Chapter 19

"Break down that door, now!" Tim Murphy stood there tall and fierce with his bullet proof vest and police shield on.

"But there are minors inside that house!" Officer Ralphy radioed back at him.

"Do I sound like I give a shit right now?! It's what the Commissioner wants, do it!" He ordered.

As soon as the police squad violently barricaded the doors to the house, they could hear at least a dozen screaming teenagers on the premises. They used gas canisters to clear the hallway so that they could search the family home without any backlash or kids trying to film them using their phones.

"What the hell? We were only partying, I swear!" A scared teenage boy held up his hands in the air.

"Shut up!" Ralphy yelled as the masked officer threw forward another gas canister to put the boy to sleep for a few minutes. Cherry covered her mouth, trying not to frantically cough or inhale the fumes as she hid behind the bathroom door upstairs. She could hear the officers pacing up, so the 13 year old quickly reached for her cell phone to call her father. But as expected, it reached his voicemail.

Eventually, the police bursted into the bathroom. As soon as they did, she dropped her phone on the ground with its screen facing the floor, however Adam's mailbox was still on the other side of the line recording.

"Place your hands in the air where I can see them kid then lie down on the ground!" The armed officer shouted. Cherry stared back at him in shock as her hands trembled by her side.

"I said, get down on the ground now!" Ralphy yelled as he pointed his gun towards her.

With her pulse racing in fear, Cherry followed his instructions without argument. She laid still in the bathroom whilst she could hear the rest of the police trashing the upstairs bedrooms of her mother's home. They ripped drawers apart, bedsheets and closets. Anything they could get their hands on to prove that Blaze might be hiding here.

Two minutes felt like hours until finally, another officer named Barney radioed back to Tim. "It's clear, let's go!"

And then as quickly as they appeared, the police squad vanished, leaving the chaotic mess they made behind.

Adam reached his ex partner's home as fast as he could after hearing his daughter's voicemail. By the time he arrived 15 minutes later, the other teenagers at the house had bounced.

"Cherry?! Cherry?!" He frantically shouted with his gun between his hands as he cautiously walked up the stairs. The front door was still wide open and Adam could see the gas canisters scattered around the floor amongst the mess. His heart raced in a frenzy, worried sick when the thought of Cherry being kidnapped or hurt crossed his mind.

"Daddy! Daddy I'm up here!" Cherry called back with her voice shaken.

Adam sighed with relief and caught his breath back as soon as he saw her unharmed.

"It's ok, everything is ok…" he softly said as he knelt down on the ground, wrapping his arms tightly around his daughter.

"I don't know why the feds just busted in here like that. We were only drinking beers…" Cherry cried, feeling guilty.

"Baby girl, a whole police squad wouldn't make a raid like this for a couple of teenagers possessing alcohol…. Why aren't you in school by the way? And where is your mother?" He raised one eyebrow.

"Mom doesn't know anything, she's still at work…" the teenager frowned.

"Cherry…?" Adam's tone became sterner.
"I'm sorry! I hate school right now! My friends and I are outlaws!"

"Someone giving you trouble?" He queried.

Cherry sighed. "I would happily go to school if you taught me how to fight properly!"

Adam immediately shook his head in disagreement. "No! Violence isn't the answer to anything".

"Daddy, I just wanna defend myself. What if those pigs come back, huh?"

Adam glanced around at the mess the police made earlier, the girl had a point.

"Oh, I can assure you they won't be returning here again by the time I'm done with their asses!"

As the two of them stood up, his cell phone started to ring.

"Estel…. Wait, what?!... MY HOUSE TOO?!" Adam shouted, now even more perplexed and exasperated. "...And Max's bar?... Oh I know who they're after and why they came here but they won't find her if she's smart. I got a feeling about who was behind these raids…. I'll call you back."

Adam quickly got his stuff together then he took Cherry's hand.

"Daddy, where are we going?"

"You're coming with me to Estel's office."

"But I don't wanna…!"

"Don't argue with me, especially after you skipped class today!" Adam's tone was stern and direct.

The former boxer, now SIF officer, charged through his old precinct with his blood still boiling from the earlier events of the day.

"Hunter! You can't just…." one of the officers by the vending machine tried to stop him, but Adam ignored his former colleague. Instead, he busted into the Commissioner's office with rage running through his veins.

"Adam Hunter, even you need an appointment first before you can see me!" Bernstein glared back at him with annoyance on his face.

