Sunday, January 2, 2022 - Long Island City, Queens, United States

The break had helped. Ella weaved under the hook while stepping forward and landed an elbow right below Donna’s ribs.

“Urgh,” was all Donna had as she fell back and down. And then stayed sitting trying to catch her breath.

“Crap….” Ella said. Donna looked pissed, and Ella was a bit worried.

Then Donna laughed. The most expression Ella had ever seen on her face.

“Damn, that was solid.” Donna took two deep breaths and popped back to her feet. “I think I am done. Craig get your ass in here and kill her for me.” She spit out her mothguard and headed out of the ring, already stripping off her gloves.

Charlie and Jade were sitting by the side clapping and cheering. They had wanted to see what she was getting up every morning for and during the break felt like the right time for them to watch.

Craig stepped in and Ella got back in her stance. But before he started he smiled and said, “Now you are in the inner circle. Time to get serious.”

Time to get serious?

Afterwards they were all in the locker room as Ella took a shower.

“Damn, you were kicking ass today,” Charlie had come back from break excited to be back in the city. And had insisted on following Ella to the gym to see what had taken her out of the party life.

“You mean getting my ass kicked.” Ella called back from the shower stall. Then she looked at her right leg, which was already a bit yellow and swollen and was definitely going to bruise. Limping out of the ring had probably been the best indicator, after Craig had caught her repeatedly on the thigh. He said that while they taught leg blocks, a lot of the pros just took the shots.

She frowned. Reynard said that healing was easier the more recent the injury was and the smaller the injury. She hadn’t been able to get the hang of it, but there was no reason not to try.

She stared and visualized the same kind of pulling sensation. She started to feel her sore muscles, the burst blood vessels and lymph under the skin. Imagined small proteins moving through the tissue and eventually she could feel individual cells. She could see the damage to her body. Then she changed the direction of her pull, and she had a sense of what they felt like before they were hit. The cells were less disrupted, the fluid was less. Those strange proteins weren’t present. It just felt right, and she brought those images together in her head.

She staggered and ended up sitting on the floor of the shower, the water running overhead. Her vision had gone dark for a moment.

Suddenly Charlie pulled back the cheap plastic curtain. “Hey, are you all right? You have been in here for like forever.” She looked a bit worried.

Ella stood up and shook her head, spraying a bit of water around. “I’m fine, just soaking out my muscles and falling asleep in here.” She shut off the shower and grabbed her towl.

Her leg felt great. And the yellow bruising was gone and so was the sharpie marks that she had from Jade right before she had gotten in the ring. She squeegeed off the excess water with her hands and began toweling off.

“Damn… All that working out, you are fucking cut.” Charlie poked her right in the stomach and then started tracing her muscles. Ella looked down self consciously and then rewrapped herself in the towel. Jade was standing behind her and looked away.

“Hey, don’t be weird.” Jade said.

“It ain’t weird. She has got like an eight-pack.”

“I need an eight-pack before this conversation,” Jade retorted.

The hell with this, thought Ella, I am too tired. Although surprisingly not sore. She walked over to the mirror and flipped on the hair dryer to hide her embarassment.

They got off the subway into a flurry of snow. The Manhattan streets were white with a grey sky, and people were trudging by in their heavy winter coats and hats, heads held down to protect their faces.

Charlie had to head back to her condo and invited them over later to do some blizzard house partying.

Ella and Jade made it towards their apartment building, navigating the snow and stepping carefully on the ice. Ella saw the front door and was reaching for the handle when she heard a loud crack and saw the glass door spiderweb out from in front of her. And suddenly it was red.

She spun around and landed on the ground and then felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder.

Jade was screaming something and Ella felt dizzy and light headed. She looked around and couldn’t see anything in the flurry.

Jade, to her credit, ran up to her and started pulling her to the side behind one of the concrete planters besides the door. Another loud crack.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…” she hissed under her breath as she unzipped Ella’s coat and reached in to her shirt with something pressing hard.

“Hey… owwww. What’s happening?”

“Ella, you’ve been shot.” Jade peered out over the planter and looked out into the snow nervously but the storm was too much for good visibility.

“Shot… nah. You are just messing with me… Stabbed? Sure. I’ve been stabbed twice already, so a third time, sure…” Ella said woozily. Everything felt a bit off. Was she on a bad trip? She didn’t remember taking anything.

“There is so much blood. Shit. I don’t think I can stop it.” Jade fumbled for her phone but dropped it and watched it skitter on the ice and down the angled sidewalk.

