Lightning Strikes Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

I

At the same time Matthew Murdock was making his way to confessional early one September morning, Jessica Jones sat on the edge of her desk on the other side of Hell's Kitchen, rounding off her long-night-come-morning with another swig straight from the bottle.

Her eyes scrolled up and down the page on her laptop. She hated these kinds of cases. The kind that got her mixed up in things that were bigger than just some poor schmuck's crumbling marriage. The kind that involved either thinking while sober or thinking whilst really, really drunk. The kind that almost required her to give a damn.

Matthew Murdock swallowed. So much for the wagon. He'd fallen off it ass-first. He didn't want to think of it as an addiction because he knew he'd done it to the betterment of Justice, all that was Good and Right, et cetera, et cetera. But he also knew that's not the primary reason he did it. It was an addiction because, whether it benefited others or not, he got off on it. And that was why he did it. Not on the merit of its virtues. Not for his principles. Not for the helpless. No; he did it for his own adrenaline high.

He fought back the curse working its way up his throat as he remembered he was in a church. He sighed heavily. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

"Fuck," Jessica supplied. She threw the glass bottle, aiming for the waste basket. It made it (this time) but created an audible crash as it collided with another empty bottle (or several.) Unperturbed, she jumped down from her perch and ran her fingers through her hair.

More than fifty-five million people die every year around the world. God only knew how many died in Hell's Kitchen during that time. But Jessica Jones knew at least ten did. In the pool of millions, ten were connected. It was intimate yet unobservable. In the past year, ten people who didn't know one another died under the same bizarre circumstances. Four women, six men. Aged seventeen through sixty-four. Three white, three black, two Latino, one Asian, one Native American. Overweight, underweight, bodybuilder. Tall, short, tall, tall, short. Didn't go to the same restaurants, churches, bars, or book clubs. Never crossed paths, never had a conversation that anyone knew of. Probably had never even breathed the same air. Ten bodies, ten grieving families. And fuck if Jessica knew why, but one of those families thought to call her. One of those families wanted answers the folks in blue couldn't give. And now Jessica was staring at ten opened tabs with names that she couldn't link, wondering how she always ended up with the crazy shit in her lap. It was probably Malcolm's fault, she mused as she paced the floor. He always reminded her of her moral responsibility or some shit. She should probably start calling him Jiminy Cricket and tell him to stop changing her goddamn lock.

"How long has it been since you've been to confessional?"

"One week, Father," Murdock whispered.

"What was your sin, my child?"

"I did it again. I…fought again."

"And you feel guilty for it?"

"Yes, Father. I promised those I love that I was done. That I would stop, let the police handle things. But…it…it called to me last night."

"Again?"

Matthew took a deep breath and slumped his shoulders. "Yes, Father. Again."

"Who called this time?"

"A woman. She was screaming. A mugger."

"And you saved her?"

"Yes."

"I'm failing to see your sin, Matthew."

Matt growled in frustration and gestured violently around him—a gesture neither he nor his priest could fully see. "I'm doing it for the wrong reasons."

"You may be motivated by the 'wrong' reasons, but would you do it if it didn't help people?"

"No, I wouldn't," he conceded. Then, quieter: "But I would want to."

The police didn't know what they were dealing with. Neither did Jess. Ten bodies, killed in public areas—alleyways, Central Park, the subway. Throats opened—not slit, opened. Blood everywhere, but not enough. Jess imagined holes in jugular veins, someone siphoning the blood out then stepping away to let the victim finish bleeding to death. Without the unconfirmable detail that blood was TAKEN and not just MISSING (i.e., coroner's reports that theorize the murderer got the missing half-pint or so of each vic's blood on her/his clothes) no one really cared about seemingly unconnected deaths that feature murder by icepick/knife/unknown weapon (Coroners are full of shit, Jess thought.) Sick and uncomfortable to think about, but not particularly salacious. Not lurid enough to garner notice by the media, especially over a prolonged period. Some detective thought it a serial killer, but his supervisor didn't agree. Too much NOT in common. Too much unknown. It almost looked random.

Jessica didn't believe in random.

"You are in a unique position to help people. Regardless of how you feel about it, Matthew, you help Hell's Kitchen. Violence is sinful. Saving people is not. If you do it for the former and not the latter reason, perhaps I wouldn't see you here so often."

Matt nodded slowly. "Thank you, Father." He began to rise.

