Story 3: DayBreak

Our Vigilante pays the price for getting sloppy.

11:19 am

Beep...beep....beep...beep

The sound of the heart monitors steady rhythm brings her slowly back to consciousness. She slowly opens her eyes, her whereabouts coming back to her piece by piece. 

‘What the hell happened last night?’ She thinks. 

Head throbbing as she squints to adjust to morning sunlight shining through her apartment window. From the pain, she feels in her aching skull she most definitely has a concussion, maybe multiple. As she tries to sit up, a sharp pain shoots although out her torso making the thunderous pain in her head feels like the least of her problems. She rubs her left side gently and winces at the touch. At least two cracked ribs. Rebekka looks down at her clothing, her scarf, her hoodie, her boots...all covered in blood. And from what she can tell for the first time in a long time it’s her own.

She reaches down to the torn black belt barely clinging to her waist. 

“D****t," she curses aloud. 

The camera was smashed in whatever melee she ended up in last night. She manages to pull her beaten and badly bruised body up enough to open her laptop, dragging her iv pole with her, momentarily more confused as to how she got it in her vein than as to why she needed it in the first place. As she looks down at her arm and notices the half dozen needle holes in her arm, she clearly didn't get it on her first try. She types away furiously at her laptop, finally seeing her reflection on the screen. Whatever happened she was on the wrong end of it. Broken nose, busted lips, missing tooth, left eye nearly swollen shut. Hopefully what was left of her body camera captured whatever happened the previous night.

Sentagon shipping yard earlier that morning

12:27 am 

The thick dense gray fog filled the air around the Sentagon City shipping yard. Quickly and quietly she moves, unnoticed among the fog, from rooftop to rooftop. Finally coming to a stop atop building A10, she stealthily makes her way inside.

12:30 am

The lights flicker off momentarily, then back on within the fourth story office. The young woman appears from the sudden darkness

"Bravo" comes a soft but stern voice from the backward chair behind the large oak desk in front of the large office window. "I wasn't expecting you this soon. You got to my brothers a few minutes later than this!" the woman proclaimed 

"Sorry, I've would've been there sooner but I had to pick up my dry cleaning" the young woman replies coldly

The chair slowly turns around to reveal a young petite blonde woman in an all-white pinstripe suit. The similarities between the two were startling. Their height, their build, but something about the blonde made the young vigilante extremely uncomfortable. 

"Quite the sense of humor for a cold-blooded killer, I like that, one should never take their job, or whatever this is to you, too seriously.” The petite blonde said with a sinister smile standing up and making her  way to the other side of the desk  "Anyhoo, I'm Bly but I’m guessing you already knew that, and you are?" She politely asks the masked vigilante, walking boldly up to the other woman, extending her hand. At this point, the two are face to face, eye to eye. Bly can see all the rage and anger trapped behind her eyes but as she returns the intense gaze Bly's deep blue eyes are calm, cold, empty almost. It sends a chill up her spine. Something's off, something isn't right

"I didn’t come here for pleasantries, you're killing innocent people and it stops now.... or ELSE!” replies forcefully trying to shake the uneasy feeling. 

"......Or else? Listen, little girl, I don't know who you are or why you've decided to take up this pointless crusade of yours but you're interfering with my family's business and that is something I simply can't allow.” Bly says her smile now replaced with a sneer "Sooooo I'll make this offer to you only once. Leave...go home, hang up your tasteless, cheap Halloween costume and never bother my family again." 

The woman's only answer was an intense unflinching stare

The evil smile returning to Bly’s face "I was hoping you would say that" 

-BAM!-

She barely saw the first punch coming, not being quick enough to block it as Bly’s fist rocks her head to the side. It feels like her jaw was unhinged. The blow possibly being the hardest she has ever been hit by anyone. 

"What the f**k was that!" she thinks to herself.

Her hands get up to block the second punch, in doing so she didn’t notice the knee aimed at the midsection that sends her tumbling back several feet across the office’s carpeted floor. The blows knock the air out of her. It feels like she was hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. 

She quickly gets to her feet only to met with another kick to face by Bly, sending her sprawling to the floor, once again only this time she is lying face down. Getting behind Rebekka, Bly twists one of Rebekka’s arms behind her back and pinning the masked vigilante to the ground.

