Daredevil: Purple
Chapter 1
I hear their screams from miles away. I get closer and I feel their fear, smell the sweat on their skin, and hear their hearts racing. I hear their captors' laughing, taste their cheap cigarettes, and sense the itch in their trigger fingers. They enjoy this. I'm gonna have to enjoy it even more.
I sit on the roof of an abandoned warehouse overlooking the docks. I've stopped human trafficking like this before, but the scum of Hell's Kitchen never learn. There's five men by the crate, two of them armed with automatic rifles. Another three patrolling the rest of the yard. Three women and two children inside the crate. Should be a walk in the park.
In less than a minute I'm down on the crates. I find my first target and take him down easily with a blow to the throat and head with my billy clubs. The next man rounds the corner to meet a steel-tipped billy club in the face. He goes down hard as my club bounces back into my hand. I take two turns in the maze of crates. The final man stands with his back to me. In a flash he's sleeping facedown in the gravel.
The five guards are still standing in a circle around the corner, their hearts drumming slow and steady. I leap on top of a crate and approach my prey. From the crate, I pouce down into the group. A kick to the temple takes out the first man, and the next two are taken down by a flurry of punches. The man to my right attempts a kick to my knee, and ends up with a broken knee as I block it with my reinforced armor. He hobbles back as the next man swings at my face. His sloppy technique leaves his jaw wide open for my elbow to smash into it. He loses three teeth and his jaw is broken.
A stabbing pain erupts in my back and I realize I've been careless I've been for letting the man with the broken knee sneak up on me. His switchblade pierced through my armor, about an inch into me. I spin around snap his elbow, and kick him into the nearest crate. I pull out the switchblade. Luckily, the armor blocked most of the knife.
It was stupid of me to let him get that close. I've got to start paying more attention. I shift my focus to the people inside the crate. I kick the padlock keeping the crate sealed, and swing the metal doors open. The hearts inside race. The woman in the far right corner is on the verge of a heart attack.
"Don't worry, you're safe," I say, kneeling to the ground. "You're alright now. You need to go, now. There's a payphone about thirty feet from here. Call 911." I stand up to leave.
"Wait! W-who are you?" A woman says to me.
I turn and begin to walk away.
"I'm Daredevil,"