Pain ran through her entire body like electricity. She tried to move her arms. She couldn't. The punks had just got off her. They had forced her. Abused her. Raped her. Two of them were whispering something to each other.
"What is it?" asked a third one, being glared back. It was nothing of his concern. They left the dining room, and her over the kitchen table, her dress torn open and her underwear ripped off. Her body was vexingly exposed. She had always longed for a charming prince who would be worthy of her virtue. The bastards had torn apart her idyll. They had also, as some sort of twisted fun, stabbed her below the heart. The kitchen knife caused her pain, a pain that was not as great as the inner ones.
Her eyes began to fail. The music she had been listening to when the assault began was deafening. Everything burned. Outside, bolts of lightning stroke. But rain never came. She was hallucinating. Life was flying away from her. The shadow of someone appeared at the door. Probably Mom or Dad, knocked down when the pigs broke in. It did not matter. Death was tightening her embrace on her...
She woke up with a start. Hell, what an awful dream had that been. She tried to reach out for her bedlight. Instead, she touched a metal wall. Her head began to ache. She felt sick. With her hands and legs, she realised she was in some sort of small metal coffin. She trembled a bit before bursting into desperate tears and hysteric calls for help.
Suddenly she felt something pulling her out. The light dazzled her. She blocked it with one hand. It was cold, and she was naked. Covering herself with the other hand, she glimpsed at someone standing by her. She slowly looked up. A tall, good-looking man, that had began to spread some liquid around the whole place. It smelt like... fuel?
"Get dressed and move." He commanded. She stood up and took a glance at the place. It was a morgue. "What part didn't you get? Move!" he yelled, before using his lighter to turn on a cigarette. She took a uniform some doctor had left and put it on, and went to the exit door. The man followed her, and before they left, he dropped the cigarette over a trace of fuel he had left. The whole place caught fire.
"What... what are you doing!"
"Covering up our tracks... like we all do." He replied as they both ran away.
-----
Darla Hails was back in Boston. She had not returned there since her mortal death, twenty-five years ago. She had been roaming aimlessly across the streets and had halted when she saw someone familiar. A former school friend, who was in her forties. What would she have looked like, had the rape never occurred, had not the pigs stabbed her fatally, had not she become immortal?
Her brown hair would be dyed in blonde just to cover the greys. She'd probably married to some real estate agent, wondering why in hell she was unable to have any children. That was a fact that would have bothered her parents, but it would have been better than the real state of things. Mom had been hit-and-run. Dad was serving life in prison for hunting, torturing and murdering at cold blood one of the murderers of his daughter. A technicality, and his years of service in the Army, saved him from the chair.
Then she had come across MacLeod. He was not pleased at all. She did not mind much about that. Seldom immortals are glad of encountering others of their kind. He still bore her grudge. They had found a desolate spot to sort out their differences the immortal way.
The Highlander was a decent fighter. She knew that. But she was as good, if not better. And he was ten times her age. She was coping well with him. However, in the spur of the heated fight, MacLeod found a clear spot and managed to impale Darla against his blade. She gasped, and sensed another immortal around. So did he.
"Duncan MacLeod!" a voice said.
A man in his fifties with a stick appeared and began to draw nearer. Besides him, a tall, slim man with short hair and an air of knowledge moved at the other's pace.
"Who are you?" MacLeod asked, as he removed her sword from Darla's body.
"My name is Joe Dawson. He is..."
"Adam Pierson." The other mumbled.
"You can't interfere."
"There are bigger issues than this fight." Dawson uttered. "I know all about you, the immortals and the Game, as you know it, is undergoing something that may bring the end really near."
Darla was still alive. She had not died only to be reborn later. The wound had healed and she stood up. She glared at Pierson. She managed to grin. The other returned the grin, slightly surprised of finding his acquaintance there.
"Methos..." she mumbled.
"Hello Darla" he replied.
"You're Methos, the oldest of immortals?" MacLeod queried.
"I am, Highlander." Methos turned to Joe "She should come with us."
"I don't think we can trust her. I don't even know who she is." Joe replied.
"Trust me, we can..." The four of them went towards a shiny Toyota van. "Though it'd be better to have the Kurgan himself..."