Author's note: This is my first Dark Angel story that doesn't revolve around Max and Alec. In fact, they aren't mentioned, even once, in passing! This is all Asha-centered. And if you're at all familiar with the Dark Angel site, Raising Hell, I've got it posted over there as well for the monthly challenge. (I totally just promoted myself, didn't I?) Hope you all enjoy!
Music suggestions: 'Gunpowder and lead' by Miranda Lambert.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of Cameron Eglee Productions and FOX. The original characters and plot are the property of the author (which is me, enchantra626 in this particular case). I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. (That looks very serious, doesn't it? :D )
Gunpowder and Lead
She was only fifteen when she used a gun for the first time. To shoot another person, that is.
It was two weeks after she found out that her step-dad had been abusing her younger sister, April. It was thirteen days after she called the cops before he could beat her unconscious. It was ten days after she pressed charges and sent him to the county lockup. And it was two hours after she learned that their own mother had made bail and he'd been released.
Asha loved her mom more than anything in the world, but the woman was a little weak.
He whispered in her ear what he would do to her before the cops had hauled him off. What he'd do to April. And she was going to make damned sure that neither of those scenarios came true. He could beat on their mom all he wanted, she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions. If she wanted to stay in an abusive relationship, who was Asha to stop her? Asha could even take a hit or two herself before she raised hell. But, he'd be dead on the floor before he touched her baby sister again.
She was going to show him what little girls were made of. And it wasn't sugar and spice.
Her best friend's mom worked at the same precinct that her stepdad was being held in. That's how she'd found out. She and April had been at her friend's house when her mom walked through the door, looking at her and April with a mixture of grief and pity. She didn't even have to say anything. Asha stood abruptly and stalked past her, snatching up her coat and slipping out the door before she had a chance to shut it.
"Stay here, April." Asha ordered flatly, the grim determination of a girl on a mission shining in her eyes.
Her stepdad kept a .38 under their bed in a cheap lockbox. For just such emergencies as hers. After packing up a bag for both her and her sister, Asha knelt down and pulled the lockbox out from under the bed. The lock was easy enough to break off. He was a locksmith by trade and had a set of bolt cutters in his tool shed. After a few fumbled tries, she snapped the lock off with a satisfying crunch of metal and threw the lock casually over her left shoulder. He always kept it loaded. Wanted to be prepared if they needed protection real quick.
As if it wouldn't take time to pull off the lock and get it out of the box. But she wasn't about to complain.
Striding out calmly, a bag on each shoulder and a gun in her right hand, Asha let the bags plop down on the floor beside the front door. Grabbing a cherry sucker from the candy bowl beside her stepdad's recliner, she pulled the wrapper off and stuck it in her mouth as she sat on the couch to wait.
He didn't know what was waiting here this time. He wanted a fight? She was gonna show him something crazy, something he'd probably never seen before.
Defiance.
Her hands shook in anticipation as she waited. She whittled away two more lollies before she heard that familiar crunch of gravel in the driveway.
She didn't kill him, as much as she wouldn't have regretted it. But she only shot him once. She shot him in the only place that mattered.
Even after all the advancements the 21st century had made in the medical and scientific field, there wouldn't be any replacing that man's happy place. Ever.
With her mother screaming and her stepdad on the floor groaning in agony, she floated past them. Hefting the bags onto her shoulders, she strode out the door and never looked back. She stuffed the gun deep into her duffel. There was never any telling if she'd ever need it again.
In their world, it was easy enough to disappear. Especially if one lived in Nowheresville, South Dakota. Since the crash happened a few years before, she couldn't even say for sure if anyone even tried to find her and her sister. She never gave them a chance, inching their way west on the money she'd saved up and what her best friend's mom, Olivia, had handed her when she'd went back to collect April.
"I have a friend in Wyoming. She'll help you get far away from here." Olivia said in a hushed tone, pulling Asha aside and handing her a slip of paper with a few bills tucked inside.
And that had been that.
Barely three years passed before she was forced to use it again. She thought that didn't sound too bad, because sometimes, using simple words with a man wasn't enough. Sometimes, they needed a little extra encouragement. And not in the positive, I'll give you a treat if you obey, fashion.
He was her first serious boyfriend. She met him, Darrell, at a bar that she was trying to get a job.
