Alright, this is “Guardian Angel” version 2.0, after going over it with my English teacher and making a whole mess of corrections. So if you read it before, it’s changed enough that I think it’s worth a reread, and if you haven’t read it before, don’t worry about it and enjoy!

Oh, and this is one of two pieces that I’m submitting to the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts for Creative Writing this spring. Wish me luck! ANY and ALL reviews will be greatly appreciated to get this up to the level it needs to be for submission.

Without further ado…

Guardian Angel

Mira.

The young woman rolled restlessly on her thin mattress. Her old black leather jacket, only a little thicker than the quilt that was lying in a heap on the floor, strained at the seams as she threw her arm across her face. A cold blue light flashed on the rickety nightstand: 2:39 AM.

Mira.

She was fully awake now. Her eyes were moving behind her lids, searching for the source of that goddamn-familiar whisper. She kept her body still and her breathing even in a futile attempt to ignore the call and go back to sleep. Maybe it was just her imagination, just tired nerves too accustomed to a midnight summons to let her sleep. Honestly, she’d just finished a job last night! Surely she wouldn’t be needed so soon after last time.

Shamira!

The force of the call felt like someone had zapped her with a power line. Mira’s body spasmed and she snapped upright, all her muscles tensed and adrenaline humming through her veins. The yellowing sheets billowed over her jerky movements and floated to pool around her thrashing legs as her body tried to twist free of the bed without her say-so. Mira’s nerves thrummed like plucked strings with the power of the summons; her blood had been replaced with raw, snapping lightning. Oh yeah, there was no chance of getting back to sleep – not now. With a muttered curse, Mira yanked the covers back and allowed her feet to slam on the freezing concrete floor.

Reaching under the bed, her hands scrambled across the floor like huge, ungainly spiders, feeling for a pair of scuffed black boots. Chucking one shoe onto the rumpled covers above her head, Mira thrust a hand into the right boot and retrieved a wadded ball of more leather: a pair of gloves as tired and worn as everything else in the apartment, including her.

Quickly donning the gear, she strode to the door completely dressed. She’d crawled into bed late last night without bothering to strip. She’d been too eager for the peaceful, dreamless black of sleep to care about such mundane things as clean sheets. A smudged black stripe of mascara across her pillow case testified to this. The blankets were stained brown where her boot soles had rested just moments before. Mira vaguely wished that she had enough energy to do the laundry, but pushed the thought aside. She had more pressing issues at the moment.

Mira paused at the door to grab the leather harness she’d tossed onto a tarnished brass bracket. Letting one strap slide between her jacket and the dark lycra top, she pulled the rest of the contraption across her chest. She reached behind her back to grab the free strap and yanked it around to slip it through the buckle of the waist strap. She gave the strap another pull to tighten it and listened to the new leather protest to the rough treatment. The holster settled heavily, into the snug dent by her armpit, and Mira felt some of her clenched muscles ease a bit as she fingered the solid pebbled grip of the gun. It was her ace in the hole, the little bit of extra security that had come to make her feel like she was eight years old, hiding, safe and warm, in a cozy chair-tent with her favorite blankie.

Mira abruptly jerked her hand free from the cool metal of the gun and placed it on the shaky doorknob instead. She had no time for such sentimental thoughts, she told herself firmly. They would only get her killed.

She strode down the hallway, past the rats that chittered and raced at the edges of her vision. They heard a predator coming and dived into their assorted cracks, frantic to escape what they were sure was their impending doom. Mira didn’t bother with them as she walked past, and she hadn’t bothered to lock the door behind her. The people who shared the floor knew better than to mess with her room.

She didn’t have far to go this time. That was a bonus she hadn’t expected. Mira spotted the trouble the moment she stepped out of her complex and into the muggy night. Her street was fairly well traveled, day or night, and the flickering headlights of passing cars revealed the massive silhouettes of two common thugs a couple of alleys down, obviously up to nothing good. They had to be stupid, too, to pick this neighborhood to haunt tonight. Or maybe they were just deaf, not to have heard that this section of town was her territory.

Mira allowed herself a grim smile before merging with the shadows beyond the dim yellow halos of the streetlamps. She slipped across the street, taking advantage of a brief break in the traffic. She arrived at the mouth of the alleyway and watched the scene for a moment. Experience had taught her caution. The idiots’ victim was laid out on his back, staring at his assailants, just waiting for the blow that would inevitably fall. He didn’t move – he just stared. Mira was suddenly filled with an anger so intense that she couldn’t see anything but the pale body that was sprawled awkwardly in the dirt. How could he just let this happen? He could’ve called for help or tried to run or something, anything, besides lying there like some gasping fish.

But maybe he had called for help, had prayed to his God to save him because he was too weak to be a man and protect himself. Maybe that’s why she’d been summoned here: for her to be a guardian “angel” for this pathetic coward that didn’t deserve her championship.

That wasn’t for her to judge, though. She had learned to be a good slave. She did what she was told to do and kept her opinions to herself.

While Mira was lost in her thoughts, the man on her left cocked his fist in a melodramatic, threatening gesture, and suddenly the time for observation was over.

“I don’t think so,” she said aloud, and her lips peeled back from her teeth in a terrible snarl. Before either of the men could move, she caught the nearer man’s raised fist with a powerful grab. A swift turn braced her back against his and, with a feral growl, she thrust his arm back the wrong way. A deafening crack told her the elbow was broken, and she kicked him to the asphalt. He struggled to his knees and stared at his arm, which was protruding from his side at an unnatural angle. There was silence for one beat, two, before the relative calm of the city night was shattered as the wounded man screeched a wounded animal’s cry. Mira cursed and kneed the idiot in the head. He toppled face first to the road and didn’t stir.

“One down,” Mira whispered, and she spun on her heel to face the other man, prepared to take him out the same way. She found herself looking down the business end of a semi-automatic, the barrel blackened with use. One look into his hard blue eyes confirmed what his gun had already told her – he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her. She felt, rather than saw, her opponent’s hand clench around the trigger. She heard a gun fire.

Her gun. Somehow, she had drawn her own weapon and fired it at point-blank range. Her pointer finger was still curled around the trigger. Her aim had been true, poor bastard, a small voice in her head whispered. She watched with unhealthy fascination as the blood silently spread across his chest. The body sagged and crumpled to lie in the dirty dust, his eyes empty of everything.

A small whimpering noise forced Mira’s gaze up to the person whose life she’d saved. The boy who had been sprawled on the ground moments before was now staring at her with terror clear on his face. She remained frozen, a statue from Hell. Her hands were raised, still holding the smoking gun. Her feet were spread apart as her coat fluttered about her in a sudden blast of hot air that reeked of exhaust and wet rust. The blinking stop light from the intersection beyond them cast an eerie light over her pale face, making her eyes black as pitch and her skin appear washed in blood when it wasn’t in complete, encompassing, merciful darkness.

Mira watched the boy’s gaze flicker between her face, her gun, the bodies, back to her face, and she listened when he finally spoke. His voice was really too rough to be intelligible, but Mira imagined she could hear what he said, imagined that the breeze had caught his words and shoved them into her ears to brand them on her mind and memory and soul.

“You killed him…”

Shamira turned her back on the boy she had rescued, his rasping cries echoing with those of her conscience.

“Murderer!”

As she walked down the street, she noticed her hand was still in a white-knuckled grip on the handle of the pistol. Slowly, she relaxed her hold and waited for the little voice in her head to call her to the next damn job of the night.