Disclaimer: I don't own this universe. That's the sole domain of Mr. Joss Whedon. But the character I'm building up here is, to the best of my knowledge, mine. She's rather heavily inspired by the Episode from Angel: "Damage," but as far as I know, Maria is a fairly original character… At least not one I've seen either in any of the episodes or in fandom so far.
For the record, however, I should mention that to the best of my knowledge, there is nobody named Maria on Virginia's death row; and even if there were, any resemblance to the character here is purely coincidental. Furthermore, as far as I know, the governor of that state has no friend whose son was beaten to death with a baseball bat.
In other words, none of this actually happened.
Chapter 1:
"It's time, Maria."
Maria did not respond as she sat on the nondescript bench in the holding cell, her head bowed; her long black hair obscuring her face. Her hands were clasped in front of her, as if in prayer, although she had declined to have a priest see her in her final hours. The large clock on the wall facing her quietly counted out the seconds, but in the silence of the tiny room, the soft tick…tick…tick… exploded against her eardrums as if someone had detonated a firecracker next to her ear.
"Maria?"
Slowly, almost as if she hadn't heard him, Maria looked up into the warden's face, allowing her eyes to slowly open, then gently, deliberately, she nodded. She stood smoothly, facing the door.
She'd known that her time was almost up when the doctor had come in to give her a physical. That was part of the procedure she'd always found a little odd. The State of Virginia had decided to have her killed, but they wanted to make sure she was healthy first.
Since taking the position of Warden, Christian had never understood the almost eerie level of calm that always seemed to possess the condemned in their last moments. He was fairly certain that if it were him, it would take a small army to get him into the chamber; but in six years, he'd never seen anyone falter. One man a few years back had stumbled a little upon seeing the execution gurney, but he had resolved himself and had walked with steely determination from then on. Protocol required two armed guards to be with the condemned, just in case they had to be carried, kicking and screaming. In all his time as warden, they'd never been needed. Executions were always a little hard on everyone. Guards, prisoners; even those not on death row. Everybody seemed to be a little on edge when someone was about to be injected. This one would be one of the more difficult ones. Sure, she'd committed a horrible crime, but something seemed inherently wrong about killing a twenty-one year old girl; even if the state said it was okay. Beating the son of a very close friend of the Governor's to death with a baseball bat had a way of reducing your chances of clemency. It was difficult for her attorney to argue that she'd acted in self-defense when the man performing the autopsy revealed that she'd delivered a minimum of twenty-six blows after the victim's heart had stopped. It had taken less than two hours for the jury to deliberate and to recommend death by lethal injection. The judge presiding had found little reason to disagree with their assessment.
State-sanctioned murder, the opponents called it; justice, the victim's family almost invariably called it; but none of them had to be the one who activated the machine.
He slid the door opened and gestured to one of the guards, who stood by his side holding a pair of leg irons.
"You know you don't need those," Maria told him, calmly.
"It's the rules, Maria. You know that."
Maria rolled her eyes and held her wrists out to the guard. He made short work of chaining her wrists to her ankles.
"Just so I know, what would you have done if I'd said no, shot me?"
"I don't know. I've never had anyone say no before."
"Which way?"
The warden took a step back and gestured to a small, nondescript door a few feet away.
If not for the restraint straps on the table in the center of the room, it could almost be mistaken, to the untrained eye, as an operating suite. Its tile floor and pristine white walls practically reeked of sterility. A small, stainless steel sink stood in the corner. The far wall consisted of six thick glass panels which were, for the moment, obscured by a curtain which was drawn across them.
The machine itself hung opposite the windows, an innocuous-looking device consisting of six large syringes, separated into two groups of three. Three held harmless saline solutions, the other three held the drugs which would, one after the other, render her unconscious, paralyze her diaphragm, and stop her heart. Only the executioner knew which was which. One of the guards would start the flow of saline; the other would start the flow from the lethal cocktails. Neither one would ever know who had what job. The logic was similar to that of loading a single rifle in a firing squad with a blank round. That way, each one of the members of the squad could rationalize that they had not delivered the lethal shot. From then on, the sequence was automated. The intravenous lines would be flushed out with saline, then a solution of sodium thiopenthal would be pushed through her veins, rendering her unconscious; the lines were again flushed with saline to prevent the a reaction in the IV line from blocking it, followed by a solution of Pancuronium bromide which would cause respiratory arrest; the lines were again flushed with saline, and a solution of potassium chloride would drive the potassium gradient in her heart well beyond tolerance levels. Her heart would go into arrhythmia, and ultimately grind to a halt.
It seemed so simple when it was described that way. Mechanical. Like turning off a light switch.
"Maria?"
