CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The pain ripped through her body, in all its agonizing expedience. The muscle in her calf was partially severed, and she struggled to her feet halfheartedly, much akin to a newborn foal. She screamed in unbridled anguish as her legs collapsed beneath her, crumpling her at the feet of Spot Conlon. He hunkered down over her, instinctively scooping her into the protective grasp of his arms.
This gesture elicited a merry, tinkling laugh from Oliver, and he took a step closer to the pair. His grip on the pistol grew tauter, as he directed it at a downward angle, aimed point blank at them. "You stupid, insipid cunt," he intoned, his voice darkening. "What would our dear mother say to this? You..fucking Brooklyn trash? She would have been so…disappointed…in how you turned out, Angel love." A corner of his mouth twisted into a sneer and he fluidly drew back phlegm in his throat, before spitting upon Angel.
She could feel his sour mucous strike her face, even through the rain. It was at that moment that Angel lost her sanity, and she was thrust into the abysses of madness. The blood coursed through her veins, a scorching white hot. Her mind turned to a jumble, all reasonable thoughts lost upon her, and her body began to act on primal flight or fight instinct alone.
It chose for her to fight.
"You murderer! You murderer! You fucking murderer! You killed her! You killed her! " With a sudden surge of newfound energy, she was to her feet, despite the excruciating tearing of muscle as she lunged for him. Oliver had not been expecting such a reaction, and did not have time to counter her force. With all her being, she pounced upon him, pushing him brutally backward onto the hard wood of the scaffolding. His back hit the scaffolding with a sick crack, she falling on top of him. The pistol fell out of his grasp, striking the scaffolding and skittering a few feet from where they lay.
"You killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her!" She was babbling shrieks of incoherency at this point. Her legs straddling him and her blood-strewn hair falling into her face, she desperately brought her hands to his face, scratching and clawing for anything in her haze of lunacy. While her brother was still in a fleeting state of dumbfoundness, Angel's grasp cradled his temples on either side, and, as her thumbs found his eyes, she dug into the orbital cavity with all her might. She could feel the thumb of her left hand penetrate and break through an aqueous, soft mass and then, suddenly wetness.
She had crushed his left eye and the blood began to pour from the damaged cavity, hot and red over her hands, and she only pressed further, deeper.
The sheer trauma to his eye brought some semblance of sense back to Oliver, for he elicited an exquisite howl of pain, and, rolled to his side, thrusting Angel off of him and to the scaffolding. He was to his feet in an instant, hands covering his damaged eye, blood streaming through his fingers and down his face. His equilibrium appeared off for a moment, as he stood, wobbling, and shrieking in anguish.
"You bitch! You fucking bitch! I'll kill you! I'll kill you and gut you like a pig! I'll kill you just like your fucking cunt mother!"
Her body tensed, and she was poised to lunge at him again, when she felt a strong pair of arms come from behind, and envelope her, driving her backwards into a hard, rain-soaked chest. "This is not your fight anymore, Helena. Let Brooklyn have his go."
Flynn's voice filled her ear canal, warm and hot, and his loosened, matted hair brushed her face. She fell against him with a sob, and she allowed the pain from the Oliver's bullet to finally consume her. Flynn scooped her into his arms in an instant, lithely flinging her over his shoulder as he bounded off the scaffolding and onto the cobbled stones of the street.
Angel was absolutely oblivious to the fact that Flynn still was engaging in hand to hand combat with the other Midtown newsies with a switch as she lay strewn over his shoulder. She could only view the scene before her through the tangles of her hair in utter horror.
In the most unadulterated terms, this is what the whole war came down to. Brooklyn and Midtown. A boy so jealous of a man for being what he could never be that he would stop at no cost until the man and everything he loved was utterly decimated.
It was Conlon and Oliver, as they should be, finally face to face and alone on the platform amidst all the chaos around them. Conlon had somehow purloined Oliver's gleaming ebony pistol out from under him sometime when Angel had knocked him to the ground. He held it, his agile arms outstretched with the barrel directed point blank at her brother. He was absolutely riveting in the dousing rain; his broken body rigid, erect, and tall, and his eyes burning like blue fire under the bruises. The dirty blond hair was soaked, plastered to his head. His lips were held in a tight, grim scowl.
