Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Flying on Clipped Wings ❯ Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I wonder if anyone else gets tried of putting these things in. Just get on with it. yes sister. we still don't own Hillsing. niether does our friend who wrote this

 

CHAPTER THREE

Redemption in the Streets

 

Even though I left the drying blood on my body and the maid's outfit looked very thrown-on, I went by fairly unnoticed in the streets outside the mansion. It amazed me how you could blend in so well out in the city, how you seemingly disappeared into the crowds. However, I digress, and what's really important to state is that the only person that noticed my apprehensive eyes and drained facial color was a blonde girl who pulled me into a nearby alleyway and out of the hustle-and-bustle of the streets.

 

The girl's deep blonde hair was layered in the front and reached only her shoulders, and her eyes were dazzlingly dark, just as Brigitte's had been, except this new girl's eyes were soft and confiding, not tired and rather pushy like the maid's. She wore a half black, half seafoam green shirt with a red smiley-face sticking its yellow tongue in a grimace in the center. Her short tan skirt donned pink plaid lines that offset her magenta-and-black horizontally striped stockings, and her feet were covered by calf-high, brown army boots.

 

Her face was slightly darker than a fair complexion due to obvious life on the streets, and she wore thick fuchsia eyeshadow. Her right eyebrow and bottom lip were both pierced.

 

Truly, in this one girl's appearance, I believe I was able to sum up all that is “street,” although this girl was extremely attractive for someone who lived their life renting out hotel rooms and stealing from the local grocery store.

 

“Dude, you were gonna get trampled out there on the sidewalk,” she smiled as she spoke in a semi-deep voice with an accent that was definitely all-American. Just by hearing my legendary phrase from back home (`dude') made it painfully clear that this teenager was just as French as I was.

 

“Hey, you alright?” she asked me, feeling the side of my face with her black-gloved hands. Her smile quickly faded to a compassionate subtle frown. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

 

I gave her a wide-eyed, shaken stare, feeling like my confidence had just been spat on. “I think I did,” I whispered, knowing that she probably wouldn't believe me.

 

Surprisingly, she lit up with enthusiasm and took a loud, dramatic gasp. “You can see them, too?”

 

I blinked, not knowing what to expect. Then calmly, I questioned her. “What?”

 

“Dude, those evil black things have been spreading everywhere since this morning!” she explained with eyes stretched open in amazement. “I can't stand being out here, surrounded by all these people, anymore! It's like they're everywhere!”

 

“Wait!” I yelped, grabbing onto this unknown street girl's sleeve. “So I'm not hallucinating?”

 

“Well, I don't think we'd be hallucinating about the same exact thing,” she grinned, “I mean, I don't even know you.”

 

“My name's Lynne,” I quickly introduced myself, feeling surprisingly forward. The more I got to know this girl, the better!

 

She giggled, pulling me back out into the crowd of foot travelers crossing the street. “I'm Vanessa. Nice to meet you.”

 

Over the course of the next year or so (and after I regained my strength), Vanessa and I became close friends. In fact, I don't think I've ever been or ever will be closer with a person. I found that we had various things in common, like both of us being from the main collaboration of American states (her from California and myself from Jersey). We also both favored rock above all other music, thought that being stuck-up, rich, and prissy was the worst way to be born, would like to see new and fabulous places one day . . . it was like I'd discovered the other chunk of my soul that had been missing since I left my home back in the States. Vanessa was the first person I'd met in years that made me feel as lively as when . . . actually, I don't believe I'd ever felt so happy before.

 

While living alongside Vanessa, I found out how clever people got around without homes. On a daily basis, Vanessa would mentor me in the fine art of “five-finger discounts,” and she always seemed to catch items “on sale”, might I add. We would lift small items, like a loaf of bread or a few apples and clementines, from local grocery stores in order to survive without money and to not have to finger through someone's dumpster to eat. Then we would rent out a room in a hotel with the chump change Vanessa collected weekly from some unsuspecting victim in the alleyways or the money she was able to pull from the ATM on the corner, even though she didn't have a personal account. Seeing as we were able to scan which hotels were the best but affordable, we usually circulated between a few every other three days, and because hotels give you towels and soap, we never had to worry about hygiene.

