Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to update, but I'm finally getting my driver licence ^_^ And to celebrate I'll go to the cinema tomorrow, and which movie am I going to watch? Exactly, KINGSMAN AGAIN AND I'M SO EXCITED YEEEEEAHHH :DDD
Enjoy and please review! :)
Prioritise
Victoria groaned, clumsily pushing this white cushion from her. She'd always thought an airbag deployment was as if someone pressed a pillow against you, but actually it felt more like hitting the floor with one's face. It hurt. Hell, it really did. However, she knew that after such a crash - the car had rolled over a few times, smashing into one or two trees, until it had finally come to a stand on the road again, which continued here after a long curve - she'd be battered even more without this bolster filled with air, just like the man next to her.
Victoria paused. Quickly she turned to her right.
There was no deployed airbag in front of the man in the suit, only blood on the steering wheel and the cracked window next to him, which apparently originated from his own head. His now ruffled hair stuck to the lacerations as he hung in his seatbelt, totally limp.
"Sir?", she asked shakily, joggling his shoulder, though, he still didn't move. There fear began to creep into her bones, stronger than what she'd felt before, her heart started to pound wildly, almost seeming to jump out of her chest. One certain thought seized her mind, but she refused to let it paralyse her and simply joggled harder. "Sir!"
When, again, she didn't receive any kind of reaction, Victoria squeezed two fingers against his neck and held her breath. It was the longest few seconds of her entire life, remaining in this stiff position and desperately waiting for a sign that her rescuer survived this accident, and only when she sensed an admittedly slow but yet existing pulse, she let out the deepest sigh of relief imaginable.
She wouldn't have known what to do if he was dead, especially since she would have been burdened with guilt thereby. After all she was to blame for their situation, had let the mirror drop for fear of being struck by the enemy's bullets, thus causing this appalling accident, which could've killed both of them. But it hadn't. They were alive, one more than the other, but still, which was way more than you could say for this total loss of a car, a total loss they should probably leave before it collapsed right over their heads.
It took a lot of effort to get out of the car, particularly as Victoria had to resume the struggle against the cushion, and when her soles touched stable ground again, crunching sounds rang out. The faint moonlight shone onto the mess of shards of glass and metal debris distributed over the asphalt, making the dark road sparkle as if it was reflecting the spangled sky above. It would be a lovely sight if it wasn't for the tragic circumstances.
Victoria's whole body was aching and shaking with every step she took, though, she blocked out any pain as far as possible. The man in the car was way worse off and she needed to get him out of there, see if she could help him somehow. With her feet she swiped away the biggest chunks to make room for the man, took her coat off - just like the pain she ignored the freezing cold completely - and rolled it up to some improvised pillow.
There was a large dent in the door on his side, squeezing it into the vehicle, which was why Victoria had to place one foot on the car to be able of pulling it open. Grunting, she drew the man in the suit out to the free space she'd cleared with her feet earlier and gently placed his head on her coat. Her sore body was begging for a break, but she didn't stop once, quickly tore the sleeve of her blouse off - it cost her quite an effort of will to do so, especially since this was one of her favourite tops - and cautiously wrapped it around his head, hopefully staunching the wounds there in doing so.
When she was just repeating this with her other sleeve, quiet engine noises rang out. With widened eyes Victoria peeked over the wreck next to her.
Headlights luminated the street in the distance, coming closer and closer. It was their criminal pursuers, no doubt about it, at least those the man in the suit hadn't shot before the crash. They must have witnessed it, had probably crowed over it, and now they wanted to check if their attacker was dead and if not finish the job themselves.
Yet again Victoria began to panic - she rather didn't count how often that already happened in this night - and bent over the man on the ground, gently slapping his cheek. "Sir! Please, wake up!", she breathed, but her rescuer remained unconscious.
What was she supposed to do now? He was way too heavy for her to carry and she wouldn't go very far dragging him along either. The only option seemed to be abandoning him to his fate and flee into the pitch-black forest, so that at least she could escape with her life. However, this option was ineligable for Victoria, due to the fact that this man's life was way more worth than hers.