Oliver was making a wide circle around Conlon, a hand still clasped over his missing eye. The blood, rendered black by the night, cascaded through his fingers, down his face, and onto his person, saturating through his clothes. Conlon turned in place, never taking his eyes or aim off of Oliver's head.
There was suddenly a sharp shove, as a newsboy drove himself into Flynn's shoulder, whether unintentionally or not. Flynn released a cry, and against his will lost his balance, sending Angel tumbling to the ground. Her head took the brunt of the fall, striking the rain-slicked ground and causing her to elicit a guttural groan. Remarkably, her conscious was not lost, and she lolled onto her back, stars bursting before her eyes. Flynn and the other newsboy performed their dance of mortal combat around her, their booted feet mere quarters of an inch from her face, amazingly not trouncing her somehow. She was ignorant to this, and to all engaging in warfare around her. She trained her gaze upward, to lay eyes on Conlon and Oliver once more.
Though, this time they were upside down. And Conlon had lost control of the weapon, and it lay somewhere on the scaffolding in the darkness. Oliver had charged at him, using his head as some sort of ram, crashing into Conlon's stomach and nearly driving him off the scaffolding. Conlon was left dazed for a few moments by the blow, doubling over and placing his hands over his abdomen, backtracking for a few unsteady steps.
Oliver used the few precious moments to his advantage. He finally released his hand from the site of his wound, and was scanning the scaffolding with his one good eye for what seemed like, something, anything. His chest rose and fell rapidly with quick breaths. The rain intermixed with the blood that ran down his face from the raw, bloodied cavity, coloring it an almost pinkish hue. And finally the scanning halted, and his gaze fell upon something that lay on the scaffolding. Angel flipped onto her stomach, desperately pushing herself up onto her elbows as she saw his eyes train on the object. He was upon it in a moment.
The blade flashed momentarily. It was Night's serrated hunting knife that Oliver now held in his clutch. The blade that killed Hennery. The blade that had freed Conlon.
Oliver was crouched now, his gaze sited upon Conlon, lips pulled into a snarl and every muscle in his body taut. Conlon was still recovering from the blow to the stomach that Oliver had dealt him earlier, and did not even realize Oliver was lunging at him…
"Spot!" Angel did not even realize that the words possessed in the magnificent scream were being uttered from her lips. At her warning, Spot snapped his head up quickly. With a cry, he side stepped Oliver just in time. Oliver regained his balance quickly, turning toward Conlon, baring his teeth and brandishing the blade. He jabbed the blade at Conlon, and Conlon twisted away, the blow cutting through the air where his torso had been.
Angel struggled to her feet, pushing off the slick cobble stones, ignoring the heated pain in her leg. She violently fought her way past the warring newsboys, attempting with all her might to push them out of the way if necessary to reach the scaffolding. She flattened out quickly to slide between the backs of a Brooklyn boy and a Midtown thug to reach the wooden platform.
A burst of lightening streaked through the humid summer sky, briefly illuminating the scene before her. Oliver struck Conlon with the blade as swiftly as a cobra would its prey. The blade dug deep into the flesh of his shoulder leaving a massive tear in the fabric of his drenched shirt. The sanguine blood came suddenly and furiously, streaking out of the wound and down his arm. Conlon elicited a sharp cry, and brought his opposing hand to his injured shoulder.
Oliver released a shriek of murderous rapture.
"Spot!" Angel yelped, struggling to the scaffolding and hurrying upon it.
Oliver had lost his sanity by now, and he was shouting incomprehensible phrases into the rain sated sky. His jagged teeth were bared in a maniacal smile, stained a dim red from the blood. His good eye wore a lunatic's gleam, and the socket where the left eye had been stared back at her gaping and bloodied by flecks protruding flesh.
Angel's eyes hurriedly scanned the scaffolding, searching for anything, when her gaze fell upon the expired hunk of meat that had been Hennery. A black hilt protruded from his booted foot. Her breath bated painfully in her throat and her heart began racing so that her body began to physically shake. She looked quickly back to Conlon and Oliver. Oliver had thrust the blade at him, leaving a splendid slice of cut flesh across his upper chest. Conlon elicited a noise, a sound Angel could not bear to hear. It was a noise blended with unfathomable pain, and weariness, and worst of all...that of a broken soul.
