Convergence - The Last Science #2.2 - Heroes and Villains

Interlude VIII - A Day in the Life of Jessica Silverdale

  Her angel peered into her face, crying in horror. Her eyes were wide and terrified. Jessica hated seeing the angel look so upset. She tried in vain to push herself back up, but she couldn't. Her leg wouldn't move. As she looked down, she saw it in pieces, covered in blood, spilling out like a river. She couldn't take her eyes off it.

  ...Is that mine?

  A huge bang echoed through her eardrums. The calm man on the ground—the one who'd done this to her—jerked and slid across the street. His head disappeared. She wondered what just happened to him.

  Another painful spike in her leg. It was like someone were driving a nail into her skin. She tried to twist away, but the strong dark arms of the detective held her down. He seemed like a good person. He used to be their enemy, and now he was their friend. She tried to lay still, but the agony in her leg made her try to crawl away. Try to get away from her own limb.

  The angel grasped at the holes in her leg, stopping the blood flow. Jessica tried to resist, but the pain overwhelmed every sense in her body and her mind. Her eyes were getting hazy and weak. The black clouds were coming back, flooding into her eyes, just like the burning building. Next to the angel, she could just barely make out the angry girl. Her hair wasn't blue anymore. Jessica's was still half-blue though... Maybe she should change it.

  Am I dying?

  The angry girl pointed at spots on her leg, and the angel adjusted her grip. Jessica couldn't help it; she whimpered in pain, and that only made her angel's expression ten times worse.

  I'm sorry. I didn't want to. I was just trying to help.

  Angry-girl crawled away. Jessica noticed she was bleeding too, but it didn't seem as bad. She crawled up the side of the car and opened the door, dragging out the bound and limp body of the pretty boy. The one Jessica had been trying to save, because her angel thought it was important. Except she hadn't saved anyone. She'd been spotted somehow, found by the scary man with the gun. She'd barely noticed it, someone else sending out a magical pulse just like she did. Feeling out for anything happening around her that she couldn't see with her eyes.

  I messed up...

  The three scary men were on the ground now. One of them was dead, and the other two were stunned and twitching. Their guns were far away. She didn't have to worry about them. They couldn't hurt her angel. Sirens, as an ambulance rolled up. More hands grabbed at her, tearing away at the cloth covering her wounds, trying to clean and bandage them.

  I need to stay awake...

  Falling unconscious would be very bad. She'd been shot. Multiple times. She knew what that meant. She knew that the only way to stick around was to fight, harder than she ever had before. Her body just wouldn't respond. Pain was blocking out everything. All she had was her mind, trying to hang on through a hurricane of torture. And... her magic. It was still there, right in the center of her brain as it always had been, ever since that day.

  Movement. She could feel a huge burst of magical energy on the other side of the truck. She recognized it, too. A faceless monster. Like the ones from her home.

  The monster was about to throw the truck into her angel.

  Watch out! she tried to shout—but of course, she had no idea how to say that. Not in a way they'd understand. She needed to do something, before the monster could kill the one she loved most in all the world.

  Jessica reached out, just as the monster grasped the edges, and pulled with all her might.

  The truck tore in half. The monster found itself gripping nothing, as she ripped the remaining piece from its hands. She couldn't get it much further than that, but at least she'd gotten their attention.