A segment from the book I’m working on.
Sarah Turner was 30.
And she was running for her life.
On her left ankle, a sizeable dark purple bruise was making her constant parkour run across the city’s smaller buildings unbearable. On the right side of her torso, the blanket she was pressing against her with her elbow is barely able to stop her blood from leaking. In the back of her right shoulder, cold wind left a burning pain as it passed through two bullet holes. Under her left arm, there was a seemingly-ordinary shoebox covered in a brown paper bag. This simple shoebox contained years of world-saving knowledge that had been in her family for three generations. It was the second most important thing Sarah has ever owned.
The first most important was cradled in her right arm, watching his mother struggle to survive his first birthday.
Sarah ran and ran, not daring to look back; she finally managed to get a good momentum going, and any new movement she might try could have ended up causing her literal downfall. She couldn’t risk that.
She finally saw a sign of potential hope: a moving van, two buildings down. A young Taiwanese couple – Elwood & Belle – were exiting the fully-packed van, smiles on their faces and love in their eyes. The rest of the street was empty; everyone else was either at work, school, or at home, glued to their television sets as the news updated them on the actions of the greatest American heroine and an unidentified man fighting and accusing one another of committing a double-murder.
Sarah ran towards the van, praying for compassionate souls.
The young husband closed the van’s backdoor and dusted his hands on one another. His bride-of-two-weeks, overcome with joy and excitement, could barely keep her eyes dry.
“Well,” Elwood said, “I guess we better get a move on. Ontario isn’t going to wait for us!”
Before the happy couple could laugh, a woman’s desperate voice cried out, “Wait!!” from above. The two of them looked up and watched a battered and bleeding heroine leap from the four-story building across the street and land on a cab parked in front of them, crushing it under the weight of muscle and fear. Sarah tried to stand up, but her wobbly legs were going to give up at any second.
“Please!” Sarah cried out to the couple, her tears falling on her crying infant’s forehead, “Please, take him! Take my son! Take him and—”
Elwood and Belle sprinted over to Sarah to try and calm her down.
“Easy, ma’am!” Elwood said to her. “What’s going on?”
Sarah, filled with fear and rage, grabbed Elwood’s collar and looked him dead in the eye. With a flimsy, thunderous voice, she yelled, “He’s coming! He’s coming for me and my child! Please! Save him!”
Strong for too long, Sarah lowered her head onto Elwood’s shoulder and tried not to sob. Belle walked up to her and tapped her shoulder.
“Let me see him,” Belle said to her calmly.
Sarah presented her child to his mother-to-be. The shade of his red hair and green eyes matched his mother’s perfectly.
“He’s beautiful,” Belle said while reaching for him. Sarah instinctively almost pulled him back to her, but she stopped herself.
“I-I’m sorry,” Sarah apologized. “I just… I never thought this … that I…”
Belle put her hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “Tell him ‘I’ll see you later,’” she told the heroine.
“But he won’t!” Sarah reminded her, frustratedly. “I’m going to die! I know it!”
“That doesn’t mean,” Belle said, calmly, “that you won’t see him again.”
Belle’s warm smile and gentle words relaxed Sarah, even if it was only slightly. Sarah looked at her child, kissed his cheek, and with a shivering voice, said to him, “I’ll see you later, kiddo.” Then she handed her legacy into the hands of a complete stranger.
Before the couple could turn around, Sarah handed the box over to Elwood. “And this! He’s… he’s going to need this if…” she hesitated… “just, give it to him when he’s seventeen.” Sarah then turned to her infant son. The child’s crying died down as he saw the only mother he had known so far. Sarah smiled and said with a strange sort of confidence, “I’ll see you later, kiddo.” She kissed her son’s forehead and he giggled.
Sarah rose her eyes back up and looked her successor in the eye. “Thank you so much,” she said to Belle. “This… this is going to make a difference.”
Belle was about to ask what she meant, but the rising sound of helicopters a distance behind her cut her off. Sarah looked past Belle and with a horrified look in her eye demanded that the couple leave now. The new foster parents hopped into the truck and began driving away. They managed to avoid even seeing the helicopters.
The next time they saw Sarah, she was on the news, being executed by the mysterious stranger – her brother, it turned out – for “The murder of her mother, husband, and child.”
- Captain Icon: My Life as Legacy
