Rishi's Wish

Chapter 1-3

What was more strange, though accountable to grief, was that as soon as the papers were signed that gave up responsibility for her property to Mike, she'd dropped off the grid. For four years, she seemed to vanish, never touching her father's money.

Hamal knew it was in this unaccounted history that he'd find the answers to why he was here. If only he were allowed to approach her, Hamal was sure he'd get all the answers he needed. He had no doubt she would be putty in his hands. If not for the parameters that forbade him from making contact, he'd be talking with her right now. Possibly between the sheets of her king-sized bed.

He shook that thought away. If the assignment had come from anyone else, Hamal would have ignored the decree and reached out to her. As hard as his curiosity pulled at him to figure out the mystery, he wouldn't cross that one. Not even for this.

Instead, he was left to watch, wondering who this girl was and how she might have garnered the attention of one who pulled so many strings.

His eyes moved back to track her progress on the monitor while he leaned over to change the infrared view to night-vision. The red, blue, and green of the screen turned to a green-tinged world where her form shone brightly against the background of the night.

He'd noted the wireless earbuds in her ears as she'd passed and couldn't help but wonder, from a strictly professional point-of-view, how she could deal with running at night after cutting off her strongest working sense. What if something came at her? There was no way she could see that well in the night that she should risk blunting her sense of hearing.

Maybe the girl had a death-wish.

He straightened in his seat.

If she did have a death-wish and something happened to grant that wish was he supposed to stand by and document what happened? His directives were clear; he was there merely to observe. But should he interfere in this case?

Not for the first time since arriving, he fumbled with his phone. Another parameter had been not to make contact with home-base under any circumstances.

He'd never been on such a troubling case. How could such a dull girl be the focus of such a confusing mission?

These were questions above his pay-grade. If he was here merely to observe, then observe was all he would do. If the girl wanted to die, then maybe that was all he was supposed to find out.

Slapping the thin file closed, he tossed it aside and nestled back into the seat, wishing he hadn't already finished his coffee.

Lids heavy with boredom, he almost missed the blur of movement that cut across the screen. He jolted forward to manipulate the video to rewatch what happened.

Had she just been attacked?

He watched the video in slo-mo to be sure.

Completely unprepared, the second hit to his ego since arriving, he leaped from the vehicle. Sprinting, shotgun in one-hand, night-vision goggles in the other, he made his way to where his mark was most assuredly dead.

He hated being right, especially when he hadn't expected to be this right.

The thing that had ambushed his mark was the last thing he'd thought to see turn up as a player. If he'd had more time to wonder about the nature of its appearance, he might have re-thought his forward pace. There were things he was good at, and there were things above the ability of his DNA to accommodate. What had attacked Dee was one of those things he wasn't sure he'd be able to help with.

Accustomed to looking for the barest of clues, Hamal saw the phone lying in the ditch, right alongside the scuff marks and battered grass that told of the struggle the pair had shared before racing off into the night.

He gazed down the path the two had taken, curiosity peaked that she had chased it. He allowed the fact that she lived through the attack to filter quietly in the back of his head as other questions raised by the event took precedent, the most critical being: if Zi had known the players involved, would he have sent Hamal? This was a job for someone much more durable than Zi's favorite human pet.

More questions raced through Hamal’s head as he followed the trail of blood, knowing he'd arrive too late to be of any use. There was too much blood for her to last long.

He knew the speed of the thing that had attacked, but struggled to correlate her speed with that inhuman pace, despite every clue pointing to that fact. If she'd been a Soldier, Zi would have known. If she were another form of Castoff, someone would have been aware of her. They wouldn't have left her to her own devices. She wouldn't be living this benign existence watched by someone like him.

Right?

Forgetting the questions he couldn't answer, he focused on the sign ahead: King's Quarry Cemetery. Laughing to himself, he couldn't help look around to see if someone was setting him up for some elaborate joke. A cemetery was where the fight ended? C'mon!

The sound of bodies colliding brought his attention from his possible candid camera debut. She was alive and fighting it?

Hiding in the shadows of the sparse groupings of trees, he watched, helpless, as Dee fell to her knees while the creature lined up for a final attack behind her. A part of him wanted to move forward, but he knew there was no way he'd arrive in time to save her, even if he thought the intercession might help or be allowed. When she pulled a shaft of metal fencing from the brush, turning in time to impale the creature's final attempt at taking her life, his mouth fell to his knees.

All he'd seen over the last few miles suggested she was capable of this. That he hadn’t found her dead body along the way was telling enough, but his brain struggled to align the dull girl he'd been tailing on previous nights with this new persona more akin to the creature who'd attacked her. Whatever the answers, why he'd been sent to watch her was finally clear.

This new perspective on the mission sparked an excitement he hadn't felt in a long time. As he continued to watch, his mind whirled with possibilities and what they meant for the true nature of his mark.

This excitement tempered when the girl fell to her knees, followed by her throwing up violently. When the sounds of retching faded, Dee seemed to think about pushing herself to her feet; instead collapsing to her side. Finding something to be excited about, only to lose it so soon was enough to send him forward.

"s**t. s**t. Shit." The word was his mantra as he made his way to her. Bypassing the gate took little concentration. Finding cover under a full-moon was more difficult.

He knelt next to her, eyes scanning the Revenant that would not be getting up. Its skin was already shrinking in on itself, showing a glimpse of the husk it would become that always reminded him of a mummy he'd seen in a museum when he was a boy. He noted the head wounds that told the story of their fight, impressed she'd bludgeoned the thing as she had. Not near the power of the ones he worked for, these Revenants were still nothing to laugh at. He wasn't sure he could have wounded one in such a manner and he definitely wouldn't have survived the initial ambush.

His ego survived these observations. Matched against any human, he was the best, but when compared to the things that were more, he never tried to compete. He'd seen too many lives end from that kind of pride.

He processed this in a scan of eyes while he knelt next to the one he couldn't lose like this. Not now that he knew more about what she was.

Fingers searched for a pulse at her neck while his eyes scanned the damage done to her body. Her wounds were severe. He'd never guess she could be alive if shown them in another context.

As he continued to check her over, he noticed the blood, moments ago flowing liberally from multiple lacerations, slowing. Her heart-rate, thready and irregular only seconds ago, was a steadier, stronger pulse against his touch.

He took off the night-vision goggles to look at her with his own eyes.

Athletic muscularity was highlighted through tight running pants. A tank top, mostly torn away, showed the athletic bra underneath still intact. Blood seeped at her knees, and there were tears in her thigh, ribs, and most notably, the arm he worried she would never use again, mangled in a way that suggested she should have bled out from the wound long before she made it here.

He winced at the dichotomy of her clean bicep and untouched hand book-casing her forearm. It made the injury seem more traumatic, laying there as if detached from the rest of her.

She moaned, pulling his attention from cataloging her injuries, eyes wide that she would recover consciousness already.

Who was this girl?