"And your boys in blue need a warrant before breaking into my home, my daughter's home and any of my friends' properties!" Adam angrily snapped back.

"Murphy and his team had good reason to believe you and your friends were hosting a dangerous criminal. I'm sorry about the mess they made, we'll compensate you and your family accordingly…."

"FUCK YOU!" Adam spat as he slammed his fists into the Commissioner's desk.

"It's a shame you left us. I always liked you, Hunter. And I can see you're upset, but…"

"UPSET?! Bernstein I'm furious! My daughter was terrified! I want Murphy here in this office right now or I'm gonna have the rest of the SIF and the CIA all up in your asses!"

Without any hesitation, the Commissioner reached for his phone.

Five minutes later, Tim Murphy arrived at the office. As soon as he waltzed in, he gave Adam a callous grin, as if he had gained one up on him.

"Can I help you?" Tim arrogantly asked.

"You know exactly why I'm here!" Adam aggressively held him up by the collar.

"Careful now old friend, we wouldn't want you losing your job over some common assault charge here…." Tim smirked. Adam held his nerve before pushing him away.

"Why, huh? You could have just asked…."

"It's not that simple." Tim shook his head. "I know you are Blaze's ally, but she's wanted for at least a dozen serious crimes here including homicide. She's highly dangerous, a loose cannon and we have to find her before she hurts anybody else or herself…"

Adam couldn't help but sniggle at his old colleague from head to toe.

"What's wrong Murphy? Did Blaze finally see sense when she dumped your ass? And to think you used to be one of us…." Adam snarled, squaring up to him.

"Just let us know if you see or hear anything from Miss Fielding, please", Tim coldly replied.

"I ain't seen Blaze for almost three years now thanks to you. Now if you ever bother me or my family again, I will press charges for harassment and you will lose your career. Is that clear?"

"You have my word," Tim grinned. Adam brushed past his shoulder as he walked away, knowing that escalating the situation wasn't going to do himself or Blaze any favours. Adam still had no idea that Tim played a part that night when they took her, but he was furious with the guy anyway for getting her caught up in this mess and the drugs in the first place. Tim knew that Blaze was in a vulnerable state, and despite Adam's efforts to convince her otherwise, the guy still took advantage of that.

If any good came out of this, Adam figured that Blaze had now moved on from Wood Oak, from this precinct and most of all, from Tim.

"Blaze? Blaze, can you hear me?" Shiva knelt down next to her body lying still on the ground as he tried to listen to her pulse. Her face was pale and her forehead was burning.

"Go and find Dr Ziou! Tell him it's urgent!"

"But…" Rudra argued.

"JUST GO!" Shiva snapped. Without a second word, she followed her older brother's order then swiftly left.

Shiva attempted once again to listen to Blaze's pulse, however it was faint next to his ear.

After a lengthy silence, suddenly, Blaze caught him off guard as she pulled his arms forward. Her thighs then tightly wrapped around his neck as Blaze held Shiva firmly into a triangular choke.

"No!" The Kempo fighter struggled to breathe against her for a few seconds, but eventually he used his lower body strength to lift himself slightly off the ground before driving his knee down then forward against Blaze's stomach, forcing her to loosen her hold for a moment so that he could escape.

But Blaze wasn't done. She reached up from the floor, taking hold of Shiva once again as she drove her knee into his chest before throwing him backwards. Shiva safely landed and rolled forward, but in doing so, Blaze took the opportunity to rise up to standing before running towards the door.

"Not so fast!" Shiva shouted as he threw a short burst of energy from his palm that caught the Judo fighter in her back. She instantly fell hard onto the ground, this time breathless after her outburst. Shiva blitzed forward, wasting no time in restraining Blaze who was now lying on her front, painfully wounded from behind.

"Who sent you here?!" He asked.

"Nobody!" Blaze spat.

"I know exactly why you're here. I saw you that night at Wayne's party at the club! You work for him and Murphy now. Those junkies sent you all the way here to kill me, didn't they?"

"What?! No!" Blaze argued. "I'm on the run, hiding from them. If you don't believe me, question anyone in WOPD. And why the fuck would I be working for the new Syndicate?!"

"I don't know, you tell me?" Shiva replied.

"Like I said, I came here to escape from them!"

"Then why are you trying to kill me then?!"

"Why are you locking me up in this room like a caged animal then?" Blaze huffed.

Shiva immediately loosened his grip on her wrists as he extended one hand to help her up off the ground.

