No Man's Land

Chapter 7

"Please." The shopkeeper pleads as he is slammed up against the wall by the hand on his throat. "I told you there isn't anything I can do for you! I'm not saying that to get out of a deal with Black Mask, I don't have anything! I swear!"

The henchman's sickly grin grows wider. "We are always willing to compromise... even if you can't think of anything now, I am sure we can think of something down the road that you can do for us... you just need to pledge your loyalty."

"Do I even have a choice?"

The henchman chuckles, "No."

Suddenly, the henchman's grip falters as he howls in pain, clutching his left calf instead where a crossbow bolt has pierced the muscle. The henchman flips backwards as the bolt is pulled behind him, making him scream even louder as blood oozes out of the gash in his leg. He gazes up at the silhouette in front of him.

"Who the hell are you?!"

She chuckles. "Be quiet while the grownups talk, child."

"Do you know who I work for?!"

In a flash she knocks him unconscious. "I told you to be quiet," She frowns at the limp body. Her gaze shifts back to the shopkeeper, who is watching her intently. As she takes a step towards him, he stumbles into the wall behind him. "I am not here to hurt you. Only to talk."

Fear like Love makes people do crazy things, like talking back to a woman with a crossbow.

"Oh yeah?! Well he said the same goddamn thing before he threatened my life!"

"I am nothing like this man."

"Bullshit! I've heard of you, Huntress. I've heard how before all this happened you were palling around with Batman and the Canary... now you are just as bloodthirsty as these psychopaths are." Clarity surrounds his face as he connects the dots in front of him.

"My girlfriend told me how you saved a whole subway of people when the earthquake hit. Then... sometime after that rumors started about some woman who was cornered by Victor Zsaz. He was about to do god knows what to her and some other lady came in and beat the living daylights out of him. Broke his fingers, and laughed while she did it... and now here is another woman, who has shot a man when we are all stranded on an island with broken streets and unreliable electricity. I dunno what has happened to you since that subway train... but whatever it was has made you into exactly the kind of thing you have fought against."

Helena frowns. He isn't wrong; she has been different. Yet... hasn't she always been fighting this internal battle against the anger and rage that she also takes to the streets externally? Here, she had thought the fighting would help drown everything out... but is fighting her grief going to help her heal?

The man looks at her in confusion as his entire body language seems to shift. "Are you crying?"

"What?" A softly voice answers that does not sound like her own... at least it has not for a long time. She pats her face to discover the tears. She stares at the drops glistening on her fingertips; what were they? How could it be that she did not notice them? Was she really so numb to it all?

"You... uh..." Now the man feels uncomfortable. He has no idea what to do with an armed emotionally unstable woman in front of him. So he repeats himself, "Are you crying?"

"Yes. I believe I am." She states matter-of-factly. She is noticing the tears but realizes that they are not of sadness, but of truth... this man had cut through her thick brick walls in less than five minutes. Her gaze falls to the wounded henchman on the floor; now she has a mission. "What did he want?"