Angel inhaled sharply, her body shuttering with fear, and knew that if things continued this way, that it would be over soon…that somehow Oliver, in the end, would have won over them anyway…
She dove. Pushing off her feet with a cry, she sailed through the air, her brother's back to her, and hit the scaffolding with a thud, landing just a few feet from Hennery's corpse and into a pool of his congealing black blood. She released a small, repulsed noise, Hennery's blood clinging to her face, hair, and clothes, she hauled herself the remaining distance to his body. On her belly, both her hands found the smooth hilt of the switch, and, with all her might, she pulled the blade from his boot.
She rolled onto her side, the hilt of the blade raised aloft over her head to survey the scene. Conlon had landed a good blow to Oliver's cheek, but he simply retaliated, drawing the blade across Conlon's face, slashing deeply into the bridge of his nose.
It was now or never, her brain raced, now or never. Slithering on her belly, she pulled herself across the scaffolding, closing the distance between Oliver and she. Her brother was too engrossed in battle with Conlon to even realize her presence.
With the silent dexterity of a trained assassin, she swung her arm out to her side, before letting it rip forward before her, the blade slicing through the back of Oliver's ankle. His Achilles' tendon rolled up like a Venetian blind into his calf. Oliver released an inhuman cry of agony before his balance gave way and he crashed to the scaffolding. He was on his side, and his jerked his curled knee into his chest, attempting to soothe away the pain.
Angel overpowered him effortlessly, throwing him onto his back and tossing her legs on either side of him, straddling him.
"You bitch!" he screamed shrilly beneath her, wildly bucking underneath her akin to a wild animal in its death throes and desperately attempting to claw at her face. "I'll kill you, you fucking bitch, I'll kill you and cut your fucking throat just like I did your fucking cunt mother!"
The felt the furious insanity well inside the abysses of her stomach again, and she was poised to strike him, when her outstretched hand fell upon something cold and hard. She glanced quickly down and noticed her fingers were on Oliver's obsidian pistol that he had lost in the fray with Conlon.
And suddenly her mind became incredibly lucid. She took the gleaming weapon, slowly, meticulously, in her grasp, and brought it before her, staring at it briefly before averting her gaze to her only living flesh and blood. His had ceased his thrashings momentarily and gaped at her, his good eye wide and the bloody hole staring back at her. She held the pistol not in the normal stance she had when she had used such a weapon as an assassin for her brother, but this time, she turned the weapon away from her, holding the barrel in the tight grip of her palms.
She did not utter any last words to her kin, only stared down at him with cold gray eyes, before she brought the butt of the gun ferociously down upon his head. It seemed he was about to release a scream, but any noise died on Oliver's lips as the metal struck his brow with the first devastating blow, fracturing the initial bit if skull.
She brought down the pistol repeatedly, harder and faster and with more fervor with each strike. The second time she cracked his nose, decimating it. The third time it crashed down onto the already shattered frontal bone, decimating it completely. She continued this until she was tired and wasted, until his screams were silenced, until his body stopped quivering under her, and until his head was an unrecognizable, decimated pulp of blood, bone, and brain.
She stopped, and realized only then that she was, and had been, screaming at the top of her lungs. Screams damning her brother, and screams imploring God to save her immortal soul. Screams to her mother, and screams to her father.
These screams only halted when she felt a pair of hands resting softly on either of her shoulders. She looked down to the pistol, her brother's pistol that had decimated his head, covered in his brain and blood and bone.
She began to shake uncontrollably, a force that wrought itself through her with such reckless abandon the only pillars of strength that kept her upright were the hands on her shoulders. "Oh God," whispered, looking to the gun. "Oh God!" screamed into the night, her gaze falling from the gun to the corpse of her brother and back again.
With a swift hurl, she flung the gun to her side, where it landed with a silent clatter no one took notice to amidst the chaos of the battle. Her vision was beginning to blacken before her eyes, and she felt a sudden need to disgorge all contents of her stomach.