"Why did you come here Blaze? You have plenty of friends who can help you…." He stood tall in front of her, folding his arms.

"No", she shook her head with regret. "If I go to Adam or any of the others, Tim, the police and the Syndicate will find me. And I'll be dead."

"What did you do then to piss them off this time?" He cocked his head to one side, intrigued.

"I found out the truth and now I want revenge for what they did to me. I need you to train me so that I can fight them. Barbon, Donovan, Wayne the Commissioner - all of them set me up! That gang is part of one unit and most of them are your old colleagues. You know their weaknesses…." Blaze spoke out with urgency in her tone.

"And why should I help you? I left the Syndicate a long time ago…." Shiva casually shrugged.

"Because I know they're after you too. And if we don't do something, the twins are gonna run this city into the ground with all its people. They've already starte…." unexpectedly, Blaze cut her sentence short. She quickly ran over to the corner of the room where the bucket was placed in order to throw up.

"You gotta let me out of here, please" she pleaded.

"No…."

"What?" Blaze frowned as she wiped her mouth using her sleeve. By now, she was barely able to stand and had to crouch her body down with her back against the wall to prevent herself from fainting.

Shiva sighed with guilt. "Alright. I'll help you. But on one condition…"

"I'll do anything!" Blaze immediately answered him with certainty in her voice.

"First you gotta get clean. 100%!" Shiva demanded.

"Ok…" Blaze nervously nodded.

"Ok. That's settled then! Food, water and a medic will be here soon…."

"Thank you," Blaze replied, staring down at the ground.

"And if you don't comply from now on, or try to escape again, our deal is off," Shiva warned her as he closed the door, locking her inside the room once again.

For 10 more days, Blaze remained confined to that room facing and fighting her inner demons. She could never tell when she would be sick, when she would sweat it out or when she would shiver like crazy. Often, her heart would palpitate for what felt like minutes on end before it would eventually end up faintly beating. Everything was a daze until her senses started working properly again and every moment was a struggle to live through.

For four years now, Blaze had succumbed to heavily relying on those pills Tim introduced her to. They worked to block out and numb the pain, helping her to forget the cruel past that she was all too familiar with. But now, her memories were as vivid as ever, haunting her once again. The anger, the frustration, the fear and the hurt. All of it felt no different to the day when Axel left or the night that everything else fell apart when she lost the baby. Withdrawal from the drugs felt like hell, and Blaze was going through it the hard way. If her body could survive this, she would survive anything.

Then one morning, when the shivers eventually stopped and her temperature was back to normal, Blaze woke up to find Shiva sitting by her bedside. As she opened her eyes, he held out his palm with a pill on top of it.

"What's this for?" She whispered as she sat up.

"It's time for you to make a choice. You can either choose to go back down that dark hole, or you can choose revenge…." their eyes locked firmly. "Take it, go on. It belongs to you. But what you do with that drug is up to you," Shiva insisted.

Blaze cautiously looked up at him before reaching for the pill. She took a moment to stare down at the white powerful capsule in her hand. Whilst it was tempting, it represented her running away from the past. But in all those years, that false solution healed nothing.

Blaze slowly held up the pill towards the light between her thumb and index finger. She then created a small blue orb of energy in her other hand that she used to instantly destroy the drug without a second thought. This brought a hopeful smile to Shiva's face after he had witnessed first hand the struggles that Blaze had gone through over the past 10 days in that room.

"Good decision," he nodded with approval. "The truth is, I haven't faced the New Syndicate yet because I didn't have enough resources to start a war with them. But now, a war is long overdue and you and I together have the powers and capability of stopping them," Shiva explained.

"What about your sister?" Blaze asked.

"She hasn't inherited this power. I'll send Rudra back to Japan soon enough. I don't want her involved with the mess I've made any longer, and she has her own problems to deal with."

"I understand."

"Go shower, change, do what you need to do and get some rest. I'll have you moved to a more comfortable room upstairs. My home is yours now. Get a good night's sleep. Our training starts tomorrow morning".

A proud, content smile appeared on Blaze's face as Shiva turned around to leave. She had gone through hell and back just to get here to this point, but finally, she could see the light at the end of the tunnel, even if Blaze had almost given up on it.

As she stared forward at the open doorway to freedom which had been locked for the last 10 days, she noticed the white butterfly appearing, flickering its wings past the entrance once again. There, she felt a light cold chill down her spine whilst she glanced at it.

Times had changed, but the fight and fire inside of Blaze was now more alive than ever before.