Eden's Root (34 page)

“Lobo scum!” He looked up and he saw her. A snarl ripped from his throat as he lunged toward her. “You!”

Two shots rang out as Fi fired, dropping him. Thin black trails of blood oozed from the holes in his chest as fell. He twitched and was still. She exhaled and then suddenly a pair of arms grabbed her from behind like a vise, pinning her arms to her side and lifting her off the floor.

“I’m not going to be as nice to you as that pussy Asher,” a voice spoke in her ear, so close that she could feel the moisture of his breath. Fi recoiled in disgust and recognition. It was Sid, the leader of the Lobos. His grip was so tight that she could barely breathe as she hung above the floor. Fortunately, Sensei Bob had prepared her for being pinned. She swung her foot and landed a solid back kick to Sid’s knee, buckling it. He dropped her and she hit the ground, sending a shooting pain through her own knee and shoulder. The gun fell from her grasp when her hands slammed into the floor and slid away from them. She scrambled to retrieve it and felt the intense weight of Sid’s kick as it connected with her lower back and dropped her again. He straddled her and she flipped and kicked up between his legs with all her might.

He screamed and grabbed his crotch and from the ground Fi swept his legs. She jumped back up and sank into her fighting stance while he went down. Her knee and back were throbbing and her mind was screaming to run, but the habit to fight was too strong. Besides, Sid would catch her if she ran. Her weight naturally shifted to her toes and her fists rose to protect her face. She tried to kick his head, but he rolled away and got up. He stood in fighting stance as well, but was hunched over somewhat from the remaining pain between his legs.

“Oh, bitch you’re feisty!” he smiled. His tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth where blood from a cut on his cheek had dribbled. He licked the blood, dragging it back across his teeth. Even in the dim light, Fi could see the horrifying red smear and her heart pounded. She wanted to check on Sean, but she couldn’t risk taking her eyes off of Sid. Continued fighting could be heard all around her, the sounds of pain as blows found their mark.

For a second there was a loud metallic ring followed by a scream of agony. Fi and Sid both turned their heads, and in the shadows Fi saw Asher taking on two of the Lobos. One was crumpling as Asher pulled his sword from his body. He whirled and landed a clean slice across the chest of the man behind him. In that split second Fi was fascinated, amazed by the grace and beauty of this man in combat.

Sid’s growl snapped her back to reality. I need my gun, Fi thought as they circled each other. There is no way I can beat him in combat. Desperate, she made a sudden dash for her gun. Her fingertips reached for the weapon when she felt the full weight of Sid hitting her from behind. He drove through her like a linebacker, knocking the wind out of her.

“Unnf!” She grunted as her head hit the floor and she saw a bright flash. For an instant she thought of Sean’s description of ‘seeing stars’. He was right, she thought, her mind disoriented, it was more like a lightning bolt than a circle of stars.

Sid crouched over her, trying to pin her hands to the ground. She struggled with him, but she was groggy and her movements felt sluggish. It was like fighting underwater. Fi rolled over beneath him and lunged in a crawl for the gun. He grabbed her legs and pulled her back beneath him and she screamed. He sat on her waist, crushing her with his weight. She was pinned and struggled to breathe when he punched the right side of her head.

The world inside her skull exploded into a flash again and Fi felt numb. This is it, she thought. This is the way I’m going to die…in a post-apocalyptic gang fight. Who would have thought, she wondered as her mind slid away. Sid punched the side of her ribs and she felt a sharp pain in her side and squeezed her eyes closed.

“Aaaauuggh!”

Sid screamed in anguish and she felt his weight lift off her back. Rolling over, Fi’s eyes flashed open in time to see Asher pulling his sword out of Sid’s sagging torso from behind. He grabbed her hand and lifted her to her feet.

“Let’s go!” he commanded, pulling her toward the stairs. Dazed, Fi complied, but as she stumbled forward, she remembered Sean.

“I can’t,” she croaked, “Sean!” Asher cursed and let go of her hand.

“Don’t move,” he said and turned to help Sean. She stood obediently in place, wavering on shaky legs. Her mind still felt swimmy and every breath stung like fire. She turned and ten feet away she saw that Sean was down, with a Lobo standing over him, kicking him. Asher charged with his sword drawn. The Lobo barely got a chance to look up before the bloodstained blade slashed him and he dropped. Asher sheathed his sword and grabbed Sean, dragging him upward with Sean’s arm thrown over his shoulder. They half-limped and half-ran to Fi. Sean was badly beaten, but he was alive and he was conscious.

