Damsel[ed]: Some Rescue Required (#2 of the Damsel[ed] series)

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Civilians

Angelos.

The door hits the ground and Owl glides into the capitol building. I'm still limp in her arms, images still blazing behind my eyes in an awful haze. The nightmares, this fate. 

The room is all marble, circular, and wide enough to pack a couple hundred people inside. I'm reminded of a sort of modern cathedral. The huge statue of the dead heroes clamoring over the constitution of statehood sits in the center. "Owl, Mom." I make my voice as urging as I can without it becoming a whine. How quickly I went from having no moms to two of them. "Here we go again. Let Juniper go. And Gats. Please."

There are people in the room. They have rifles. That's all I really notice about them, that and the badges clipped onto their shoulders. Police of some kind. Maybe paid guards. Juniper makes a wheezing gasp, a desperate sound smothered behind the folds of a handkerchief. 

And Gats, he isn't doing too well either. Thrown over a cloaked figure's shoulder, hanging there resistance-less. Just a sort of limp puddle. My fingers twitch, balling into fists. He has claws. And he had a sword, too, but that he gave up without the semblance of a fight. My boiling blood rushes to my ears in a roar. "Actually, take that back. The part about Gats, I mean. You can have him."

He makes an audible harrumph, a sound swallowed quickly by the sea of voices. The officials with the rifles hiss into their walkie-talkies, their voices crackling through the empty hall. Though they shout commands, none of them are obeyed. The intruders in black masks weave through the hordes and push the armed swells back against the wall. It's a swarm of bodies dressed in black, screaming, shouting, the overarching stench of blood turning my legs to rubber bands.

Shots are fired. Sunlight pours through the open door, lighting up the white walls so they sear my eyes, like the burning glint off snow. Owl drops my wing. I spring up off my heels for a run, but she grabs my face. Her fingers dig into my temples and cover my eyes. "This is not for you to see," is all she says. But hearing is enough. Screams cut off at once. The deafening staccato blast of rifles. My ears ring, loud enough that it's painful, but I can still hear bones snapping. Tendons popping.

My heart doesn't seem to clench, it explodes. This isn't like the comics, where the bad guys punch a few people and 'boom' and 'splat' splash across the next couple of panels. Good people are getting hurt. Good people are dying. "Stop it, please! Can't you just tie them up? Knock them out?" You know the situation is bad when this is what you're begging your mother, instead of, say, 'Stop embarrassing me in front of my friends!'

"Would you behave?" Her words are clipped and cool. So casual, when she's placing so many people's fates in my shoulders.

"Mayday," I hear a man say behind me, even though that's probably not the correct terminology you use in a supervillain fight. The words leave me in a gush.

"Yes, yes, yes I would. Totally, as long as you don't kill these people!" My hands are up, not in a guard, but in a surrender gesture. The chains clink between my wrists, pulled taut. The reek of blood is unmistakable. I fold forward as if to prove my point. "Please?" I add, because that sounds behaved enough to me.

"Very well." She grips my temples a tighter, just enough for me to wince. I breathe in deepy. Try to keep up a calm veneer though I'm willing to do anything, anything to make her stop her tirade. It's one thing to toss around a few super-tough kids who can spare spokes of their lives, another to hurt people who can die by a quick snap of their necks, people with spouses and partners and families. 

Heaven would know what to do. She's a hero. I don't. I just know I can't let this happen, so I stare at the floor, trying not to think about my own surrender, trying not to have a panic attack.