Elena moved out into the main room of the warehouse she’d been told to meet at, two guards flanking her. It was on. They’d set the trap, and now this son of a bitch was going down. The lights flickered overhead, as always. She kept telling Rodin he needed to get those fixed.
With a clang and then spay of sparks and breaking glass, one of the lights went out. Elena motioned to the guards, leading them to the side of the warehouse and between rows of supplies. Rounding a corner on one of the rows, she paused, noting the dead guard at the edge of the next row. A creak sounded and one of her guards spun, pistol ready. Nothing.
Elena motioned them on, eyes searching the rafters. Movement. A flash of red hair.
“Up!” she hissed, and the three fanned out to pursue.
With a small pinch of her New Gold in her pocket, Elena bounded up the casing and leaped, grabbing hold of the rafters to pull herself up. The guards were still working their way up when she went leaping after the attacker. Soon she was kicking off of walls, watching the guy with red hair move even faster.
He was leaping through beams, and then up on the roof. As she followed, he was there with a kick that sent her stumbling back, but she caught herself. When his second kick came, she blocked and came back in for a counter strike, but he dodged and ran again.
A shot rang out from behind, one of the guards catching up and firing on the guy. She instinctively reached for a gun that she hadn’t been given and cursed. That could have come in real handy about now.
Another guard joined them, shooting too, but then the attacker slid, turning to fire back. Elena threw herself down and rolled, hearing a thud as one of the guards fell to the shots.
The attacker popped up and ran again, but Elena was after him in a flash.
“Go around that way!” she shouted to the remaining guard with her, indicating the other side of the roof. He obeyed and broke left while she pursued straight on. She didn’t see any sign of their prey, so slowed, eyeing the darkness up there but also looking to see if there was any sign of him running below.
A movement, clanging on a ladder. She sprinted again, a shot ringing out, and reached the ladder in time to see her prey running below, and a form on its knees below. One of the guards, toppling over, dead.
She slid down the ladder, took the dead guard’s pistol, and sprinted off in pursuit.
With flat ground and the New Gold now hitting her, she had the advantage. A quick sprint and she shot at his feet, grazing one of his legs enough to slow him. Catching up at the edge of the next building, she slammed into the guy and pinned him against the metal wall, pistol pressed up under his chin.
A shout of anger worked its way out of her, followed by her trembling as she resisted the urge to shoot the bastard. “Why are you doing it? Did Peter send you?”
He simply smiled, then broke her grip and headbutted her before taking off again.
Elena let out another shout of anger, chasing after him, cornering him so that his only route was back into the first warehouse. She tackled him again, this time throwing him to the floor and sticking a foot on his neck, pistol held with both hands as she aimed.
“Tell me who!”
As he struggled, hands reaching for anything he could use for a weapon, he clearly wasn’t about to talk. When he tried to punch her in the crotch, she slammed down her foot, harder than she meant to, resulting in him gasping for air.
“Dammit!” Elena shouted, and again said, “Who?!” though she didn’t have much hope of him being able to talk like that.
She took a step back, debating what to do here, and watched as he clawed for her, his last breaths catching, then fading. He was dead. A dead catch meant nothing. He couldn’t give them any information now.
She’d failed.
A sound hit her and she froze, eyes darting back toward the front of the warehouse. Sounds coming from Sabin’s office. Something breaking, others shouting. She turned back, running all out to see what she had missed.
Her feet nearly slipped on the slick pavement, but she recovered, charging into the warehouse and back toward the rear room. She threw the door open, throat burning as she was out of breath and craved water.
That was nothing compared to the clenching pain in her heart, though, at the sight she beheld. Sabin lay on the floor, hand to his neck… blood pooling around him and covering his arm and shirt. His eyes met hers and he spluttered, trying to get words out.
Kevin stepped into her line of sight. “You shouldn’t have seen this.”
At first, she could only process that her father was there, nothing else. She wanted to scream at him, ask him how he could have been there and let this happen. But before she could, her eyes lowered to the bloody knife in his hands. Her gaze returned to the steely expression on his face, the narrowed, ruthless eyes.