“We have to run!” Asher said and together they ran for the stairs. He lurched beneath the weight of a groggy Sean as he hauled him upward toward freedom. After the first few steps Fi’s mind snapped back to life. The packs! They couldn’t leave the packs.

“Wait!” she yelled to a bewildered Asher and ran back for the packs. She grabbed them and the three stumbled up the stairs.

“I’m ok!” Sean pulled his arm away from Asher’s shoulders. “I can do it myself,” he insisted and together they burst out the door into the moonlit street. Sean grabbed his pack from Fi. In the moonlight she caught a glimpse of his face with horror but there was no time to stop.

“This way!” Asher directed and Fi and Sean complied without question, following his lead. They ran through the streets, dodging in and out of alleyways and through abandoned buildings. Finally they stopped in a dark corner beneath a dock by the river. All three fell to the ground, gasping and panting. Fi sucked air as hard as she could, but every breath was an agony of sharp, knifing pain in her side. She was pretty sure she’d broken one or several ribs.

“We can’t,” Asher panted, “stay here.” He struggled to breathe and talk at the same time. “Nowhere is safe in the City,” he gasped. “We have to find…a way out…of here…quickly.” Sean’s bloodied face twisted in rage.

“Oh yeah?” he breathed. “Why the hell would we trust you?” Asher’s face was grim.

“Because I just saved your lives,” he growled, “and I’m the best chance you have to live through the day.”

----------- Fi -----------

“Here, let’s go here…”

Asher waved to them as he scaled a large brick wall, about eight feet high. He moved gingerly to avoid the giant, molded barbs on top as he peered into the garden behind the wall. He turned back to Fi and Sean.

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “This will work. Just have to get past these,” he touched the concrete barbs. “Fi, throw me your pack.” She threw her pack up to him and he tossed it into the space behind the wall. “Now you Sean,” he said, repeating the action.

At Asher’s direction, Sean helped to boost Fi up and then Asher simply lifted her by her arms. Knifing pain ripped through her side and she bit her lips to keep from crying out as he set her gently on top of the wall. She knew that the effort had hurt him as much as it did her. His blood stained her palms where she had held onto his lacerated forearms. With his help, Fi stepped over the barbs and then dropped to the ground below. Though she landed on her feet, she winced as a flare of pain shot through her torso.

Asher reached down to help Sean pull himself up, both of them grunting in pain. Just as Fi had done, Sean stepped over the barbs and leapt to the ground. As he hit, he lost his balance and landed on his shoulder with a cry of pain.

“Sean!” Fi yelped, running to kneel beside him. He waved her off, but a tear squeezed out of his blackened eye.

“I’m ok Fi,” he said, wheezing a little. “I’m going to be ok,” he reassured her. He sat up just as Asher jumped down from the ledge.

“Oof,” he groaned as he landed. Once they’d caught their breath, the three took a moment to examine their surroundings. The small walled garden was a study in brick. Brick walls hid them from view and joined with the apartment building at their back. Four clusters of trees stood in brick planters, each with a brick bench between them. It was not a pretty space, Fi thought, but it seemed like an ideal place to hide.

“The apartments should be abandoned,” Asher said when he saw her craning her neck to gaze at the rows of windows above them. “Gangs don’t tend to like these. Strategically, I mean,” he explained and Fi cocked her head with interest.

“Makes sense,” Sean spoke up, shifting stiffly. “It’s much easier to scout and defend something like a warehouse than an apartment complex. It would be like trying to defend a maze, which isn’t good. Especially if you have to worry as much about the loyalty of your own gang as you do attacks from others,” he leveled his gaze at Asher who grimaced and nodded in response.

Fi interjected, breaking the tension. “Now that we are safe we have take care of our wounds.”

Asher nodded. “That’s a good idea,” he agreed.

As they settled in, Fi felt the familiar, shaky, sensation take over her legs as the adrenalin of the last few hours left her body. The newly formed trio began to take stock of their injuries. Sean’s wounds were extensive; the inevitable result of many punches and kicks to his head, sides, and legs. The left side of his face was swollen beyond recognition, the eye nearly closed. A cut just below his eye had flowed openly, leaving a sickening cascade of blood dried across his face, neck, and clothing. Deep blue bruises covered his chest and back where he had been kicked.

