She tried to stand up, but her legs gave out. She cursed, and tried again. And again. And again. When she finally managed to stand up on wobbly legs, blood dripping from her flank, it lasted only for as long as it took the teenager to knock her back down with their bat.
----------------------------------------
For a while, Cordelia couldn’t quite remember where she was. She could see nothing, so she listened. There was… a voice. Soft, and familiar. Like a distant memory. Who…
Amaal, my love.
...But no, the voice was here. It wasn’t a memory.
If only she could wake up…
Ouch.
Cordelia curled over from the pain, and everything came back.
Misha Malenkov had found her.
“Mom! Mom, are you alright?”
Cordelia opened her eyes. Deb’ was kneeling over her, cheeks streaked with tears. Their hair was a mess coronating a face of dark brown sand with a halo of waves. Was Deb’ the voice that she’d heard?
“Mom!” they cried out, and Cordelia’s answer died out on her lips as she was caught in a very tight hug. She was startled at first, but then Deb’ started sobbing in the crook of her neck and she hugged them back, holding their small body in her arms the way she always had. Everything hurt - her face, her stomach, her heart. But she was still alive.
*
After a while, when Deb’s sobbing had subsided, Cordelia asked them to help her get on her feet. She looked around, relief feeling her lungs. They were all still alive.
Will and Danton were holding hands, foreheads touching, whispering private words a few feet away from Tina, who stood with the light of the sun shining off of her like a moon, and Andy next to her, taller than she’d ever been. In front of them both lay the body of Misha Malenkov.
“Is she…”
Deb’ followed her line of sight, and they started walking. “Dead? No. We were waiting for you to wake up.”
“I’m not the one she kidnapped.”
“Andy doesn’t need the weight of a death on her shoulders.”
“True,” Cordelia sighed.
Andy caught her gaze and came toward them, frowning.
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” Cordelia said, waving away her concerns. “Is anyone else hurt?”
“Danton took a blow, but he’s fine.”
Cordelia nodded, then gestured towards Misha. “What about her?”
Andy turned around to give the body a look, and turned back with conflict clearly etched in the lines of her face. “Unconscious. She’ll live though.”
“You should have seen the kick Andy threw in her face, it was fucking majestic. Asshole over there didn’t see it coming at all,” Deb’ added with a grin, and Andy flushed an interesting shade of red.
Cordelia shot her kid a curious look and Deb’ simply shrugged, big grin blooming across her face.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A groan came from Misha’s body then, and all the smiles vanished.
*
She looked terrible by all account, though Cordelia doubted she was any better. There was dirt everywhere, countless bruises deformed her face, and a large stream of blood maculated her suit all the way down to her right foot from the knife Cordelia’d planted her with; her right shoulder was bloody, too, and the fabric there was burnt. Her body reeked of sweat, blood and burnt flesh.
She looked like it was a battle just to sit.
“Why haven’t you killed me,” she said, and it sounded like a statement.
“Because it is our decision to make,” Cordelia said, glancing at Andy, who was glaring holes into the ground.
“You should kill me,” Misha Malenkov said. Her voice was the flattest Cordelia’d ever heard.
“We will,” she shrugged. “But taking a life is never something easy to do.”
Misha scoffed. “Like you really care. You’re villains, that’s what you do.”
Next to Andy, Deb’ froze, and Danton pulled Will closer.
Cordelia smiled. “Because you don’t?”
Misha instantly went rigid. “Don’t you dare compare yourself to me!” she yelled.
She was ready to say more, but Tina stopped her in her track.
“Every single individual that any of us has killed deserved it.”
Misha glared at her. “How could you possibly know -”
“I have all the data stored in my system, for every death and every theft. If you checked all of them one at a time, you would find none of them was undeserved. Could you say the same?”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you are all villains and did this out of the law, for your own gains. Vengeance is not a solution.”
“Like working with the law makes any difference,” Cordelia said.
The Hero roared. “I am -”
Tina didn’t let her finish. “Josh Turner, abuse and tax-fraud,’ she said, looking straight into her eyes, and each name was like a dagger to her throat. “Madeline Tremont, arson. Franz Sottof, rape. Kevin Blanc, murder. Caroline Sidhi, abuse, tax-fraud and gang activities. Michael Devin, theft and assault. Lena -”
Cordelia put a hand on Tina’s shoulder, interrupting the flow of names. “I think that’s enough, Tina,” she said, glancing at Andy. She looked ready to throw up.
Tina immediately softened. “Sorry,” she said, and turned back to Misha. “I have all the data stored in my system, for every death and every theft. If you checked all of them one at a time, you would find none of them was undeserved.”
She glared at her. “Laws exist for a reason. If you want people to suffer for their crimes, there is
a judiciary system just for that.”
“Sometimes the laws are flawed,” Cordelia said. “Besides, I doubt your methods are completely legal, either.”
“I am employed by the government. You want me to believe you killed all those people out of some twisted ideal of justice?”
“Yes, no, believe what you want. It doesn’t make a difference to us,” Cordelia stepped in. “We know we acted right. Can you say as much?”
“Yes,” the Hero said, and crushed the villain’s leg. She went for the android next. Tore her life system right out of her chest. Then the teenager - a solid hit to the head. She punched the consciousness out of one of the guys’ stomach, and used his body to knock the other one out.
She squeezed the Restrainer’s neck until all life had fled her eyes.
No fight the Hero’d ever fought had been as tedious as this one.
----------------------------------------
She did not sleep for three days.
On the morning of the fourth day since the Restrainer had been taken down, Misha rode her motorbike to the Cube.
She had never been to the Cube, but everyone there knew her face. They let her through.
She pushed the heavy doors to room 678910 with both arms. They opened on a cubicle of roughly 20 meters cube. The room was split in the middle with a pane of glass, folded ten times over itself. In the bottom half of the room, a metal chair. Screwed to the ground. On the other side of the room, a chair. Plastic, light on the cement floor. Mish walked to stand facing the middle of the glass pane - the plastic chair was left ignored. Sitting on the other side of the room was Cordelia.
The silence settled in Misha’s guts like stones. Like everything she disliked, she broke it.
“Why were your minions so determined to save you?”
Cordelia’s face, which had been painted blank with calm until now, was distorted by a small, sad smile. Misha smashed her fist against the glass, crackling it.
“Answer me.”
Cordelia shook her head lightly. “I pity you, Hero.”
Misha grit her teeth.
“ Answer me, ” she chewed out. Cordelia smiled again.
“Why? You have no power over me. And what could you possibly promise me?”
“I could break this glass as easily as paper.”
Cordelia’s smile faded slowly. She considered Misha for a long, agonizing second. Then she leaned slightly over, closer to the glass wall.
“I am going to tell you,” she said, slow and deliberate, “but not because you threatened me. I am going to tell you because you pity me.”
Misha pressed her nails into her palms.
“Spit it out already.”
“Not used to this, I suppose?” Cordelia smiled, eyes of liquid galaxies. “Those people you took down - they’re not minions. They are my family.”
Misha stormed out of the room in a breath, fleeing from Cordelia’s eyes’ crushing weight.
At the corner of the Hero’s eye shone the single tear of a very small world gravitating around its cold, dead star, lost in the vast expanse of the cold, dead space.