"Oh, God," she gurgled. She inhaled a sharp, painful, breath that lodged in her throat, and she felt consciousness begin to leave her, when the hands vacated her shoulders, and a strong set of arms found themselves under her arms. They brought her to her unsteady feet in an erratic, abrupt motion, only to turn her around suddenly.
Awareness found Angel once more as a hand was brought roughly across her face, brutally striking her. Her eyes fluttered open, and her vision focused to Conlon standing mere inches from her face. His furious eyes were narrowed, brows furrowed. The wound riding the bridge of his nose gushed blood that cascaded down his face. His entire body quivered, his breathing was hard.
She could only stare into the abysses of those dark blue eyes that had entranced her and haunted her dreams and nightmares from the very first moment that she had met the Leader of Brooklyn. What else could she do? How could her brain possibly surmise into words all the emotions that she had felt and that she felt now towards him? How could she possibly tell him that he had been right…that there still had been time…and that now she was no longer the Angel of Death…but Helena Haddox…and he had been the catalyst in all of this…in everything? How could she possibly articulate into meaningless words that she knew in the deepest chasms of her soul that he was her soul mate, her kindred spirit? How could she possibly express the undying, devotional love that she had, and would always have, for this man that had saved her in every possible way a human could be saved?
Alas, she could not, and did not. She could only stand amidst the summer storm in his rough embrace, a mute imbecile, hot tears pouring down her face and sobs raking her body.
At her tears, his facial expression softened somewhat, and a spark ignited behind those eyes, causing them to glitter like shards of glass. His palm found her cheek, and he regarded her somberly. In a soft voice he said to her, "Helena, your purpose here is finished. It is Brooklyn's duty to finish this war. Get out of here."
The words stuck her akin to an arrow to the heart. Angel regarded him incredulously. "Get out of here? You want me to get out of here? That's all you can say to me? That's all you can say to me?"
A shadow passed over his face, and any softness his countenance had held vanished, to be replaced by the hard planes once more. The eyes flashed dangerously. "Get out of here, Haddox!" he growled, pushing her ferociously away.
Angel elicited a cry as she fell backward into the darkness, striking the drenched wooden boards of the scaffolding with her back. The wind momentarily stolen from her lungs, she woozily pulled herself to a sitting position, her blurry vision locked upon Conlon. He was bending hastily at the waist, hurriedly retrieving an object from the scaffolding. He stood straight once again and now she could easily see what was in his grasp.
He held between his hands the pistol that Angel had used to bash in her brother's head. He held the barrel upward to the sky, and sinuously cocked the trigger, verifying that bullets were still chambered.
"Spot!" she desperately screamed, her voice raw and hoarse. She frantically attempted to struggle to her feet. "Spot!"
"I said get the fuck out of here, Haddox!" he bellowed over his shoulder, before leaping off the scaffolding and into the skirmish. She heard the gun erupt over the chaos, and the hulking mass of a Midtown newsie crumpled to the ground.
Conlon released a howl of glee.
"Spot!" she softly croaked, her voice leaving her. She strained futilely to rise to her feet, yet her torn calf would always buckle underneath her. "Spot!"
"Helena! Helena! Oh Christ, Helena, thank God you are still alive!" The panicked words came from behind, hot and soft and familiar.
Flynn. It was Flynn.
Her head fell back in defeat. She knew he was here to take her away.
His arms were around her, and in a heartbeat he had her lifted into them off the ground, where her body hung limply like a rag doll.
"We are getting out of here…now, Helena!"
And he had leapt off the scaffolding, and they were darting through the rain, the warring figures of Midtown and Brooklyn growing smaller with each stride.
Angel could only allow her head to hand pathetically, her gaze solely locked upon Conlon. He was clashing with a Midtown newsie, but he glanced up and caught her gaze. His eyes were sparking and a wild smile adorned his lips.
Brooklyn was alive.
And soon the gaze was disconnected, and Conlon was lost in the skirmish. The figures of the newsies in combat were growing dimmer and dimmer until finally they disappeared altogether as Flynn stole through the alley way of two vacant buildings.
Angel turned her head forward once more, and closed her eyes, the thudding of Flynn's boots against the cobble stones echoing in her ears and Conlon's electric eyes searing the infinite blackness behind her closed lids.