 

After all, if clothes got dirty, we would go to the cheapest Laundromat we could find, scrap up a few bucks, and take turns washing clothes while dressed in a spare change of clothes, courtesy of the retail store down the main street whose security just so happens to be very poor.

 

But one day, Vanessa suggested how it would be great not to hang on the edge every week so much. I must say, it was stressful as two seventeen-year-olds to have to make ends meet every day. My uniform just so happened to be dirty that day. When we went to the Laundromat, I discovered something phenomenal.

I was digging through the pockets on the backside of my apron before I threw the outfit into the washer, when I felt what seemed to be a thick wad of paper on the inside. When I pulled the thick chunk out, I trembled and grabbed Vanessa's sleeve quickly, trying to hide what I found.

 

“`Nessa,” I whispered, shaking my hands and almost freaking out for dear life. “Look what I found in my pocket!”

 

Vanessa looked down to my hands and immediately reacted with a loud gasp for air. She nearly hyperventilated at the sight. “Dude!” she cheered in a muffled whisper, “where'd you get the cash like that?!”

In my hand, I tendered a stack of what rich people would probably consider “pocket change.” I had no idea how I did not notice the euros before, but their color was not faded whatsoever by the past washing of my uniform and would still be usable. All I knew is that the note rubber-banded onto the stack would leave me wondering for days:

 

“Mademoiselle Lynne,

 

I know you'll probably be leaving soon, but you've been such a good girl. So here's your pay for the four years you've worked for me. You truly are a wonderful girl.“

 

The note was written in elegant penmanship, and I felt chills down my spine. Which one of the “Bossuet legacy” members gave me this money? I was dying to know who, and why. I was unsettling and eerie that the note stated such, when no one at the mansion seemed clairvoyant enough to predict what happened “that day.” I mean, they probably would have been more prepared and acted less surprised, right?

 

“Lynne?” I heard Vanessa from a distant, then I realized I had just totally zoned out.

 

“Sorry,” I blushed, quickly throwing the dirty laundry of mine and Vanessa's into the washer.

 

I brushed over my frilly white blouse and my pinstriped black pants, and Vanessa did the same with her faded blue jeans and black t-shirt. Her shirt had an indigo heart with barbed wire that seemed to choke, causing blood to leak into a red puddle forming the words “L'amour est bleu.” The purplish-blue heart had tiny, spider-like, striking cerulean veins almost three-dimensionally pulsating throughout the wounded organ. Sapphire fishnet sleeves were attached to the actual shirt's sleeves, and for some reason, I always admired Vanessa's taste in clothing.

 

As we waited patiently for the load of laundry to wash and dry, Vanessa and I talked up a storm about what we would do with the newly-found money. We went through various ideas, such as buying a complete stock of French pastries and a chef for when we ran out, a bejeweled limousine, and the entire apartment complex down the street, but we eventually settled on something a bit more realistic. First, we would buy a few pastries that we'd had our eyes on in the bakery, and then we would spend most of what's left on passports and two one-way tickets to America.

 

Because we were both born in America and raised there in our early stages of toddler life, there was no naturalization needed. So, without having to tote around a green card or wait a few years, we decided that it was best to move back to our home country. At least there, the vast majority of the civilians spoke English. All we would have to do was wait for both of us to turn eighteen, which was about two months for Vanessa and one month for me.

 

“So, once we knock out the next two months, we'll be home free!” Vanessa cheered, mentally scheming about leaving France. “Dude, we'll be old enough to vote, get a driver's license, and go to college!”

 

“Yeah, but we still won't be able to drink,” I reminded her in a sigh.

“Who care's about alcohol? That's only three years away, anyway,” she optimistically wiped the worries from her mind. I guess Vanessa just really wanted to leave Europe.

 

“You're right,” I smiled. “Besides, I'll finally be able to discover my roots.”

 

The first month went by in no time. It was the second month that put a real pothole in our road to the Great Red, White, and Blue. You see, something dramatic happened that will forever change what has happened today, and is still affecting me in every way possible.

 

It was a cold, hollowly-aired night, with fog hanging low on the streets of Nice. Hardly anyone dared step a foot out into the thick haze outside, except for Vanessa and me. We were just getting home to our apartment from another night spent at the Laundromat, and the washers had been uncannily crowded that day, so we were arriving home later than usual.

