"Riley, get down!" The girl ducked behind a crate and hugged her laptop close, flinching as bullets rained down around them. They had gathered evidence of the gang syndicates illegal activities and sent it off to Matty , which did not make Marco, the gangs drug lord, happy.
Jack was firing back with the last of his ammo while Mac hastily fiddled with some garbage he'd found, no doubt making something to get them out of there. They only had to get to the waiting van outside and they'd be home free. If only getting there was so easy.
Mac gave out a yell, just as Jack ran out of ammo, and the three booked it for the exit as Mac threw his garbage bomb.
The bad guys were momentarily distracted by the small explosive, and the team were finally in the van. Jack was laughing as he slammed the pedal to the floor and sped them out of there. But, of course, nothing ever went exactly according to plan.
One minute, they were speeding down a dirt road through a forest of tree's, and the next, they were flying.
Something hit the front tyre, something like a bullet, and sent the van swerving towards the tree's. Jack tried to steer their collision, making the road kick up clouds of dust, but could do nothing as the van began to flip and roll.
Riley saw her laptop smash against the roof, and then the window, before it came at her head. The world going dark as she screamed and squeezed her eyes shut, hearing her team mates cry out as glass shattered and metal creaked.
Her head spun so much that she didn't realize the van had come to a stop, until Jack called out to her, voice shaken.
"Riley, are you okay? Hey, answer me kid, come on."
She opened her eyes to see Jacks scratched up face looking at her with concern. He was crouching down, awkwardly, over Macgyver who was holding his arm to his chest. The van was laying on its side and Riley vaguely realized she was laying on the broken window.
She knew she should answer him but her head was pounding as her chest heaved in panic and she couldn't make her mouth move.
Jack frowned and reached towards her, lifting a hand to her face and gently wiping the warm wetness slipping down her forehead and cheek.
"You're bleeding, must have hit your head."
Riley didn't respond, just blinked at him as he took back his, now blood smeared, fingers. He looked out the window, behind Riley and frowned again.
"Sorry guys, but we have to get moving. Those guys are gonna come back for us any minute. Mac, you good to walk?"
MacGyver nodded through a groan as he sat up and began tying his jacket around his arm, creating a sling to cradle his broken appendage.
Riley was about to say something about how badly her left ankle hurt, when Jack started yelling and the glass smashed behind her. Glass fell down around her as she let out a scream, hands gripping her and dragging her through the ruined window.
Her body screamed in protest as her broken leg made itself known, and she could only sob in pain as an arm wrapped around her throat and dragged her backwards. Jack called out as a voice came from the person holding her.
"Destroy all evidence you found and surrender, or she dies."
Riley could see Jack scramble from the ruined van, hands raised, as Mac followed. Jack's face was one of worry, thinly covered by rage, as he looked between Riley and her captor.
"Let her go, the laptops busted okay? You won, now just let her go."
Riley tried to get her good foot under her as the man dragged her backwards, tightening the arm on her throat. She dragged in as much air as she could as her hands pulled at the arm choking her. That voice came again, cold and slightly amused and she knew it was Marco.
"We have won. So, you can leave here unharmed if you let me take the girl. I'd really like less of a mess to clean up."
Mac got shakily to his feet beside Jack and glared at the pig holding his team mate.
"Not a chance."
Riley could hear boots slam against dust as people approached from behind, back up for the man holding her. And by the looks on her friends faces, they had guns.
"Fine, I guess we'll just have to make a few more bodies disappear. Kill them."
Jack pulled Mac back behind the car just as the first bullets were fired, and Riley could only watch as she was dragged away. She fought as much as she could but couldn't get free, the arm around her too tight to squirm from. She watched as Jack's arm jumped out from behind the van, swiping at the feet of one of the gunman that had crept too close. Jack's foot met the side of the gunman's head and the weapon was his.
The bad guys started dropping and Marco cursed as he moved faster, dragging Riley into the thick of the tree's.
Her leg screamed with every step she was forced to take and she let out a sob as then man tried to move faster. He dragged her further into the forest, practically carrying her over the fallen branches and mounds of dirt. He was huge and Riley wasn't sure she could stop him.
The trees were so thick that she could barely see the van or her team mates anymore, and the sounds of gunfire was fading.
She needed to get away from this guy before he killed her or got her back to his compound.
Every bit of self-defence she'd learnt came flooding into her mind and she quickly gripped her assailants arm and twisted it above her head, slipping from his hold. He grunted in annoyance before crying out in pain as Riley broke a couple of his fingers with a twist of her hand.
She had bought herself a few seconds to get away, but with a concussion and a broken leg, a few seconds was not enough. A kick to the back sent her sprawling on the ground before big meaty hands turned came down to grab her. She rolled onto her back and kicked with her good leg but her ankle quickly became trapped in that giant hand.
She started to scream instead, calling for her team mates but this only made the drug lord mad, and he gripped her shoulders to lift her up and slam her back to the ground. Her screams died as her head hit against the hard wood of exposed tree roots, and her vision turned to muddy blurs as her headache worsened.
Everything was slow and stretched as the tree's swirled above her, but she saw Marco leaning over her and something else strapped to his side. Light glinted off the, polished, bone handle of his knife and Riley dragged her fingers towards it as Marco leered down at her.
"Once we get you fixed up, you'll make a good little pet for me, won't you?"
He laughed and was about to say something else when he choked instead, his own knife sinking into the soft flesh of his neck.
Riley let go of the knife and tipped Marco off her as he poured blood, and she tried to crawl away from him as he died.
The extra few hits to the head had made her fuzzy and she could barely feel her broken leg anymore, but that didn't mean she could walk either. She managed to crawl a few meters away, sobbing with every drag of her battered body, before she heard her name being called.
"Riley! Where are you?"
"Riley!"
Jack and Mac were looking for her, MacGyvers voice sounding weaker than usual, and Riley wanted to call back but she could barely manage a whisper. Marco's grip on her neck had been so tight that she felt as if her throat was bruised even on the inside, and as much as she tried, she couldn't yell back.
She could barely keep her eyes open but still she lifted her head a little, looking desperately through the tree's to where the most light was coming from. They were far away and she could barely see them, but there they were, Jack holding a machine gun as Mac leant heavily against his side.
Jack was searching the tree's but looked towards the drug lords compound again and said something to Mac. Riley couldn't hear what was said, and realized that she must have lost her coms in the crash.
Jack gave one last shout before wrapping an arm around Mac and carrying him away. They walked down the road, away from the compound, away from the tree's, and away from her. They were leaving.
A sob choked her and she made a fist in the dirt on the ground, silently begging them to come back. But she couldn't see them anymore, and they'd stopped calling for her.
She was alone.