“Unanitani! Where’s your phone? Gotta call 911.”

“No battery. Left it up in the apartment. Let’s go up and get it. Are you hurt?” Ella felt a bit more off and looked up at Jade with a childlike expression of worry. Jade had pulled off her hood and her hair was wet and covered in snow. “Your hair is all wet and icey! And I love how perfect you keep it…” And Ella giggled a bit and tried to reach up to brush the snow off but her arm hurt. “Owww!”

“Ella. Listen to me. You were shot with a gun. You are bleeding and I think from both sides. I can’t get the bleeding to stop. And I have no idea who did it and where they are.”

“Oh no worries. I can totally heal myself.” Ella laughed and held up her left hand, finger pointing, “It’s magic!”

This failed to reassure Jade, and if anything made her look more worried.

Ella decided she didn’t like her friend worrying so she concentrated. Her eyes began to glow and she reached down to her shoulder. It hurt so much and maybe she was having a bit of trouble breathing?

She thought about it and could feel her body. Her muscles were torn, one rib was cracked. She had a whole in her upper lung and the nerves for that arm were a mess. Her shoulder blade was fractured like the door glass. She snapped out of her daze.

This was going to be much bigger than what she had done before but there wasn’t much time as she heard a third report.

Concentrating she pulled with all her will and her shoulder healed up, her coat and shirt suddenly were whole and unstained. She felt fine if drained as if she had been on a five-mile run.

“Hey. Don’t worry. I am fine.” She cupped Jades chin with her right hand.

“What? Where is the blood? What happened? Why are your eyes glowing?”

Ella said, “I know this is weird. I’ll explain everything.” Another loud crack sounded. A gunshot.

Ella cursed that her gun permit hadn’t come through yet. She pushed Jade down to the side and crouched behind the planter. Trying to look over it, she couldn’t see anything in the snow.

With her focus, she reached for something Reynard had told her about. Reaching more broadly than deeper in her, until her vision blurred and the day suddenly took on the character of a sunny winter day without snow. She could still feel the snow hitting her face and hair. It was still cold and wet. The wind still howled down the narrow corridor street. But she couldn’t see any of the snow or bad weather.

She took another look over the planter and looked around. She could see a man across the street with a rifle peeking out of a second floor apartment. It had a large complicated scope on it that was huge and he took another shot at her which hit the concrete wall behind her.

Ella grabbed at her pendant. She could feel what magic she had fading and she tried to draw from the tooth but she could feel it moving slowly into her. She had used what she had inside of her, and whatever the tooth was giving her, it felt like she was sipping through a straw.

“This is going to be really smart or really dumb.” She whispered to herself. She reached under her shirt to grab the tooth and then took the point and drove it through the skin under her collarbone. All of a sudden she felt the magic in her crescendo and cried out as pain ran through her.

She snuck a look around the side of the planter to avoid being predictable and pointed at the person in the window. She reached deep for that light she had pulled through, deeper than she ever had before. A blinding bright light lanced from her finger and struck the wall next to the window where the shooter was. When Ella’s eyes recovered she saw the hole going right through that wall. The shooter took another shot which went wild and then threw their gun down from the window and receded from the window.

“What the shit, Ella.” Jade was rubbing her eyes. Ella kept her eyes on the building and saw the door open and someone run out and grab the rifle before running down the street. She took another shot with the light, but it fizzled, she hadn’t had time to pull energy through.

“Come on Jade. He ran away. Let’s go in.”

Jade looked at her blankly. Ella stood up and let her eyes relax. The sunny vision faded and was replaced with the snow and blizzard. With her jacket open, she was shivering and soaked through.

Ella reached out and grabbed Jades hand and got her to stand up and walk to the door: the glass was cracked in circles around a hole in it, blood had splattered the window and slush in front of it — her blood.

She fumbled with her numb hands for her access card in her coat pocket and eventually managed to push the card up against the sensor panel next to the door and heard it buzz her in. She then pulled Jade through, letting it swing shut behind her.

Jade followed her in, her hand warm in Ella’s. They made their way to the elevator and pushed the button to wait. They both stood next to one another staring at the closed elevator doors. Both shivering.

Ella wasn’t sure what made her say it, “How about that weather? It is snowing cats and dogs.” She broke the banality and said, “It is snowing cats and dogs and bullets.”

Ella watched Jade out of the corner of her eye. Jade stared at the door a little bit more. Then she started to giggle. Which turned into hysterical giggling and then sobbing. Ella reached over and pulled her into a hug.