Asher had several long slice wounds on both forearms, the result of fighting off an attacker bearing a knife. He ripped the bottom of his shirt and wrapped a few immediately to stop the bleeding.

Fi was tending to her own wounds. She could feel the small shiner swelling up near her right eye where Sid had punched her. She opened her pack and tossed some bandages and ice packs to the guys. Then she lifted her shirt and twisted with care as she examined her ribcage. A deep black bruise was blossoming across on her side.

“Unnngh!” she grunted and lowered her shirt.

“Holy shit that is one hell of a bruise,” Sean said to her. “Are you ok?” he asked, his blackened face frowning.

“You’re one to talk,” she joked. “You look like you were put into the dryer with a giant sack of nickels,” she laughed and then winced as fire lit her up inside again. “Ow!” She took shallow, careful breaths. “Yeah, I’m ok. I’m pretty sure I have a bruised or cracked rib or two, but I’ll be ok. It just hurts every time I breathe, is all,” she said, trying to make light of her pain.

She strapped an icepack to her side beneath her shirt with gauze and tensed as she waited for the inevitable throbbing. In a moment, the icepack obliged and the throbbing in her side got ten times worse.

“Shit!” she moaned as the pain intensified. This would only last for a minute, she told herself as she gritted her teeth. Just hang in for one minute, she thought. She breathed through her teeth hard and in another minute, the numbness began to set in and the pain began to abate. Now if only she could strap an icepack to her face, she thought, amusing herself by considering the possibilities. She turned to Sean, who held an icepack to his blackened face.

“Here,” she said, as she approached and settled beside him. “Let me take care of this for you Sean,” she said gently, reaching toward his sore face with her fingertips. They spoke in quiet voices while she helped to clean and bandage his wounds as carefully as possible. As she had done for herself, Fi tied icepacks to Sean’s torso using gauze and then carefully helped him put his shirt and jacket back on overtop so he wouldn’t be cold.

----------- Sean -----------

Nearby Asher sat on the ground and watched, intrigued, as the two chatted and joked. Fi’s fingertips applied butterfly bandages to Sean’s blackened cheekbone with the lightest touch possible and Asher’s heart squeezed. Sean must be quite a person, he thought, to warrant such a tender touch from someone like Fi.

The thought took him by surprise. He wasn’t sure why he would notice such a thing. Probably just unused to seeing any tenderness, he reflected. After a year of experiencing nothing but mayhem and destruction, Asher realized that kindness had become rather foreign to him. Using a wet strip of his shirt, he attempted to clean the scabs forming over his wounds. It was then that he noticed the antiseptic sheets that Fi had tossed to him and he pulled them out. As he unfolded the alcohol soaked sheet, he tried to ignore the knowledge that what he was about to do was going to hurt a lot. Like, a LOT a lot. He bit his lip and then pressed the sheet to his left forearm, sucking in loudly as the sting seared him.

Fi’s head swung around at the sound, searching for the source, and he saw her wince at his face. He knew that it was tight with pain.

“You just keep that icepack on there now, ok Sean,” she requested as she gently re-applied it to his face and he nodded, placing his hand over hers to steady it. She got up and moved to Asher, carrying her pack. She knelt in front of him and reached for his arms.

“Here, let me,” she said. Sensing that there was no option to disobey her, Asher sighed and held out his arms. Fi laid his right arm in his lap and began working on the left, which had taken more wounds. The alcohol had cleared away much of the dried blood from his injuries, leaving the wounds garishly visible. As Asher watched her examine him, the dismay on her face was obvious. On his left forearm there were two long slice wounds, one of which Fi discovered was nearly a half-inch deep as she manipulated it.

“That will need stitches later,” she murmured to herself as she worked. “I’m sorry,” she whispered whenever she had to do something that was going to be painful. “This is going to hurt some, take a deep breath.” With great care, Fi worked to disinfect, close, and cover his wounds. The deep wound needed many butterfly bandages and she made sure the gauze bandage over it was tightly compressed. Asher noticed that whenever she had to hurt him she looked right into his eyes with concern, just as she had with Sean. Her brow knit together whenever he showed pain, like it hurt her too. She was so gentle, he thought, as he examined this small girl at work. Just hours ago she’d shot men right in front of him. She’d held a gun on him even, and now here she was bandaging him like a fallen soldier. Who was this girl?