*Author's Note: Hello readers! I am pleased to announce that Cobra Strikes has reached 2,000 reads! Thank you for your on-going support and patience!*
Chapter 11
I was enveloped in darkness. I heard the faint sounds of life bustling around me. The sharp squeak of rubber soles on tile pricked my hearing, giving me that irritating clench in my jaw. I heard hushed voices, an alto and a tenor; a man and a woman. The questions I had reeling through my head seemed to drown themselves out. Nothing made sense.
It was now a natural feeling, confusion, and now I just went with whatever seemed to be happening in the present moment. The present was what was most important. Not the past, and not the future. The future was frightening for me, though. Being in a permanent state of confusion was not a state in which I wanted to be.
I tried to blink my eyes, but found I couldn't. Something was covering them. A cold, recently dampened thing. Pawing at my face lightly, I gently pulled the cold thing away so I could see. I was looking up into a canopy of sorts. A silken curtain that hangs from the ceiling and reaches over the posts of a bed. It was a thing of my childhood; of my past. It comforted me slightly to know I was not in a steely cage or a slummy ghetto.
It comforted me to know I was not dead.
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I lifted my head to look around. I was in a bedroom. It was plush, well-kept and tidy, like something you'd see in a romance film. A fire was burning in a majestic stone hearth, though I smelt no fire. It was artificial; articulated by technology. From that, I was able to ascertain that I was not anywhere on Earth.
Instinct told me to be wary. My brow furrowed in caution. These surroundings seemed pleasant enough, but if there was anything I had learned in the last few days, it was that heaven was only an idea. Elysium was not heaven. It was simply a well-manicured, automated object, filled with those decadent enough to make another hurl by simply observing. I remembered now that I hated Elyisum. For endless reasons, and one above all; its people.
As if somehow sensing my internal cue, its people walked into my luscious resting place.
A black man, followed by a woman who looked to be of south-east Asian descent, walked over to the bed in which I laid. I heard the Asian woman speak, her shrill voice piercing through my hazy state.
"Mr. Leopold, we have to get her out of here! She should not stay any longer!"
The man spoke in a reassuring tone, trying to console her. "Cassandra, please. Relax. She isn't going anywhere until she can say so. It will be her decision when she wakes up."
"But—"
"But nothing. And that is my decision."
He ushered the lady out of the room. Peace and quiet followed. Focus came to me.
I heard the man sigh, sinking low into a cushy chair near the foot of the bed. Something in his voice was sad. I could hear the desperation thick in his deep tone. He scratched his head, which had a neat crop of curly black hair narrowing into a swirl shape near the nape of his neck. He was decorated, but not overly, unlike some of the other painted mannequins on this place.
I shifted backwards, walking back on my elbows to raise myself. Over the edge of the puffy comforter, I peered at the man. His head hung down low in front of his shoulders. I wondered why he was so sad. I also wondered why I was where I was.
"Hi…" I murmured quietly. I was not expecting such a large reaction from this apparent stranger. His head whipped back to look at me. The look of joy on his face was boundless. He practically jumped out of his chair as he leapt up an extra stair to the bedside. He rushed over to me, hands hovering over my arms as if I were about to fall. His pale brown eyes were glossy and red, as if he had been crying. I blinked lazily and rubbed my eyes. "What, where and why."
I saw no point in asking full questions anymore. They were so repetitive and chewed up in my mind. The same questions that all bred the confusion. Enough was enough. All I wanted was straightforward. No riddles.
"You were in a coma. My house in district thirty-five of Elysium. Because you're badly injured." He inspected me; my head, my eyes, my neck and body. While he was carefully hovering over me, I looked up from weary eyes and asked, "Who…?"
His otherwise tentative face shifted for a second, into hurt. It flickered across for a brief moment before it returned to a hardened look. "Marcele. You crashed into my pool."
"What?" I bleated, shimmying upwards until I sat upright. I faced Marcele now directly. "What happened?" I demanded. I tried to get up, but pain wracked my body as I wrenched my leg aside. I fell back onto the bed, curling up in a fetal position, mouth wide in a silent scream.