No sign of weakness. And if she showed weakness in this moment, she had no doubt he would cut her down too. She stood tall, wanting to approach, to play some political angle and use this to her advantage.
But she couldn’t.
Instead, she stumbled back, eyes moving between the two, then around the room as if she expected someone would leap down on her to slit her throat too. She kept scanning the room till she was at the exit, then turning and running she sprinted back out into the night.
She didn’t know why she was running, but knew it wasn’t because she was scared of her father, though maybe she was. She knew one thing for certain; she needed to be away from him, as far away as possible. At the moment she hated him and would have used the last of her New Gold to see Sabin avenged. She knew that doing so would likely result in the loss of her mind.
She couldn’t think of killing her father and the best thing for her to do in the moment was run. But where to? Her heart thudded, breaths coming up short, thoughts meeting a storm of confusion inside that swirled in her head and made her want to vomit.
Rain fell, wind tossed her hair, throwing the rain at a near-ninety-degree angle. And on she ran. The rain continued, slowing to a light drizzle, glistening in the dark streets and accumulating on her hair and clothes. She was soaked, but still she moved through the streets, figuring that as long as she kept moving, she would be able to figure this out. Her own father had killed Sabin. Wendy had been arriving as Elena left, which meant what? That she was in on it too or had Elena left her there to be caught blindsided? Kevin wouldn’t have any reason to kill her, Elena hoped.
Somewhere in the distance a gunshot sounded. While that wasn’t so out of place for Wicker City, at the moment it rocked Elena, causing her to go to her knees on a curbside. She stared at her fingers, clenching the wet cement, and took a breath.
Then another.
Finally, she nodded, pushing herself up and reminding herself that she had survived the Elsewhere. This whole situation had caught her off guard, and that was messing with her head, but what had really changed? One warlord for another is all. Except, in this case, there had been something about Sabin, something she had always admired and would miss.
Her father being in power was a scary thought. He was too ruthless, too uncaring.
She knew where she needed to go, and hoped she would find a friend there. If the Sisters of the Wind had any inkling of what had just happened, she would. Without delay, Elena made her way to the tall building, took each slogging step up the stairwell, and finally reached the door. She leaned against it, listening to her own heavy breathing and trying to process what the new era would look like. No help from Rodin, no freely roaming the streets in broad daylight, at least not unless she made an alliance with her father. After what he had done, though, how could she?
Elena stepped out onto the rooftop, her meeting spot. No friends, yet. The rain had picked up even in the short time it had taken to climb the stairs. Clouds surged as if in battle above, thunder roaring and then giving way to the purr of the rain. She continued on to the ledge, looking down at the water pounding the pavement below.
If she were a weaker woman, she could throw herself from this ledge and be done with it. All the confusion and pain, over with. But she was not that person, and never would be. Instead, she crouched, letting the rain wash over her. In that moment, she was one with the night. One with the cold air and the water, and if someone had tried to mess with her, she would have bitten their face off before throwing them down to their demise.
As it was, she enjoyed the view and the weather, how her perch brought her solace. This spot, squatting like that, reminded her of the first time she had seen Sabin. How she had looked up at his barreled chest and chiseled jaw, flowing hair, and thought how majestic he looked. Powerful in how he held himself, like a marble statue. A god, almost.
Now he was nothing. Flesh for the compost. Worm food.
Shadows moved nearby, but Elena didn’t shift or look. She waited, trying to be strong. The lone gargoyle on the castle walls. But then… with the closest thing to a friend she had nearby, she knelt again, shoulders slouched.
A hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see Lilly. Not comforting, more confused, possibly sad, even. She knew, and understood what Elena had come to know in the short time since Sabin’s death—they needed to be closer now. More of a partnership, if this city was going to have any chance of survival.
Elena had to rejoin the Sisters of the Wind.
“We have a lot of work to do, Lilly.”
Lilly simply nodded, then joined her to kneel in the rain, looking out over the city together, preparing mentally for what was to follow.