 

The fog was so unbearably thick, it was hard to see the hand in front of your face. So when I felt hands at my shoulders, and saw Vanessa pacing farther ahead of me until her figure disappeared completely, all I could think to do was scream. I yelled as loud as I could as I felt the hands slide over my body like Monsieur Bossuet's had that night, slipping beneath my shirt and grabbing for my skin. I screamed until I could hear the vibrations in my sinuses, and when Vanessa's body faded back into view, calling my name, I felt relief.

 

“Lynne?” she desperately cried out. I could hear the agony in her voice. “Lynne? Where are you?”

 

“`Nessa!” I exclaimed, wriggling until I felt something constrict against my skin to immobilize me. I saw dark, black, jagged arms twist around my waist and reach beneath my shirt. Then, their route changed and headed south.

 

But before the hands got to reach any lower than a bit below my belly button, Vanessa kicked the darkness square in the backbone. The mess revolted from my body quickly and lurched toward Vanessa, a grisly crackling sound emitting from the creature, probably out of anger. Vanessa then unhooked her heavy silver necklace, wound up her arm, and hurdled the sharply-edged cross at the demon. The cross hit the dark, abstract devil in the forehead, where the necklace quickly lit up in a white flame and somehow burnt a hole in the spirit.

 

Dark, stale, cold blood tempestuously spurted from the gaping open wound until the cross disappeared in the gore. The demon flailed its limbs and began to jostle about violently, splattering blood across both me and Vanessa, not to mention the buildings around us. The fog suddenly lightened, and before I could take in my surroundings, I felt my body being flung to the ground, Vanessa's voice, and the sound of bones breaking.

 

Temporarily, my vision went black.

 

When I came to, I saw the most horrendous, dismaying sight in my entire life. It was even worse than Monsieur Bossuet's decapitated corpse, Madame Bossuet's cadaver, Brigitte's angry face, or Marguerite's flying, dead, puppet body. What I saw was my best friend, a girl whose existence had helped me cope with everything I'd seen, lying next to me, breathing hard and bleeding profusely. Her face was pale and eyes were dull, her expression drained probably from pain and the fight. The demon was no where in sight, but it definitely left its mark.

 

I brought Vanessa into my arms, lying her head and neck partially on my lap. Her breathing was barely audible but was hard, as her chest continually heaved up and down. She looked at me with glossy eyes, and spoke in a cracking voice. “I'm sorry, Lynne,” she whispered. Tears fell when she blinked. “I don't want you to go alone.”

 

My vision began to blur. I saw an undefined dark spot near her rib cage, and I knew she must've been hit hard. “Don't say that.” I choked, “You're gonna be just fine.”

 

She lightly shook her head. She grabbed my hand softly then, and placed it over the dark spot on her torso. I could feel the warmth beneath my hand, and the wetness, and I knew it was serious. Probably too serious.

 

But I didn't want to think about that. There had to be some way, I thought. “I'll take you to a hospital,” I said in a low voice, trying my hardest to suppress the weeping. “I'll use our money to get you into the emergency room.”

 

“No,” she firmly stated, looking me dead in the eye. Her vision seemed distant yet all too close at the same time. “I'm hurt,” she weakly explained the obvious. She coughed lightly then continued, “Besides, that money's for America. Don't waste it on me.”

 

I was speechless. I wish I would've told her that she was wrong, and that going back to America wasn't nearly as important as she was . . . is to me. I would've explained that her friendship had given me hope and restraint. I would've admitted to her that when we first met, when she was asleep in her hotel bed, I would sneak into the bathroom and leave the lights off. There was a tiny tin of razor blades under the sink, and each night, I would take one and slit myself along my inner thighs, because it hurt and she would never suspect to look there.

 

I should've mentioned that each time, when I looked at the razor in the moonlight through the little window in the bathroom, I would see how my life could be ended right there. I would tell myself that the deaths were my fault, that I was a burden to Vanessa, and that I deserved to die. I should've told her that the thought of her smiling face, which I saw each time, was the only reason why I would drop the razor blade and cry in shame at my plan.

 

But I didn't. All I did was sit there with tears streaming down my face, repeating the same thing over and over. “Don't die, `Nessa. I need you. Don't die, `Nessa. It'll be alright. Don't die. Don't die. “ I just said the same thing through sobs and sniffles while she slipped away.

 

And I'll never have that moment again.