"Whoa, whoa, relax! Everything's okay…" I felt Marcele's arms gingerly curl around me. Feeling inherently safe in this man's arms, I pushed myself into the crook of his shoulder and began to cry. Raw emotion poured out of me and into his fine, red silk shirt. Salty tears streamed down my cheeks. Sound was void. My sobs were silent, as if caught in a silent film. The true nature of my situation sunk in.
I was safe.
I was free.
From him.
A jolt of recollection rocked my body. Everything from the last few days came rushing back to me in perfect clarity.
I looked around rapidly, looking for a snake in the shadows.
"Where is he? Where?!"
I scrambled further into Marcele's arms. He wrapped me up reassuringly, letting me release all my emotions while still keeping me safe from myself.
"Relax," I heard his soothing voice from overhead coo. "He's gone. He won't bother you anymore. You're safe."
At first, I wondered if Marcele and I were talking about the same person. I knew who I was focused on. A venomous cobra, a snake that was neither merciless nor human. The mesmerizing terror of what I felt with sincerity were my final hours; my fate.
I tried to relax, my body shuddering with each deep breath. Marcele held me, still, his humanly warmth keeping me grounded in the otherwise cold fathoms of my mind. When I could focus, the blur of tears in my eyes gone, I spoke. "You said I was in a coma? For how long?"
"Three days," he answered, disbelief thick in his voice.
"But… Why am I still here? Why aren't I in prison?" I paused, thinking hard. "Or dead?"
"I turned the CCB away when they came to investigate. Seems that your boyfriend's men—"
"He is not my boyfriend," I hissed angrily, interrupting him, making clear my boiling point. He continued cautiously, now clearly wary of my temper.
"—were followed by the government. Your captor gave them his coordinates, and when they went to pick him up, they tracked them. Apparently, there was a conflict with Secretary Delacourt regarding the new guy. Something about leadership conflict, I don't know. They took tall, dark and scary back to earth when they scrammed. You don't have to worry about him anymore. I promise."
The sincerity in his eyes made me break into a new crop of tears, not of sadness or terror, but of mirth and relief. I felt a smile blossom; a true one, a genuine one. I laughed. Although it sounded nothing like a laugh, something in between a squeak and a snort, it was contagious. Marcele chuckled softly, his furrowed brow relaxed. I hugged my liberator, thankful for the weight of the world that had been lifted off my shoulders.
But I still had the weight of Elysium crushing me like a wrecking ball.
Releasing the poor man from my death-hug, I settled back into the downy pillows. "So… What happens now? Do I get arrested? Are you going to take me back to my execution? I'm sure you'd make a pretty penny… I am a fugitive, after all…"
The word tasted funny in my mouth.
Few-jit-tive. Gah...
Marcele laughed. "I don't think so," he said softly. "You've gotten this far. You could use a break."
"Yeah, I think I'm good," I mumbled, looking down at my hip, still bruised and blackened. The last thing I remembered was Kruger telling me I had a broken pelvis, and the unimaginable pain.
Kruger.
That word, however, had a peculiarly nostalgic taste on my tongue.
I wondered briefly where he was, what he was doing. If he was thinking of me… I sure was thinking of him.
"I'll ask again, what happens now?" I asked firmly, all laughter forgotten at the thought of the cobra. "Are you going to turn me in, now that I'm awake?"
"I honestly thought about it, yes," Marcele replied just as firmly, though it sounded as though he was mocking me playfully. "But I haven't had a chance to get to know you, to see if you really deserve it..." He punctuated this with a wink of his pale brown eyes. Involuntarily, my heart fluttered. I felt a blush creep up my cheeks. I turned away shyly, not wanting to let this stranger know I found him charming. I was grateful for his understanding and gentle nature.
"So you aren't going to turn me in?"