"I'm okay." She replied to his unasked question, "just… taking it in is all."
The guards were well trained and skilled, but it took almost twenty minutes to restrain her and insert the catheters into the veins in her arms. They certainly seemed to know what they were doing. Her arms were held straight out from her body, the claim was that it allowed the blood to flow freely back to the heart and lungs, but Maria was convinced there was some biblical connotation as well. She'd never actually asked.
The curtain drew aside. Maria didn't let herself focus on any one of the faces on the other side of the glass. She didn't want the last thing she saw in this world to be the faces of those who were convinced she was a monster.
It took her a moment to realize that the warden was speaking. Reading out her death warrant as the law required. She tuned it out. She knew what it said. The state of Virginia wants to kill you, yadda, yadda, yadda.
"Do you have any final statement you wish to make?" The warden finished.
Maria shook her head, "not for you. Let's just get this over with."
"Yeah, see if you can kill her twice for me." The voice, muffled through the thick glass was that of the father of the man she'd killed. She found it difficult to blame him for the distain he felt.
The warden made no response, but looked down at Maria, almost apologetically. Then he turned away and Maria heard the click of the machine humming into action.
It wouldn't be long now.
Maria felt something slam into her. At first she thought it was the drugs, but this was more painful than she imagined it would be. It tore through her as if it wanted to consume her. Burning her up from the inside out. Her back arched as every muscle in her body tensed and spasmed. She heard someone screaming. It took her a moment to realize that it was her.
"What's happening?" She heard the warden's voice off to her left. She couldn't see him as her eyes were closed tightly. Her jaw was clenched so tightly it hurt. She convulsed on the table, her arms pulling against the restraints with a strength she didn't know she possessed.
"I don't know. It's just a saline solution. It shouldn't be…" She could hear muffled commotion on the other side of the glass to her right. She could even hear the father's voice in the commotion rising in protest, yelling to the warden to stop the procedure. Mercy, she supposed, was the mark of a great man.
"Maria, can you hear me?" That was the warden again. From the location of his voice, she could tell that he now stood over her. His hands resting on her chest, trying to calm her.
With a scream of tortured metal, the heavy frame restraining her left arm tore free slamming brutally into the Warden's right cheekbone. He fell to the tile floor, unconscious long before he hit it.
Maria felt as if her body wasn't her own. Like it was moving of its own accord. She rolled to her right, ripping the restraints off her right arm.
This is a dream. It has to be. Nobody has this kind of strength.
She smoothly slid the 14-gauge needles out of her forearms. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the two guards leaping into action, their clubs drawn. They carried no guns. She rolled her body forward as a club slammed brutally through the space her head had occupied only moments before, and freed her legs.
She could hear the witnesses yelling in shock. She ignored them, focusing her attention on the two guards. One of them swung downwards at her head, going directly for a knockout blow. She spun out of the way, delivering a kick to the center of his abdomen.
How was she doing this? She'd never taken a martial arts course in her life.
In the moment it took for the guard to recover from the kick he'd received to his solar plexus, she gripped his wrist in her right hand then slammed the palm of her left into his elbow, forcing it to bend in exactly the opposite direction it was designed to. His hand automatically released the club, dropping it smoothly into her right hand.
The second guard came at her from the side, striking at her right temple. She smoothly twisted and blocked his blow with her newly-acquired club, and lashed out with a kick at his right kneecap, shattering it. He fell to his left knee, groaning in pain. She lashed out, backhanded, bringing the club across his right temple. He dropped facefirst to the tile floor.
She stood for a moment in the center of the chamber, blood flowing freely from the punctures in her arms. As if for a moment she couldn't believe that she was standing and they were not. The doctor who would have had the responsibility of declaring her dead was cowering in the corner of the chamber, and she could hear people pounding on the windows behind her. More distantly, she could hear an alarm sounding. She didn't have much time.
Through the door she'd entered through was a series of locked doors and guards. She'd never make it out that way. Her body was supposed to be carried out the other way, to a waiting hearse. That way was relatively unsecured. Most people coming through there were dead, and relatively unlikely to escape.
The white hearse sat in the courtyard, its engine idling. The driver sat waiting for the body to be carried out, apparently oblivious to the commotion inside. Maria stalked up to him and punched through the driver's side window, grabbing the man by the throat.
"Get out." She said simply. He did.
It was amazing how easily driving a hearse could get you out of a prison compound. The guard barely looked at her face as she rolled up to the front gate before he waved her through. It didn't hurt that it was about the right time for a hearse to be rolling out with the remains of a condemned criminal inside, and in a sense, it did. The remains were just a little more viable than they were supposed to be.
The hearse rolled away onto the main road, to freedom.
If you could call it that.