Snatch 1.7

Sasha could barely breathe, her chest pounding was she watched the scene before her unfold.

She couldn’t make out much in the way of details, only that the woman had clearly seen better days, her skin purpled and dark where the light of the car headlights struck. They manhandled her without care or grace, yanking and pushing her along towards what she had to know was a certain and irrevocable transformation of her life. Memory bubbled to the surface, terrors which Sasha had though herself having conquered welling up, as the Asian woman made the mistake of wailing in pain, only to find herself silenced by the female gangster without even a hint of mercy, her jaw now swollen from the jarring blow of a rifle’s butt.

Sasha’s pulse quickened, her fingers curled about a piece of steel behind which she hid.

She felt... helpless.

And yet almost at the same time it dawned upon her that she was being silly. Her finger curling down to crush their imprints into the steel behind which she’d been hiding. She was not weak any longer. She was not bereft of power and agency. She was no longer merely human.

Easy to forget in the commotion of the day to day; still spent, vulnerable, and weak.

But her clenched fist told a different story, sending surges of power through her arm in tightening anticipation. A reminder. Weakness was no longer an option. Power had set itself upon her, and to do any less than to act would leave her gut burning with the memory. No matter how much she wanted to turn around and simply walk away.

... Sabah would hate such selfishness.

She winced at that thought, kindness showed to her just a night before still burning bright at the back of her mind, branding her deeply. To do nothing here would be to spit in the eye of the young woman who’d taken her in last night, to pretend that there was nothing that she could do, would be nothing less than an utter betrayal.

It would eat her up.

To do nothing was simply the one thing she could not do.

She waited a moment, watching as the men and woman closed distance to complete their sick trades. Drugs, cash, and a slave. She could hear them laughing together, base innuendo laced with their speech and motions, understandable even if she didn’t know a single word of the language which they spoke.

She waited and watched.

And at the perfect moment, she struck.

Sasha threw herself into the fray with a breathless frenzy, low to the ground and with all the speed she could muster as she charged from a sidelong angle, the light of the high-beam headlights blocking her small body from view until almost too late.

The first punch came with the sickening sound of fractured bone, a single man flying from the centre and into another as if gored by a rampaging bull, both flung hard into the scrap filled night, only an unseen clang of metal against bone in their wake.

And for a moment after that there was silence.

All seemed to freeze in place as both sided stopped, staring in amazement at what had just been witnessed, Sasha’s fists still out raised from where she’d attacked. Her mind racing as she stared at her own fists in amazement. So too did the men and woman who were left stare in wonder, a momentary lapse. They were not so slow as to stay that way, that single moment of realization stretching into horrified readiness as gun muzzles pulled upward and began to blast the young woman among them with semi-automatic spray. A more experienced cape might have taken note of the expensive and powerful weapons which they bought to bear. At the way in which their reactions turned so quickly from shocked to professional killer in but a few seconds of realization. At how much cash and product there was in the exchange, and even how out of place the slave girl to be seemed.

Sasha had neither experience, not the time to extrapolate all of this, even as she realized the guns were coming up and pulled her arm up to her face to keep it better defended. A reflex action, but none the less useful as doing so kept her vision clear. The next to go down found her fist lodged deep into his gut, expelling the contents of his stomach, even as gunfire swung up into his direction, and fear overtook any semblance of fire discipline, carving deep into his legs and abdomen.

But the little hooded juggernaut simply didn’t stop.

The boatman was already moving back, fist held tight about his stash of drugs, as he fled toward the boat which had brought him to the bay. The slave girl tossed down against the lightless ground, crawling her way away.

Four more shooters left.

An old shattered section of hull grazed her fingers as she grabbed it tight enough to bend, throwing herself forward as she dislodeged the old thing with a single sweeping smashing motion, slamming it hard into the men and woman who stood before her. Broken bones and bruised flesh strewn aside in a frenzy.

She stood for a moment, amazed.

Her hands. This had all been done by her hands...

The sudden noise of a starting motor boat woke her from her wonder. She didn’t even think twice about it, as the closest bit of scrap she could grab was soaring out of her hand and into the car lit dark. Only the sound of it sold her to the fact that she’d hit the boat, rapid swearing… mandarin?... flowing from the boatman’s lips as he leapt from the seat with his cargo, only to find himself slammed down against the ground, legs knocked from beneath him.

She threw him forward, unable it seemed to drag him along the ground, then found something suitably heavy to pin him beneath.

She’d done it… she’d…

Her stomach growled as if at war, a wave of tiredness settling deep into her bones.

She’d won… but it had taken a lot out of her.

Exhausted she looked around, money, drugs, and the young woman who had managed to find herself behind a car, ankle twisted as she yelped when Sasha’s silhouette loomed above. Legs scrapped, and breasts still unbound a she cried in abject terror.

“Uh… hey! Hey! Your safe, you’re safe… I’m here to help.” Sasha offered, hand outstretched.

“Oh god…” The woman spoke clear unaccented English in distinct contrast to those who’d held her. “Oh god, oh god, oh god…”

Ok… so she was probably a bit too freaked out to be of any use right now.

Sasha, couldn’t help but bite her lip. “Look… you’re safe, but hurt. Lemme see about calling the cops and getting you to a hospital right?” Too bad she didn’t have a phone... and these guys if they had one, it was probably locked.  Hopefully not, the one that had taken that bullet shower was looking a little gray despite the makeshift bandage which she’d turned his clothing into. And the broken bones on the first might have given way to some level of internal bleeding. She remember her father talking about that once.

Some of those guys weren’t going to stay down much longer… if they were down as it is. She wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them were faking so as not to have to fight her again. Ugg… she didn’t blame them.