1 | Duty
The heat of the explosion reached her before the deafening sound waves pierced her eardrums.
She felt the intensity of the fire wrap around her body, enveloping her like a scorned lover’s embrace. Then the thunderous sound rocked the night’s silence, almost knocking her off her feet.
Marielle ran faster, stumbling on the graveled rooftop as she tried to escape the fingers of flames that blasted out from the burning apartment. They reached towards her, as if to catch her and inflict as much pain as possible. But Marielle pushed herself harder. She dropped to her knees and rolled to avoid the worst of the explosion and shower of debris that chased her across the flat roof.
When she reached the exit, she yanked the door open and flung herself into the cool stairwell, tripping down a few stairs before finding her footing. The door slammed shut as another explosion sent a shockwave through the cold night air. She knew she had to reach the ground floor and disappear into the shadows before the authorities turned up.
It wasn’t meant to go this way. It was meant to be an easy job; slip into the multimillion-dollar penthouse, snap a few photos as evidence of illegal drug dealings, then get out without anyone noticing. The police should have been thanking her by now for her anonymous tip-off, helping them arrest a big name in the black-market of Melbourne city and bring to a close their undercover operation.
The drug deal wasn’t meant to go so badly. The buyers had the exact amount of payment previously agreed upon, but when the dealer asked for more, refusing to hand over the drugs until more cash was produced, things went south. Fast.
Guns were drawn, angry words were flung back and forth, and when a grenade was thrown, things really heated up. Marielle had to leap from her hiding spot behind a screen of rhapis excelsa and dive through a window to escape the deadly explosion. Shards of broken glass cut deeply into her skin, but she ignored the pain, knowing it would soon fade. Her ability to rapidly heal was one reason she took these risks, snooping in dangerous places for the good of her community. If she could help catch criminals, get them off the streets and put them behind bars, she’d take every opportunity. With great power comes great responsibility, or so her mother always said.
Sometimes, Marielle wished she wasn’t so blessed with unusual genetics. She sometimes wished she was just like everyone else, tucked into their warm beds at this ungodly hour of night, oblivious to the crime and deception that went on in the darkness and shadows, unaware of the evil that lurked down seedy alleyways and hazy nightclubs. Unconcerned with the corruption that tainted every level of the political and justice systems.
But she did know about it, and so she had a duty to be here fighting, trying to stop the cruel injustice as best as she could. If only it didn’t hurt so much, she thought as she winced. Her knee buckled on a step as she continued hurrying down the stairwell.
The sounds of gunshots echoed through the concrete walls, just when a door flew open in front of her. Bullets ricocheted into the stairwell, followed by a man’s body. He crumpled at Marielle’s feet, causing her to leap over him to avoid tripping headfirst. Too late, she realised the man firing the bullets was right behind him, and she collided with his heavyset body just as he ran into the stairwell. The force knocked her off her feet, sending her flying into the corridor where bullets whizzed at all angles, smoke grenades blurred the air, and angry curses punctuated the sound of fighting and pain.
Before she even regained her balance, a woman charged at Marielle. Something glinted bright and metallic in the dim lighting, and she instinctively raised her arm to block the arc of the knife coming down on her. She kicked the woman off her feet, but was also brought to the ground and rolled in a tight struggle with the woman. The knife sliced dangerously close to her throat, but Marielle grabbed her wrist and snapped it back, causing the woman to scream in pain. She shoved her off, leapt to her feet, and ran for the exit down the other end of the corridor. Pieces of office furniture lay broken and scattered on the floor, adding to the obstacles of wounded bodies lying on the carpet. Marielle was nearly at the door when a wiry man slid into her path.
“Not so fast, taco,” he rasped, his voice as slimy as his grin. With lightning speed, he raised his arm and slammed it into her chest before she could react, knocking the wind from her lungs. Gasping for breath, she sidestepped him and avoided his kick, but it was clear he had the upper hand. No matter how much she fought with focus and attention on her opponent, he matched every move. Predicting her steps before she even planned them, he soon had her in a stranglehold.
Marielle dropped to her knees, trying to use the momentum to throw him over her shoulder, but he held his ground. He rolled and upon rising, flung her out with all his strength. She couldn’t even catch a breath to scream as the glass window beside them shattered under her weight. She couldn’t stop herself from falling through, as gravity dragged her into its obsessive embrace.
This was the second time she’d crashed through a window tonight, but instead of landing on the rooftop tiling, she felt herself falling. Her stomach flipped and clenched with dread as her body fell, weightless and helpless against her descent to La Trobe Street below. She stared up at the velvet sky and braced for impact, catching a glimpse over her shoulder of a few cars parked on the curb outside the apartment skyscraper.