She feels Bly's strangely strong-arm constricting her airway, desperately claws and grasps at the pressure she feels to try and free herself. She has to think fast or unconsciousness is in the very near future.

"Seriously?  Is this like a joke or something to you? You can't be making any money or anything from this, right? Is this a charity thing?" She headbutts the young woman in the back of the head, another grunt of pain escapes her lips. "I hate charity!"

On the verge of passing out and she uses her free arm and delivers one, two, three hard punches of her own before Bly finally releases her hold on her throat but not before...

-POP!-

She lets out a slight groan ignoring the pain in her now dislocated shoulder and twists her legs up to deliver a knee to Bly’s face freeing herself. 

She rolls to the side quickly as she can and gets to her feet popping her shoulder back into place as she stands. 

-CRACK!-

Bly wipes the trickle of blood from her nose and laughs. “Ok this has been fun but I'm annoyed now!” Bly says amusedly

Bly rushes her picking her up and slamming her back into the large oak desk, causing the young vigilante to howl in pain. Bly grabs her turning her around and begins to ‘acquaint’ the young vigilante’s face with her own desk....repeatedly. 

"I"

-SLAM-

"TRIED"

-SLAM-

"TO"

-SLAM-

"WARN" 

-SLAM-

"YOU!"

Bly finishes by tossing the masked vigilante over her desk scattering her paperwork all over the office carpet floor.

Bly casually tosses her blonde hair back behind her ear, barely a strand out of place, and walks back to the other side of the desk as the beaten woman slumps to the floor. She looks up head ringing trying to focus on which of the three women standing above is the real Bly. She's able to clear her ringing head just in time to see the large heavy oak desk as it falls on to her stomach. The little air she can draw in is slowly being crushed out of her. Bly reaches to the underside of the desk to pull out her pearl white desert eagle. She walks around to the pinned vigilante, kneels next to her, and puts the barrel of the gun to her masked forehead.

"Hmm...should I  blow your pathetic brains out all over my nice clean carpet," Bly asks as she coyly taps the gun to her chin " or sit here and watch the life slowly drain out of your body as your lungs collapse, decisions decisions."

Beep...beep...beep... beep

"What the hell is that noise?” Bly asked somewhat confused 

"The timer....on the bomb...I slipped into your pocket....five minutes ago.” the woman under the desk manages to say hoarsely

"WHAT!” Bly exclaims. 

  

Beep..beep..beep

In a panic, Bly rips her white jacket off and throws it down hurriedly and flips over the desk, and rolls to the other side of the office making her way towards the door to escape. Bly pulls frantically at the door but it appears to have been sealed shut by the woman before she entered the office.

The young woman pinned under the heavy wooden desk musters all the strength she has left to forcefully push the desk off her chest and free herself. She gets to her feet as quickly as her body will allow and runs throwing herself the fourth story office window. She lands like a bag of concrete into fortunately for her, the large black trash dumpster below.

Beep, beep beep beep beeeeeep...

Bly covers her body best she can hope to survive the impending explosion. Then....nothing. Bly looks around confused why is her office in one piece. She cautiously walks back over to the desk. Bly picks up the jacket and reaches into the pocket. 

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

She smiles to herself. "I didn't give her enough credit" 

Just a timer.

Below the woman had pulled her barely conscious body out of the dumpster and managed to drag herself back through the allys of the dark fog filled shipping yard the several blocks to her motorcycle. Barely able to balance herself she hops on her bike to escape. Over the sound of her speeding away through the city making her retreat, a sinister evil echo can be heard over the city.

"THERE'S NOWHERE YOU CAN RUN, NOWHERE YOU CAN HIDE. FROM NIGHTFALL TO DAYBREAK THIS CITY IS MINE!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

11:41 am

Rebekka slams her laptop shut 

"You got lazy....you got comfortable

... never again....” She berates herself "...But right now I need a nap"

She manages to pull herself back to the couch and turns on the TV listening to the background noise she falls back asleep

11:47 am: 

“This is Rick Thurman with Channel 10 Action Now News with your mid-morning news. We continue now with a report that first broke this morning about an attempted break-in at Lisbon Shipping. We now go live to Lisbon chief operations officer Bly Lisbon for comment, Ms. Lisbon.....”

To be continued?