The Lady Messiah
Brittney M Brosh
Copyright 2012 Brittney M Brosh
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Prices are subject to change at authors discretion, and may only offered as free for a limited time.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter One
..a beginning caught in the middle..
I smirked at the man in front of me, he, holding a knife and towering over me, I with my back pressed against the cold wet bricks of the alleyway wall.
He took a step towards me and I smirked more. Did he even know who I was? Most likely not. Most people didn't know who I was. I went by many names, many covers, and changed my appearance over and over again. Only one thing remained the same about me. My sparkling blue eyes. Clear, reflecting, honest. They drew people in, and led them to trust me. Why would they not? I wasn't a threat.
I smiled inwardly, as the man before me stepped closer still, bringing the blade to my throat. He leaned down and whispered lowly in my ear.
"Do as I say, and I won't have to hurt you." His breathe sent a shiver down my spine. He had a voice as thick and sweet as honey, and looks to match. I looked him up and down, at his expensive clothes, riveting features, and cold, grey eyes.
"At least give me your name sir~" I said with a seductive smile. He smirked down at me, believing I was giving in to his advances. It was foolish, very foolish on his part.
"Braden, and yours sweetheart?" He used the pet name too easily, too automatically. I smiled, running my tongue over my lips, leaning up to him.
"Emma~" I lied, whispering in his ear, pulling out the 12 gauge from inside my jacket. He was too engrossed in my eyes to notice, and I wrapped my arms around his neck enticingly, pulling him closer.
The pathetic man smugly obliged and leaned down expecting a kiss. But all that came was the gun to his head and a quick pull of a trigger, and he feel to the ground, at my feet, dead.
I leaned down and dipped a finger in his blood, drawing a cross on his neck before bringing it to my warm lips, licking the rest off. It was still hot, the garnet colored liquid tasting of copper.
I put my precious gun back into my grey jacket, pulling it around me slightly to keep out the cold winter air. I smirked one more time down at Braden before turning on my cheap heels and sauntering down the alley way, away from the man now lying very cold and very dead.
-
The next morning I flipped on the television to catch the news. Of course it would be on, how could it not be?
The anchorwoman talked fixedly on the subject at hand, her fake smile clouding the seriousness of the topic.
"It seems the vigilante, who's name is sweeping the nation, though only known as the Lady Messiah, has done it again. The serial rapist Braden Capriston was found dead this morning by NYCPD. Police are further investigating this account along with the 57 others spread across the country, but have released the information that the victim was found with a cross on his neck, drawn in blood, killed by a single bullet wound to the head. As were all the other victims."
She took a breath, smiling and I watched coolly, "There has been no release of any information on her identity, but police have told reporters that the only link between the murders is that all the victims were currently on America's Most Wanted. Though she has many-" I flipped off the set, bored. I sighed looking out the window of the small hotel room.
"Lady Messiah~" I smiled to myself, "The liberator of sinners."
Chapter Two
..new names are all the same..
I looked in the mirror, the cold, smooth glass reflecting my piercing eyes, but had yet to capture the depth of my stare.
I tossed my head to the side, not breaking my gaze from the mirror. My hair had grown out to my lower back and the red that had once been so vibrant, so alive, was now faded, listless.
"Who am I now?" I asked my reflection, searching the blue of my eyes for an idea. 'Why can't you just use your real name?' it seemed to ask me. I shook my head and smiled. No one knew who I was. No one knew the real Luna Reyes.
-
I walked into a café off of Main Street and 21st to get a hot chocolate. The winter winds kept cutting through me like a bullet through the head. I smirked at the comparison as I walked up to the cashier.
"How may I help you?" She asked in the same dead tone as everyone else. She might as well have said 'shoot me, for my life has no meaning'. I sighed and told her my order.
"One moment, that will be three-fifty." She responded detachedly. I handed over a bill and told her to keep the change. She didn't even smile at me, her nappy hair pulled back into a mandatory ponytail, green eyes that were cold, dead staring back into mine.
"Thank you." She said, seeming bored, handing me my drink frigidly. To think I did what I did to protect people like her. I took the drink with a smile.
"No need to thank me."
-
I spotted him. Antonio Marquis. Leader of the Spanish mafia. I tucked my now short black hair behind my ears, which curled deliciously and glided over across the strip club, past the women with all the same claim 'it's just to get through college'. It was obvious to me that the girls had an inferiority complex.
"Toni?~" I said, walking up to him. He looked up and frowned. A few of the men surrounding him stood up and I stopped, giving an innocent smile. "Don't you remember me?" He looked me up and down and gave a cruel smile, eyes flashing with a look of malice.
"Are you one of Cassandra's girls?" He said with a seductive smile, voice low, hinting at something. I smiled slightly, allowing my eyes to flutter closed and look up at him sweetly. The sudden change in his attitude set me at ease.
