Copyright: Hrimwriter 2012
Recovery
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”
Lucy Kennedy, spook, spy and undercover expert extraordinaire, kicked out savagely at the upright on her treadmill. She bared her teeth at the deep dent her sneaker toe drove into the heavily scarred surface. Four minutes slower than her average time for a ten-mile run. Four whole minutes! Twelve minutes off her best time and her lungs burned as though the air were molten. She grit her teeth as the adrenaline waned, invoking phantom aches that methodically commemorated a whole history of wounds: broken ribs and clavicle, a dislocated shoulder, splintered ulna, torn hamstring, dislocated patella, torn ankle ligaments and crushed toes. Her head throbbed with years of fractures and repeated concussions.
“Fuck,” she spat again for emphasis.
Curled up on a red beanbag with an open e-reader, Charlotte Schuster eyed her with the sympathetic perplexity of a military wife.
“You were beaten into a coma ten months ago,” she pointed out sensibly. “You’re doing amazingly well, Luce.”
Kennedy glared at her, breathing hard.
“The hell I am! Those bastards really screwed me over.”
Charlotte lowered the e-reader to her knee and waited, patient and inviting.
As always, Kennedy swung on her heel and strode over to the rain-spattered apartment window that overlooked the city. There were things a civilian would never understand. Should never have to understand. Too many things. She scowled at the rain drip-dripping down the glass and gave the wooden frame a thump, as though that would close this chapter of her life for good. The rain kept coming, just like the blows had done.
HrimWriter 