With any luck, she’d fall atop a vehicle which would absorb some of the deadly shock. She only had a fraction of a second to breathe a prayer before her body slammed onto a metallic structure, the vehicle’s frame warping and bending beneath her.
Then all was silent. For a blissful moment, there was utter silence and stillness. No pain, no screaming, no gunshots or balls of fire. Like a time warp, she existed in a moment of oblivion. Until it all came rushing in at once.
Her body felt separated from every bone and joint. Pain radiated from every extremity and scorched along her spinal cord to her brain. She couldn’t move, even as more explosions rocked the building above her, glass bursting out from the windows and raining down on her. Another grenade exploded, closer this time, right at the front entrance to the building. Her ears rang from the booming sounds, and she felt a wave of heat rush over her broken and bruised body.
Through a daze, she heard shouting and cursing in multiple languages as men from both gangs came rushing out, shooting and hacking each other down with deadly weapons. She heard the heavy thud of boots as someone came closer, his gleeful chuckle unmistakable despite the foreign syllables dripping from his tongue.
“Come on, come on. Girl, get up!” she screamed to herself between clenched teeth. Ordinarily this type of injury, this type of bone-shattering devastation to her body, would take a week to heal. But she didn’t have that long if she wanted to get out of this alive.
An awful scraping sound reached her ears, metal on asphalt, and if she craned her neck to the right just enough, she could make out the silhouette of a man approaching. The orange haze of fire glowed behind him, and though her vision was blurry from the trauma to her brain, she realised he was the same man she’d been fighting in the corridor. He’d found her, and he didn’t seem content to let her get away again.
He raised a crowbar in his slender yet strong fingers, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she gathered whatever remnants of strength she had left to try and roll off the car, to save herself from his death blow. But she couldn’t find any. Her body refused to move. Her mind strained with the realisation that her time was up, that her foolish desire to come out at night and fight the crime in this dark city was just that–foolishness that would now cost her life.
She felt a cool breeze flutter across the hot skin of her face as the crowbar swooped down towards her, and once again she braced for the deadly blow.
But it never reached its target. Instead, Marielle watched in shock as another man stepped between them, grabbing the crowbar and arresting it in place. The heavy blow vibrated through his powerful forearm, but he didn’t stumble. Instead, he threw the crowbar to the pavement and shoved at the wiry man, pushing him back and landing punch after punch to his stomach and face.
With the rush of adrenaline from facing near-death came the much-needed healing ability, and Marielle forced herself off the car and onto the street even as she felt her bones and tendons locking securely in place. Gripping the twisted frame for support, she could do nothing but watch as the two men fought, her saviour quickly overcoming the gangster. Sirens echoed in the distance, their high-pitched wail growing louder, so she tried taking shaky steps away, knowing she had to slink into the shadows before the police arrived.
But before she could disappear, her saviour turned and faced her, his steps sure as he came towards her. He was tall with broad shoulders and a confident gait that belied many years of service in battle. But no matter how many times she blinked her gritty eyes, his face wouldn’t come into focus. And she realised, as he stepped closer, that a mask covered his features. All she could see was a sharp jawline shadowed with a beard, and brown eyes that reflected the sparks of fire from the burning building.
He reached a gloved hand to the side of her face and gently angled her chin up towards the light. “You are alright, yes?” he asked softly, his rich voice heavy with an accent she couldn’t quite place.
Her vision swam, either from the brain injury or tears in her eyes from the shock of falling twenty storeys. Smoke filled her throat and tightened her lungs, so all she could do was nod. Another explosion caught his attention, tearing his intent gaze from hers. And in that moment of distraction, she forced her legs to move. Pushing her feet with every ounce of willpower, she stumbled into the shadows behind another building on the corner of La Trobe and Elizabeth Street and escaped just as police cars screamed around the block and filled the street with flashing lights.
Only once she made it back to her own apartment, scaling the ladder on the outside of the building and slipping through the tiny bathroom window, could she finally breathe more easily. Her lungs protested, tight with smoke that dampened their ability to knit back together. A couple broken ribs stabbed at her organs, and Marielle eased herself carefully down onto her bed. Only after a few hours of lying as still as a corpse did her body finally resemble a functioning human being. She still ached in places, her head swam if she stood too fast, and a scratchy cough remained as evidence of her brush with death.
And always, in the back of her mind, were those deep brown eyes, that gentle hand caressing the side of her face, and the tenderness in the voice that asked, “Are you alright?”
How could one fleeting moment with a masked stranger leave such an impression?
