The Night Vigilante

IV. Cole

IV.  Cole

            I grunt, latching onto the door post above me and swinging hard.

            Twisting my body and throwing my itup and onto the roof above me, I land soundly, instantly taking off, my muscles coiling.

            “Hey!” someone shouts, clambering noisily after me.

            I leap off of roof after roof, running silently.

            My arm aches and I hold onto it as I run, hoping that it would heal quick enough for me to escape.

            I hear a gun shot, the noise making every hair in my neck stand.

            “Don’t let him go, Thatcher will be pissed at us if he gets away,” I hear another man shout.

            I snort.

            Lunging, I pounce off of my feet, aiming high for the metal stairs up on the building.

            As soon as my hands touch the retractable stairs, one more gun shot rings out.

            Cars were honking, people were chattering and up in the sky, there was a distant sound of a helicopter roaming the sky.

            Breathe in.

            Breathe out.

            Pain erupts in my gut.

            It took only one second.

            One second, I am holding onto the metal stairs and next, I’m slipping-falling.

            -And then, I hit the ground.

            My body slams against the edge of a roof, making the distant sound of a crack ring in my head, before my body hits the ground.

            There was only pain- white, blurring pain that succeeded all thought.

            As I lie there, the darkness surrounding me, shrouding me, I breathe in shakily.

            My hand automatically goes to my abdomen.

            I draw my hand back with dark burgundy blood dripping down my arm. I stare at it wondering if this is how Grace felt.

            I grunt in pain, trying to conceal a scream of pain as I dig my fingers into the asphalt, dragging myself to the corner of the alley, behind all the trash.

            Stay with me, I remember telling Grace-ten years ago. I was holding her small body in my arms, running in the cold and trying to get her help. I remember her eyes closing, her body going limp within mine as a panic like no other over took me.

            The mix of the past and present blur into one as I lie on the cold, ground-bleeding and dying. The memories of the past explode into my mind, grappling with the present.

            All I can remember are coffee eyes the color of liquid earth.

            All I can hear is my voice telling her to stay awake for me.

            But all those memories of saving her were from the past and now, I was slowly escaping my present.

            My eyes felt heavy.

            “Where’d he go? I shot him,” a voice hisses, above me.

            I push myself further against the wall, hoping the night would conceal his trail of blood. Now probably wasn’t the time to be nostalgic about the past memories.

            “Sh*t,” a man curses. “How can he do that? How does he just disappear?”

            I blink rapidly, all thoughts and sensibility flying out of my head as I slowly pick myself up.

            I would gladly take death over how the pain ripped and tore at my body.

            “He always disappears into the night,” a hear one of guys curse. Seconds later, a loud boom slams into the air as one of the guys slams his fist into something.

            Muttering something in a different language, the guy is silent for the longest of times, making me hold my breathe.

            “Let’s go. We better tell Thatcher. Prepare yourself though, he’s not going to be happy that we’ve let the vigilante go-again.” The head guy of the group grunts.

            “Relax, he’s been shot. He’s probably going to crawl into a corner and die,” another man pipes up, their voices literally right above me, on top of the building above the alley.

            I stare at the alley corner, my blood mixing in with the rain puddles. The smell of rubbish was sickening.

            I blink, trying to clear my head, but all I can think about is Grace and how this was karma.

            When I hear the last of them leave, I dig my fingers into the brick wall and pull myself up, only one place in mind.