There would most probably be people to object, her family in particular, but to her it was clear as daylight. The way the man in the suit had handled this whole situation had proven her that this was not the first time he'd faced that kind of danger. She didn't know what his actual reason to be here was - judging from his reaction when he found her, rescuing her was clearly not his mission - or rather what those criminals had been up to that such a skilled man was sent to thwart their plans, but it certainly concerned far more than her only. Saving people's lives... Probably everyday routine for him, whereas Victoria had never accomplished anything of general significance. She was just a nobody, irrelevant for mankind. The man before her, on the other hand, was made of true hero material. He was important, he was needed.
Victoria had always been good in setting her priorities and this time her priority was the man in the suit. She must not let those criminals kill him, she had to protect him and if it's the last thing she ever did.
Swiftly, she pulled the coat out from under the man's head, anxious to not hurt him any further therefore, and slipped in, while searching the car floor for her rescuer's weapon. When she found it, she didn't spend much time on examining it, though she was totally aware that this could compensate for a disadvantage given that she'd never held firearm in her hands before and that this fact could severely affect her plan, but there was no time for that. The pursuers' cars, two in number, had already reached them, audibly parking on the road further afar. Victoria could hear them get off, which was why she hastened her actions, smeared a bit of her unconscious companion's blood from the steering wheel onto her own face and coat, under which she now hid the heavy gun in her right hand, clutching her elbow as if her arm was broken.
One last deep breath and then she emerged from behind the wreck.
The headlights directed at her reminded her of standing on stage, which even simplified acting. With shaky legs she took tiny steps towards the four confused men standing between their cars and eyeing her, whilst she was breathing heavily and visibly cringing a few times to pretend immense pain. She noticed the pistols in the hands of two of them. A firefight was destined to fail, especially since Victoria had no idea how many bullets her gun was loaded with, which meant that she needed to get closer. Maybe in hand-to-hand combat she could keep them from coming after the man in the suit, until he might regained consciousness. In case plan A didn't work, of course.
"What have you done?", she panted, letting a few tears run down her bloodsmeared cheeks. "You-you killed him, you..."
The four men exchanged baffled looks, before one - Victoria identified him as the bald one from the warehouse - spoke up: "Did we?"
"He-he was a good man. I didn't know him, but... but I'm pretty sure he was." She faked another, stronger wince, hissed with closed eyes. "I think I-I broke my arm. Could... Could you please, please take me to hospital?"
Based on the smirk spreading on his lips, she recognised that he didn't really take her seriously. "Aw, poor baby, of course we will help you, who allied with our enemy... But first, step aside."
He marched forward, his eyes directed at the total loss of a car a few metres behind her, but Victoria blocked his way.
"Wha-What are you up to?"
"Shoot this guy in the head, of course." He winked at her. "Just to make sure."
"B-but that's desecration!"
He shrugged. "Babe, even if you were some famous doctor, I wouldn't quite believe that he's dead. I wanna take a look at his smashed body."
The bald man reached out to push her to the side, froze, however, when he saw the woman in front of him produce a gun and say: "How about taking a look at this first?"
Although Victoria squeezed her lids together when pulling the trigger, she knew that she'd struck the man. Not mortally, unfortunately, just somewhere in his chest she noticed, when closing the gap between her and her opponents, nonstop firing at them, who instantly cried out and tried to hide behind their parked cars. Reaching the crowed men, she finally went out of bullets, whereupon she simply hit the shoulder of the one closest to her with the weapon's grip and, screaming, lunged for them definitely. She managed to knock the gun out of one man's hand, kicked it into the woods and already took a swing for the next. She wanted to show off her skills, wanted to air all her knowledge of fighting and imitate those combat genii she'd always adored, however, her battle was over sooner than she'd preferred.
Just as she booted one attacker into his belly full tilt, another wrapped his arms around her from behind. Victoria let her head shoot up, missed his, wrenched to the left, wrenched to the right, then left again, broke his grip thereby and tried to jostle him away, but before she could conduct any movement, his fist hit her face. Lights flashed before her eyes, her knees became wobbly, barely securing her foothold. Another blow, this time from the side, this time harder, send her to the ground. She'd never received beating before, therefore she'd expected herself being uncapable of taking very much, however, she hadn't expected it to be that painful. As she supported herself on the right elbow, Victoria squeezed her lids together and opened them again to regain normal vision.