"Remember Esther, Matthew. 'For who knows but that you have come to this position for such a time as this?'"

Over his shoulder, Matt scoffed. "The first part of that verse says deliverance would arise from another place without her."

"Yes. It would have. And this city would go on without a horned Devil roaming its alleys at night." Matt heard the priest pause, probably for dramatic effect. "But Esther was reminded of her position to save the Jews not necessarily for the Jews' sake, but for hers. Her fate was to save them. If she denied that fate, they would still be delivered, but Esther would have deprived herself of that responsibility. Have you thought, Matthew, that this might be for the good of your soul as well as for Hell's Kitchen if you could change your reasons?"

He didn't respond to the question. He thanked the priest and left, knowing the old man was smirking as he evaded the query.

Matthew Murdock wasn't even sure he believed in fate.

II

Eyes, unmoving, unseeing, stared out across the concrete jungle. Sounds, textures, sonic fabric surrounded him.

He didn't have to be here tonight. He could be out drinking with Foggy, trying to mend what he'd broken by doing the very thing he was flirting with right now. He could be visiting Karen. But they'd know. They'd either smell the danger on him like a cheap cologne or see the cuts in his knuckles.

This truth didn't sway him. He was at his perch, on the edge of a building and a revelation. He was close to understanding something. Some epiphany nudged the back of his mind. There was something he wanted, needed to know about himself. Elektra had prodded this part of him, lured it out and played with it. She tried to unleash it, but never quite succeeded. All the parts of Matthew were held back by his desire to suppress this part of him—this part that most reminded him of his father in the ring. It was the opposite of discipline. It was kinetic energy. It was Matthew Murdock's essence. No principles or rules to filter it through.

It was passion, unadulterated.

It was what most frightened him about himself.

Nights like these he needed to breathe in the night air and convince himself he had it under control.

But in the distance, he heard a scream and knew tonight would not be the night he kept the demon in its cage; he'd summon the devil tonight and hate himself in the morning.

III

Jessica woke to sound of screams outside her bedroom/office/whatever window.

Fuck was she not in the mood for this.

She'd better get up and do something about it—if not for her own sleep, at least for Malcolm's outsourced conscience.

Jess rolled off her bed, still fully dressed and smelling strongly of last night's—tonight's?—whiskey binge (A.K.A. "dinner.") She quickly shuffled across the floor, pulled on her boots, and jogged for the stairwell.

IV

Well, this wasn't normal. Not that crimes were supposed to be "normal" but usually they were at least predictable. Rape, murder, robbery. But…was that guy brandishing a syringe? Matt couldn't tell. The stick was too thick to be a normal syringe. But it was definitely a needle-like object attached to a container of some kind. The woman had stopped screaming by the time he got there. He had caught the sound of her head hitting the side of the dumpster in the alley and knew she was out. He could still hear her heartbeat, though, and he hoped to keep it that way.

"Hey!"

The man whirled around, eyes falling on the suit-and-tie figure that growled from the opening of the alleyway. The syringe was already in the woman's throat. Shit, what now? Maybe Matt should've expected it, but suddenly the man (whose face was covered by a ski mask) was scaling the wall of the cul de sac, making for the roof of the building closing him in.

Two choices, Matt. Go after the bad guy or save the girl.

Footsteps. Behind him. Strong, running. Saves me the trouble. Matt took off after the man. Whoever the owner of those feet was had better call an ambulance, fast.

V

What. The. Fuck.

"No. No, no, no," Jess repeated like a mantra. She got down on her knees, fetched her phone from her jacket pocket, and stared at the quickly-filling supersized syringe draining the woman's throat and any moment about to overflow. Was she supposed to take it out? Put pressure on it? Jess wondered if she'd stop bleeding when the syringe was full. Didn't normal syringes do that? This didn't even look medical-grade. It looked like a homemade torture device. It was as thick as a banana and long as a soda bottle. It didn't sport measurement marks on the side. It looked like handblown glass.

"Hello? Yes, send an ambulance, I've got a woman here with a syringe in her throat—Yes, I said a syringe, lady, you heard me the first time!"

The syringe overflowed. Blood seeped out, hemorrhaging from the jugular. Well, that answered that question.

"Fuck," she swore, trying to stop the bleeding by tucking her scarf around the opening. The syringe was still in the woman's neck but Jessica didn't dare pull it out. In the distance, she heard sirens.