"You tell me~" I said stepping closer, lips curling into an even sweeter smile. He extended his hand slightly, in a gentlemanly way, and I took it.
"You really are a charmer miss..?" He paused, waiting for me to give an answer. We continued walking, reached a door leading out into the alley.
"Julie Ann~" I said smoothly, stepping out into the cold night air, the bitterness of the wind biting my nose, and causing my pale face to blush a slightly pink. Antonio smiled down at me, a cruel glint in his eyes.
As we walked a little ways forward I heard a few footsteps behind me. The guards. Of course they would follow us out. After I take out Antonio, they would be a piece of cake.
"Miss Ann," He said turning to me, looking into my glistening eyes, "Cassandra really does know how to pick her putas." I smiled, pretending I didn't know he had just called me a whore. I reached into my jacket slightly, wrapping my delicate fingers around my gun.
"She's got a gun!" A man behind me growled. Suddenly a light flashed, and my vision blurred. I heard a car horn and the stamping of feet as someone ran off. And then I felt two pairs of hands on me. I tried desperately to see, gripping onto the 12 gauge, only to have it ripped from my grasp.
"Hold her still! This little puta needs to be shone her place!" I felt someone rip open my jacket and I grimaced, refusing to scream.
Chapter Three
..goodbyes are sometimes permanent..
"Hold her still! This little puta needs to be shone her place!" That voice. That cold, merciless voice rang in my ears. I grimaced as one pair of hands held me still and the other pulled open my jacket.
"What big tetas." He growled lowly, fondling me roughly. I grimaced, keeping my bearings. I took a breathe and gathered myself, my eyesight still blurred from the sudden bright light from a car. I balled up my hands into tight fists and elbowed the man behind me, before
raised a leg to kick the one who dared touch me.
I reached for my gun, only to remember it had been torn from me. I blinked, my eyesight becoming clearer, allowing me to see the two tall, brooding men, stepping closer to me. I took another breath and remembered what my father had taught me…it was just like-
"-training. It is the basics of defending yourself first, your comrades second and your country third." My father raised a fist and swung at me, and I dodged swiftly, just as my years of training taught me. He smiled.
"That-a-girl!" He said pulling my into a bear-hug. I laughed, shaking my head. "Just like her daddy."
"Breakfast!" I heard my mother call and I looked up at my father and smiled. He had been on leave from his position as a U.S. Navy SEAL and I had been on leave from Military school. It wasn't often we we're able to be home at the same time, and it was lucky we both had gotten leave at the same time.
"Food!" Gavin yelled, running past us into the kitchen, and my father and I laughed lightheartedly. "Pancakes!!"
"Sounds great!" My father said picking me up. I squirmed in his arms, laughing. "Let's eat little girl."
"I'm not little!" I laughed, trying to get down from his arms.
"You're 13." He laughed, kissing my cheek.
"So-" I started to protest, but paused, hearing something. My father put me down and we walked to the window. "Daddy, why is that plane flying towards the-"
The man who had dared to lay his dirty hands on me stepped closer and swung a cold fist at my face. I dodged carefully and side-stepped, bringing my solid hand up, upper cutting his jaw and causing him to fall back. There was no way I could take on two of them without my gun.
"FIRE!" I screamed, keeping my eyes on the two men. I heard footsteps and voices calling back 'where?' 'what's going on?'. People started to flood into the alley, thinking something was happening, and I took the chance to escape, and slip off, hopefully without being followed.
I watched in horror as a second plane crashed into the Trade Center.
"I have to go Lima-bean." My father said, pulling on his uniform.
"No daddy! Don't leave m-" I stopped, and stared at him, tears rolling hot down my face. He was crying too.
"I have to Luna," He said, pulling me into a tight hug. I hugged him back tightly, crying. 'Don't leave me, please don't leave me.' the little voice in the back of my head cried. He kissed my forehead, his tears falling onto my face. "I love you Luna."
"I-I love you too daddy." I choked out, between sobs. He pulled away and looked me in the eye solemnly.
"I love our country, and I am going to protect it. Promise me you'll protect our family." He paused, gazing into my eyes, and I gazing back into his. They were a calm grey. Compassionate, strong. "America is our family."
"I p-promise daddy." I cried, biting my bottom lip. He slipped a key into my small hand and closed his eyes.
"The small box under my bed is yours. It was my fathers, then mine, and now it's yours." He paused, "It's the gun you've seen daddy clean out, on grandpa's death day." He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, "Take care of yourself Luna."
He kissed my cheek one last time before walking out of the door. I ran after him, watching him sprint down the stairs before I ran inside to the window, eyes following him as he hurried toward the two towers, which were engulfed in flames and smoke. I cried harder as I watched him disappear. And even more so, when he never came back.
