipping it around like a madwoman as I searched wildly for the culprit.

He was standing at the end of a side road that led off into a little shopping area, a smug look on his face, a gun out. I didn’t recognise him, but that didn’t matter. He was wearing a mask, therefore he was evil. I fired my gun repeatedly at him, diving for cover underneath a covered walkway that ran parallel to the pavement; in through one arch, round the pillar, out through the next. Emilie joined in with me, athletically leaping for cover even faster than I did, whirling round one of the pillars, her vivid red hair the only thing that stopped her from blending in with the swiftest shadows.

Gunshots; more than I had ever heard before, resounded through the air, and before I even fully knew what was going on, the man was down, crying out, bleeding, barely conscious. I couldn’t tell which shots had been mine and which had been Emilie’s stunning, but it had done enough damage for me to run on all the same, kicking the unconscious body as I ran past. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of police sirens wailed through the night, sending fear throbbing through my blood. There was no time. I had to find Arjan so that we could end this goddamn bloodshed.
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Please keep commenting! I've just realised that there are actually only two more chapters left of this story - I didn't realise I was so close to the end!