She and her sister had ended up in a nice foster home and for awhile, that had been alright. April was being treated as a fourteen year old girl should be, and that was all Asha asked for. But Asha needed more. There was too much wrong with the world that needed fixing. So as soon as April had been ready to let her go, she took off. Ready to make some kind of difference in the world. Well, she decided to start with Seattle.
She'd known it wouldn't be easy, but she had to try and start somewhere. She got odd jobs here and there, was able to make some cash, and had a closet sized apartment to sleep in. She'd heard about the resistance and the 'Eyes Only' broadcasts that was sweeping across Seattle, but try as she might, she couldn't find an in. You had to make the right connections and be in the right places at the right time. She was only one person, with no family or friend-like connections, and she kept to herself. Not to mention, she had some of the most rotten luck on the planet.
She ended up getting the job. She'd went for an interview on a whim. She discovered she was actually a pretty good bartender. It took her days and more than a few broken bottles that came out of her first paycheck, but she could mix drinks, slide beers down from one end of the bar to the other, and do all the fancy bottle-spinning as well as if she'd been doing it for years. She also made her first connection.
He promised her the world. She never bought that line, her head wasn't that far up in the clouds, but he was sweet and generous. It also helped that he looked like a young Christian Bale. She'd had such a crush on his Batman character when she was a kid. It wasn't that he promised her the world that hooked her in, but rather his promise to bring her in on the resistance movement. The S1W. They sat and talked for hours about how Seattle was going to take a change for the better with the help of Eyes Only.
He told her he was part of the S1W and that he could get her in as well. She kept persisting and he kept saying "soon". She was patient, things like that didn't happen overnight. Days turned into weeks. He gained her trust. Well, as much trust as she was willing to give anyone. He was the first. He was the first man she had sex with. It had been alright enough at the time.
That was before he tried to hit her.
It started with the arguments. He got jealous when she went to work. And her persistence to get into the S1W only added fuel to the fire. They'd argue, he'd stalk away with the door slamming behind him, and she'd curse his existence six ways from Sunday. But she kept forgiving him. It was easy to blame someone and let it simmer when they weren't in the same room as you.
However, she did begin to doubt him. Perhaps he couldn't get her in after all. Maybe she could give him a break and wait for him to let her down gently about the S1W. That he had, in fact, nothing to do with the vigilante group. Sure, they had their heated arguments, but all couples fought once in awhile and maybe he was under a lot of pressure keeping the act up for her. Besides, it wasn't as if he ever tried to beat on her, he didn't seem the type.
Then again, he stepfather hadn't seemed the type, either.
One day, it all culminated into a giant explosion. He grabbed her and shook her so hard, she could have sworn she felt her brain swishing around inside her head. When he was finished shaking her, he shoved her to the floor. She brought her hands up to shield her face from the impact, but she still clipped the edge of the nightstand beside the bed. Bringing her fingers shakily to her forehead, they came away tainted red from the blood dripping down her forehead.
She looked up at him with a mixture of incredulity and unbridled anger. He returned the look with a mixture of apprehension and apathy. He backed away from her slowly, a smile forming on his face that only a man that thinks he has the upper hand over someone already weaker than him can conjure.
"I'll be back later." Darrell said in farewell with a wink, pulling the door shut behind him.
This time, it was good that he stayed away for close to four hours. Because if he'd have come back any sooner, she'd have probably shot him the same way she shot her stepfather.
Nope, this time, she just shot him in the shoulder. And knocked him unconscious with the butt of the gun. And stole the $500 he had stashed under the mattress. It only served him right, after all.
Less than a month later, she got a note that led her to an arcade. Looks like she made the right connection after all.
ooooooaooo*ooooonoooo*ooooouoooo
So, I decided to post this here as well, because that's kind of what I always do. So why break with tradition? And also because I'm hoping for a little more attention over here. Did that sound like I was passively begging, because I'm totally not. Anyway, I always thought Asha was a pretty cool character in the show that didn't get enough playtime. We're told next to nothing about her or her past. Was Seattle even her whole life, or did she move there from somewhere else? Did she have family? What made her join the S1W? Just a few questions, people, and I took it upon myself to try and answer a few. Pure speculation, of course, lol! Also, some hat tipping was made to Birds of Prey. I loved that show... Anyhoo. WBL!