"No. I promised I'd fix you up. And I intend to keep that promise." He straighten out. "Now, I can't heal you with my own hands. You need a Medbay. And you don't have any proper citizenship." He gestured down to my wrist. "What's your story, anyway? I don't even know your name…" He sat on the edge of the bed, still wary of my bipolar attitude. He deliberated for a moment, frowning. "Listen… I understand completely if you don't trust me. I can only imagine what a state you're in. I'd like to understand you… You're a mystery…"
My brow furrowed, considering his words. He was being sincere, a pleasant change from the uncertainty and cruelty surrounding me lately. "Okay then," I said, readjusting to a comfortable position on the bed. "Ask me anything."
"How'd you end up with beardy? Can't imagine a girl like you'd ever sport a bloke like that."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I bristled, offended slightly. "A girl like me? 'Sport'?"
He frowned, shaking his head. "I don't know, just… You seem like you're above him. Way above. Like, Elysium above. He's just a soldier and a dirty one at that…" He trailed off, disgust imminent in his voice. I could only wonder why he, one who hadn't actually met Agent Kruger before, detested him so much. If I ever had the courage to, I would ask him about it later.
"Yeah... I'm not exactly an angel... You see, Delacourt was on my tail as soon as I started my mission nearly four years ago."
"What mission was that?" Marcele asked politely and curiously. "If you don't mind my asking," he added consciously.
"I was sending money from Elysium to fund an escape project. I was working with some hackers on Earth to send carriers to Elysium so that people dying could get help. But no, the CCB can't have illegals anywhere near their precious heaven..." I trailed off, boiling in my hatred for the decadent, and hating myself for having once been one. I saw Marcele cringe a little, so I tried not to be so cynical towards all of Elysium. Considering I had been in a coma without the authorities knocking at the door for the days in an Elyisum household, I figured the least I could do was be grateful without spite. "So they traced the source of the funding back to me. They found me, bagged me, and deported me without a word... My family was distraught. So was I. Armadyne security dumped me in Los Angeles, rather, what remains of it. It's really just a poor excuse for a city now. Huge buildings without walls, and streets filed with vermin." Marcele nodded grimly, as if trying to imagine such a place. Taking his silence as a cue to continue, I recalled my first time on Earth.
"I don't even know how I survived, honestly. A rich-looking girl like me would be a prime target for the malicious cretonnes in the streets, right? Nope. Turns out, I blended in perfectly. As soon as I got some dirt on my face and some miles on my feet, I was unrecognizable. Completely invisible. I lived my life like that for the next two years... I stole what I needed and sold what I didn't. In time, I had bought a place of my own, and survived without anyone else."
"Must've been lonely."
"Wasn't really," I replied, caught in my nostalgia. "I didn't interact much with people, but people interacted with me. I met a young man I eventually found out worked for my hackers-"
Marcele laughed. "Your hackers?"
"Well I DID employ them, technically!" I chucked, feeling more uplifted. "See, the hackers were infamous around where I lived at the time. When I told Ricky - that was the guy's name - my name he recognized my voice. He took me to head of command. Spider was his name. A big, burly dude with that 'I'm the shit' attitude about him. He had a son, I remember that... Little boy with a bum leg and a cane at the age of two... I decided then that I would help them as much as I could from Earth. They trained me to fight, to flee, to free. They wanted me to free thier captured men from the CCB Corp. within an army base. An army base!"
Marcele, who had been listening intently, was now leaning in further. The captivation on his face was priceless. He nodded urgently at me to continue.
Chucking at his enthusiasm, I continued to weave the heroic and harrowing tale of the last few years of my life. "So I went to the base. I freed the prisoners. No problem. The problem came later, when the mercenaries finally caught wind of us. Spider's men escaped while I tried to create a diversion."
"What was your diversion?" Marcele couldn't help but ask, for I had paused unintentionally. The gravity of that day began to resurface. The day I met my fate, the lead-up to these last few.
"What?" I asked, forgetting my place briefly.
"How did you divert their attention?"
"Oh... I, uh... I burned their base to the ground. That was the single most idiotic choice of my life. And I'm paying for my idiocy."
Marcele looked questioningly at me.
"My stupid choice is what brought me here. In a hover craft with a painted springbok on the door..."
*(Forget about Mark Delacourt. I'm discounting his character, if anyone really cared…)*