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Chapter 2 - Hematoma Love

Purple. I had always hated the color purple.
The purpling, almost black around my eye was a godsend. My skin swelling around my eye to were I could barely see. Why is this good, you might ask? (no one really is, are they?) It means that the vaccine is taking. ...Or so I think. I had taken a elbow to the face, my blood vessels bubbling to the sub dermal and spreading around my eye to create this blueish beauty that now marred the left side of my face. From just above my eyebrow, to curve just below the apple of my cheek.

I hiss as I dab alcohol that I had managed to snatch from the hospital before a mob started to hustle and bustle, thrashing their way after me down the hallway. Some managed to claw a hand onto the back of my coat, dragging me back before I swung my shotgun around; in a flash, brains, blood and flesh rained down like hell's left over garbage and waste. It splattered down on me just as an appendage swung down, the sharp joint smashing into my eye.

I saw stars for the first time in a long time. Before I could enjoy the shock and fleetingness that filled me, I sent a sweeping blow with the butt of the shotgun in a semi-circle, stumbling forward and slamming a door between me and them. My heart beat almost at the same pace as their fists on the door, a stumbling, rapid and insistent beat that was so erratic that it couldn't be human. Or maybe it was all in my head. Sometimes I wondered why I fought so hard, why I'm trying to survive, what did I have left anymore. Family? No. Friends? Dunno. Hope? Barely.

I pressed the side of my face against the door, feeling the incessant thud that rocked the door until a fist shot through, making a small hole next to my throbbing face. The pain brought me back, as did the grasping hand that scraped it's fingernails off right next to my nose. I pulled back and looked around the room before heading for the window. The continuous din faded into the background as I lifted open the window and swung out into the nothingness, grabbing creaking metal of the broken fire escape ladder before letting go of the sill.

I started swinging my legs forward into an arc, seeing the remaining remnants of the ladder had just fell to the side a bit and if I leaped just. The. Right. Way.... When I had been in the Marines, training for Special Ops, I had signed up for learning to parachute out of a plane. Light weight fabric compressed and placed into a pack that rested on your back, strapped to your shoulders and thighs, that at just a moments notice and a firm tug, bloomed out in seconds and suddenly you go from tail spinning blazing fear and freaking out to comforting weightlessness and in control calm.

This was not the case. I was maybe flying for what seemed like minutes before I was falling, dropping like a rock; hitting the iron hanging apparatus, the wind leaving my lungs as the rusting alloy carved into the side of my stomach and shoulder. I scrabbled for a hold as I slid downwards, clenching my teeth together in pain as I felt a fingernail rip off; almost laughing at the irony of it. I pulled myself up and swung into the nearest window, not caring if even a witch was occupying it. I curled myself around my bleeding finger, cradling it like a child; close to my body. I glanced up and saw the open door to a safehouse. The one I had spent days trying to find.

"Don't cry Margeret," I whispered to myself, my mouth twisting ruefully as I found myself repeating my father's words, "crying is for losers."