Trish positioned the final ice pack on her right knee and wrapped it, like she had wrapped the other two, with an elastic bandage.
She lay back on her bed and inhaled deeply and slowly, eyes closed, and enjoyed the complete lack of motion for several seconds.
She did not open her eyes as she spoke.
"Alexa, set a fifteen minute timer."
"Fifteen minutes," the female voice replied, "starting now."
The bed was not the only piece of furniture in the one room studio apartment. There was a chair, and end table, and a small desk. Trish could visualize the entire apartment and its contents without opening her eyes. It would take her less than a minute to list all the other contents of the small room. One place setting, one set of silverware, two glasses, all bought from goodwill, like the small table lamp, the Degas print of a dancer mounted on the wall just above her head, and the two framed photos of the couple that anyone who visited here would assume were the parents of Kathy Rambler, the woman who had signed the apartment lease, whose name was displayed through the cellophane windows on the envelopes that sat on a counter in the small kitchen.
If that hypothetical someone were to observe the woman, clad only in underwear and a tank top, who lay beneath the framed print of a woman dancing on pointe, the woman with ice packs on her right knee, left shoulder, and left wrist, and bruises on her right rib cage and shoulder, there would be no mistaking the figure of an elite dancer, unless they were to mistake it for the figure of an elite gymnast or an elite fighter. Any and all of those were true, even though it had been years since the woman lying still with her eyes closed had put on a pair of pointe shoes, or taped her wrists to protect them during her sixty second bar routine.
Trish's eyes opened at the sound of her timer expiring.
"Alexa, stop."
Trish knew that she should get up, put the ice packs back in the freezer, clean her suit and take a shower before leaving this small refuge for the slightly larger one three floors up. She should at least get up and close the window she had used as her entrance thirty minutes ago, but she lacked the will to move.
Fuck it, I might just sleep here tonight, she thought.
She had done it before, when the aches and pains reached a certain point and only responded to bourbon and ibuprofen. For those occasions she kept a dark wig and a pair of large sunglasses in the apartment, just in case anyone saw her leave in the morning and wondered why Trish Walker was coming out of Kathy Rambler's apartment. She could always just say that Kathy was her girlfriend, but that opened her up to invitations for both of them, and excuses why Kathy could not attend.
Sorry, my fictional alter ego has a prior engagement kicking the living shit out of the New York underworld tomorrow night.
Trish's eyes settled on the goldenrod (it's not yellow, dammit, how many fucking times do I have to tell you?) ballistic hypermesh formfitting suit which lay where she had dropped it on the floor. She knew the blood would wash off it easily, but the sweat soaked absorbent liner was already beginning to smell up the apartment with that combined vinegar and ammonia smell that told her she was eating more protein that her body could metabolize.
She was thirty-seven years old as of one week ago. She knew she could not keep acting like she was twenty-seven, but her body was very good at reminding her when she forgot. Her natural ability to heal much quicker that the average person, the ability that helped her through her dancing and gymnastics and fighting phases, had slowed down, but was still there, as were her natural physical abilities.
"You have a gift," Kay had said to her one day after class at SAB, "I have been doing this long enough that I know a star when I see one. You have a bright future ahead of you."
That was only days before 911, back when the world was different. Before Hellcat was even a thought in her mind.
"You go down this road, you don't get to come back afterwards," Hank had said a few months afterwards when she had convinced him that she was committed to a future that Kay had not predicted for Trish.
"None of us get to go back, there's no back to go back to."
"That made almost no sense," he said.
"Fuck you."
Hank's smile was all the answer she had needed.
Trish looked towards the kitchen where she kept the bourbon and ibuprofen. The suit lay on the floor halfway in between.
"Dammit," she groaned as she rolled to her side and sat up.