She saw the man who'd punched her walk off and together with the other two helped the bald one to his feet. Victoria attempted to sigh, when he dug the bullet out of the body armour vest he'd apparently worn beneath his dark jacket, though, her hurting jaw turned it into a groan.
"Take care of this bitch, I'll take the guy.", he grunted between clenched teeth and turned to the wreck, right hand holding his gun firmly.
His words let the pain die away in an instant. He must not reach the man in the suit, by no means.
Victoria kicked the one bending over her now against his shin, quickly got up and, slightly stumbling, ran after the bald one, whom she jumped onto from behind, screaming: "YOU WON'T TOUCH HIM!"
A cawing sound escaped his throat, while he struggled to loosen her grip around his neck, but his companions soon tore her off him. As he turned to the three of them, who kept her from breaking free again, his face was distorted with rage.
"Here." He held his gun out to one of them. "Go and kill him." Glaring of anger, his eyes set on her. "Leave the bitch to me."
Again Victoria shouted "No!", wresting even harder, though, before she even had the chance to free herself, the bald man let his fist slam into her stomach at full tilt.
Her legs gave in and she fell to her knees, clutching her belly. She couldn't breathe properly, since her muscles didn't stop to contract, desperately trying to ease the piercing pain in her abdomen, though, the attempt failed. Victoria was close to throwing up, when a foot crashed into her jaw, sending her to the ground definitely. Her arms and the foetal position her body'd automatically gone into barely protected her from the kicks and blows showering down on her.
'He's going to kill me' it flashed through her mind again and again, as she felt a little bit of her consciousness slip away every time she made contact with the bald man's strength. She imagined how her family would react when policemen told them about her departure or when it appeared in the papers. Funny, actually. Victoria had always wanted to be mentioned on the news or so. Maybe she should have been more precisely in her prayers as a teenager.
Thanks to the partial numbness that had seized her body by now, she only realised that the beating stopped a few moments later. A gurgle reached her, followed by gasps. Into her by swollen eyes limited sight the one chosen to kill the man in the suit faltered, eyes wide, bloody hands frantically trying to remove the big splinter of glass from his neck.
Then everything went off fast.
Bullets were fired, curses shouted and Victoria's knight stepped into her field of vision. If her facial muscles weren't so sore, she would have given him the brightest smile she had in store, however, he most probably wouldn't see it anyway or rather would not pay attention to it, since he was already in the thick of the fight again. Just like earlier he used his umbrella as weapon - Victoria hadn't even noticed it lying about in the car after the crash - belabouring the two men attacking him with slightly less vigour but still more than sufficiently.
'Wait.', Victoria thought. Two men? There'd been four, minus the one gurgling and shaking on the ground. Yes, where was the man who'd beaten her almost senseless, where was the bald one?
There he showed himself. His illuminated figure seemed almost white in contrast to the pitch-black forest beside him, as he emerged from behind the car he'd dodged behind, apparently to change the magazine of his gun he held out now, its muzzle pointing at the man in the suit, who was just finishing off the last one with his back facing the bald man.
As fast as everything had proceeded before, now every second seemed to last an eternity for Victoria. She couldn't let it happen, couldn't let him shoot him. No way.
Adrenaline let her body exhaust her last energy reserves, so that it almost worked by itself, as she pressed up, got on her feet and, at full speed, jumped into the bald man's side, sweeping him away with her into the dark wood... and down the slope hidden within.
For a moment Victoria felt as if she was flying, weightlessly floating in the chill night air, and then her trunk made the acquaintance of the one of a tree. The impact pressed all air out of her lungs at once. She didn't have the chance to take a breath when landing on the ground, since she just kept rolling uncontrollably. Twigs and stones scratched her skin open, more stems crossed her path, crashing into her body like cars at top speed, until suddenly the forest soil flattened and after one last rollover she finally halted.
Silence prevailed in the woods probably, maybe there was also howling of wind and various animals, for Victoria, however, the buzzing in her ears was the only sound existing. She just lay there, unable to move, unable to feel anything but pain. A cloud was hanging in her head that kept her from concentrating on anything other than the agony, let it become the only relevant matter. She noticed someone's hands under her, lifting her up. The someone said something in a far away voice, before the darkness already enwrapped her like a heavy, heavy blanket of nonentity.
