Helena is the (lionessrises) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-04-06 00:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *narrative, helena wayne |
Helena narrative
Who: Helena and some NPCs
What: A beat down and a rescue
Where: Gotham
When: Before this
Warnings/Rating: Violence, glossectomy, references to sexual slavery.
At the very heart of it, finding the man that shot her came down to luck and timing. She had no picture of him and even if she had, someone would remember a female passing around his picture and asking after him. There could be no traces of this.
So she kept close to the ground, a story or two up, watching, watching, waiting, scanning the foot traffic of Gotham for her needle in a haystack. Helena left the door and came back again, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Marvel, then back to Gotham, a little trail of honey-vengeance laid out for her.
This had to be dealt with.
And one day she finally found him, her shooter, walking from a convenience store to a brick apartment building. Her breath caught a little to finally see him, but her heart continued on a steady whump-whump inside her chest. There was no plan ticking away inside her brain as she swung down from the fire escape, dressed in drab, worn black and a pair of black, Converse high tops (here, in this part, it blended in and she was just another person in the crowd with her hood pulled up).
She followed him in, no doorman, not a word muttered as she watched him take the stairs - no elevator present - and up she went after him, not bothering to mask the sounds of her sneakers on the metal. No, stealth would have been more alarming, now she only looked like another tenant of the building, also going up. She was slower though, patient, listening when he opened the door out of the stairwell and giving him a few seconds before she went through that too.
He was already opening up the door to his apartment, two doors down on the left.
She smiled. Still no plan. She should have a plan. But no, she just walked up and knocked, hood still drawn over her face, one light flickering half way down the hall.
Dumb fuck answered the door. Gun, right hand. "What do you fuckin' want?"
More smiling, one hand reaching to pull her hood back, the other already reaching for his wrist. Disarm him.
Pop. Funny how it sounded different when there wasn't a bullet entering her flesh.
Shoulder to the door.
Inside.
Gun kicked under the kitchen table.
Helena put on her first pair of gloves; the one thing she had enough forethought to bring, no matter where she was, and got to work.
An hour later, her knuckles were split inside the gloves, blood carefully contained within. Maybe a couple fingers, she wasn't sure yet. Too much adrenaline. Or endorphins. Possibly both. Perhaps neither. His face was swollen beyond recognition and he was tied to one of his cheap ass chairs. She could have broken out of it if she'd been the one tied to it, but he really wasn't in the position to anymore.
Unfortunately, he'd lost consciousness after she cut out his tongue (subsequently thrown out of the fire escape window and fed to a skinny dog in the alley; the first dog she'd ever liked). It had made it easier when she'd laid a kitchen knife on his old range top and let it heat up, enough for the blade to glow before she cauterized the stump. He'd woken up briefly then, but promptly passed out before she was done.
Fingers to his throat - he still had a pulse. Slow. She squatted down in front of him and listened to him breathe. Heavy, no bloody froth at his mouth or nose, probably broken ribs but no punctured lungs. "Lucky," she murmured under her breath. It was a good thing that Gwen wasn't here for this, even if he was still alive.
Not that he would be for much longer if she didn't call for help. "See, I'm already nicer than you." She told his unconscious form and stood.
A muffled, low cry from one of the other rooms. No one else had come out during the hour she'd spent with him, but the sound made her frown.
It was too muffled.
"Stay here." She told him and peeled off her gloves. They went into one pocket to be taken with her, and she used her elbow to knock open a door. No one inside. Another door. Bathroom.
Another door.
Behind door number there was a naked female, young from what she could tell from the light seeping in around her shadow, tied to the bed, duct tape over her mouth. The room reeked of sex and shit and piss. He hadn't been home long enough to do this - he'd left her here. She left the lights off. "Fuck," she whispered, withdrew. If she ever felt bad for removing his tongue, she was going to remember this and not feel a damn bit of guilt at all.
First a phone call to nine one one and no, she didn't remain on the line with the operator. Then back to the bathroom, where she put on a second pair of gloves and grabbed all the bare-thread towels that were inside. They weren't much, they weren't nearly enough, but she came back with them.
"Shh, shh, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to get you untied." Helena covered her first with the towels, then went for the tape on her mouth.
"Hey, there. Have you got a name?" She asked as she went for the rope at the girl's wrists.
"Angie," the girl sobbed out. "Please, get me out of here, please, please, please, help me."
"Shh, shh, I am. Let me get you untied okay? Then I'm going to call the cops. You have to stay there until then." Stay and not see the man left in what passed for the living room.
"I don't-"
"I'll stay with you." She promised, easy as breathing. And as soon as the ties were loose, she was helping her - Angie - sit up, their fingers lacing together.
"Please, I don't want to stay -"
"It won't be much longer now. The police have to gather evidence. They're going to catch him for this. Just a few minutes more, I promise. They know you're here. They're coming." She shouldn't leave her here, shouldn't make her stay in this room, but couldn't go far either. Angie needed the police and Helena needed to be gone. "C'mon." There was only one place to go.
"Keep your eyes on me." And together they went through the small apartment to the fire escape, bypassing the living room where he was and out the window. Angie with her towels wrapped around her, Helena still in all black. There were sirens coming closer. They both breathed in a little easier.
"They're going to ask you if someone else was here. Tell them yes, it's okay. But you never got a clear look at me, okay? I need you to do that for me, Angie."
She got a tear faced nod in response and held on until the sirens stopped in front of the building. "They're coming. You're going to be okay." And then she was gone, up the ladders and the the grating to the rooftops and then home to her dingy little apartment. Time to pack everything up and return to Japan. Time to return to her life.