I coughed, lungs begging for air, silent tears running down my face. I walked quickly into the cheap hotel where I was staying, and checked in. I couldn't even manage a feeble smile. I returned to my room in a daze. The last thing I had from my past. The only thing I had of my fathers...
Gone.
Chapter Four
.. ..
I stared into the mirror of the hotel bathroom, my black hair pulled back into a sloppy and short ponytail. My normally clear eyes, at that moment, were a puffy and stinging red, searched my reflection for some sort of resolution of confidence.
"You've lost your weapon soldier," I said steely to my swollen face, from the past night of crying, and the countless hours I had lay awake, unable to quiet my heart-wrenching sobs, "and you failed your mission."
-
I looked down at the 12 gauge handgun, similar in design to my fathers, beneath the dirty glass of a locked counter in a run down pawn shop on the corner of the 25th avenue.
"Well?" He stout man behind the wall of glass said gruffly, dirty brown eyes searching mine suspiciously, "I don't take to loiterers around here. You want the gun, little girl? 400 bucks." He snorted, rubbing his snotty face on his sleeve. I closed my eyes in disgust before looking up, my face stoic.
"In the condition it's in, I will only pay 100." I said coolly, and the creature before me flashed me a cruel, arrogant smile, showing yellowing teeth. He was a smoker, it was obvious by the smell clinging to him.
"Know your way around guns girly?" He said pulling it out and placing it before me, just out of arms reach. "300." He snorted again, this time spitting the waste out into a crusted napkin, before lighting up another cigarette.
"150." I countered in a second, eyeing him calmly. He frowned, eyes flashing in annoyance.
"250." He responded, obviously growing impatient. I cracked my knuckles out of habit, clear eyes searching his face. His own eyes flashed a look of fear for a split second. I smiled inwardly, shaking my head. Their eyes always gave away their weaknesses.
"200," I retorted with a smirk, "Take it or leave it." He glared at me for a moment, nostrils flaring. After a long moment he finally gave in, letting out a low groan of irritation from deep in his throat.
"Fine." He said thrusting the gun at me haughtily, and I, sliding over two, one hundred dollar bills across the counter. "If you cause any trouble with that thing, you did not get it here. Understand?" I nodded, turning away from him and left without another word, slipping the 12 gauge into my jacket before I stepped foot out, feeling slightly at ease with the presence of a gun at my fingertips once again.
-
The walk back to the hotel was gruesome, the wind cutting me like a double-sided blade. I only made it worse when I happened to bumped into someone, very literally, knocking the wind out of me, along with a few paces back. I looked up with an apologetic smile, but it faded when I noticed a pair of familiar grey eyes that had haunted me so many sleepless night before.
"Gavin?" I whispered, my face growing even more pale. I couldn't even feel the blistering chill around me, as my blood had run cold a second before. He looked down at me in surprise, dirty blonde hair poking out from beneath his cap.
"Sorry ma'am, didn't see you there." He said automatically, his eyes, seemingly just like my fathers, searched mine. "Do I know you from somewhere, you look familiar." I shook my head, feeling tears well up and I willed them back. 'How is he alive?' the small voice asked me worriedly, 'You saw his body after the shooting, that can't possibly be him.'. I chewed my bottom lip for a second, trying to smother my hopes before they dared take up residence in my heart.
"Sorry sir," I choked out, steeling my nerves. I rushed past him, pulling my jacket around me even tighter.
If only I had been paying attention as I hurried away, would I have heard the man behind me pull out a phone and say only one thing, in the deadest of tones.
"Found her."
Chapter Five
.. ..
I rushed away from the young man with the familiar grey eyes, holding back my tears as well as I could. 'That couldn't have been Gavin,' the soft voice in the back of my head soothed, 'He passed on years ago, along with your-'
"-Mom!" I screamed desperately, tears streaming down my pale face, reaching out trying to grab her lifeless hand as the paramedics wheeled her away into the awaiting ambulance, a police officer trying to hold me back.
I watched her light brown hair blowing in the humid air, no longer pulled into the messy bun she had always worn, her white cotton shirt stained with the mass amo
unt of blood she had spilled from the bullet wounds in her delicate chest.
"MAMA!" I wailed, frantically clawing the air in which she had a second before been breathing, before her heart beat stopped completely, and her body became frigid and cold.
"Gavin!" I shrieked in heartbreak as I saw my 7 year old brother brought to the same ambulance, his body torn to pieces from the gun fire. The officer held me tighter in her arms, murmuring useless consolations into my long hair, trying to calm me. I stared at his eyes, just like my fathers. A pale grey, but now a lifeless, dark shade of nothing.
“Don't leave me!”
-
"Found her." The man spoke into the phone coldly, a solid look in his eyes as he watched the young woman hurry away.
"Are ya sure?" A voice on the other end asked, the thick Jersey accent clouding her words. The man cracked his neck, pulling his thin coat closer.
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