"Fucking cocksucking bastards!" Nika choked as she lay on the train car floor rasping through a throat seared by teargas. The thick cloud of fumes that had quickly filled the derailed train car was slowly beginning to dissipate through the opened emergency exits on the sidewalls, but there was still enough of the acrid smoke in the air to burn into her lungs with each gasping breath.
She looked up and blinked through an uncontrollable stream of tears to see 47 kneeling over her, his body tense and virtually motionless except for the slight jerk of his right hand as his gun fired, and felt his left hand firmly on her back pressing her protectively to the floor. She could see that she was not the only one affected by the noxious fumes, though, as thin rivulets of tears ran down his cheeks, although he made no move to pull his hand from her back to wipe at his face.
The gunfire suddenly ceased, because the assailants were reloading or because they were dead she did not know, but before Nika could even process what was happening 47 had scooped her up and set her on her feet next to him before their sleeper-room door. She watched numbly, scrubbing tears from her burning eyes, as 47 rammed the door open with a dropped shoulder. It swung open into the small room smoothly, the doorknob and bolt hanging limply from their splintered casing.
Nika heard through the panicked commotion in the train car the heavy stomp of boots nearing as 47 grasped her hand and pulled her into the sleeper room. He used the butt of his gun to smash out the window and began to swiftly clear out glass shards from the bottom pane as she glanced around the small cabin. Two cots lay parallel to each other across the walkway, their deep burgundy comforters marred by a sprinkling of broken glass and debris. Twin brass sconces set on the walls beside the beds blinked on and off sporadically casting the room in a soft, strobing light and for just a moment Nika felt an unexpected and brief twinge of regret for the moment they could have had together in this room; a moment that had been violently snatched away from them. Bitter anger welled inside her and she wiped at tears she couldn't completely blame on the teargas, thinking, and not for the first time since meeting 47, what the fuck she had gotten herself into.
"Nika." 47's voice was low and hoarse. He grasped her shoulders, his eyes locked onto hers, effectively drawing her attention back to him. "I'm going out the window first so I can catch you when you jump down."
Nika nodded and watched as he yanked a comforter off of one of the beds and laid it over the windowpane. He holstered his gun and disappeared over the edge of the opening. Nika stepped forward on shaky legs and peered down to him. 47 stood on the rocky slope beside the railroad tracks five feet down with his arms stretched up to her, the subtle arch of his brows an unspoken urge for her to hurry. She immediately sat on the sill and swung her legs over. She took a deep breath and had begun to push herself forward when she heard the sharp crack of a gunshot behind her and felt a sudden and intense flare of pain bite into her upper right arm. She yelped in surprise and hurt and half-jumped, half-fell out of the window, legs flailing wildly.
47 caught her with ease and grasped her tightly as he dropped to his knees and rolled them both under the train car. Nika ended up on her back with 47 straddling her on his hands and knees. He brought an index finger to his lips in a shushing motion, and she swallowed back a sob and lay motionless beneath him. Her arm was beginning to throb with each fluttering beat of her heart and she could feel the warm stream of what must have been blood tracking down her skin.
There was a grunt from the side of the train they had just exited and Nika turned her head in time to see two booted feet landing in the gravel less than a meter from where they were laying. But their pursuer's weight shifted awkwardly as he connected with the rocky ground and one ankle rolled to a morbidly unnatural angle; Nika cringed at the sharp, brittle snapping of delicate bone. The man released a muffled scream as he pitched sideways, landing in the gravel with a thud, and she saw that a gas mask covering his face was the reason for the dampened sound of his cries.
47's arm flew in a blur to his jacket and he pulled his gun from its holster, not hesitating to fire a bullet into the man's forehead, cutting him off mid-scream. Nika felt her stomach twist nauseously at the sudden silence of the man's shrieks, and knew she'd never forget the way they had just ceased with no preamble whatsoever.
She didn't have much time to dwell on it, though, as 47 moved off of her, a serious and distant look in his eyes, and crawled to the opposite side of the train car they had come from. Nika grimaced as she sat up and shuffled after him, pain flaring angrily up and down her arm, but not daring to look, afraid of what she might see.
Her arm quickly became a trembling mess and simply refused to support any more of her weight, so she did her best to clutch it closer to her body while somehow continuing to crawl limply the last little bit to where 47 had moved to a squatting position, observing the safety of the perimeter.
He cleared the underside of the train and straightened, not even bothering to look back for her or reach his hand down in an offer to help her up, seemingly supposing that she would follow him blindly. She bit back a curse, marveling bitterly at how indifferent he could be toward her depending on the situation they found themselves in. The man with the gun in his hand, who had killed without a second thought, was not the same man who had pushed her up against an alley wall for a soul-shattering kiss, or pulled her onto his lap to gently wipe away her tears; they were two completely different people, utterly separate from one another.
But she suddenly realized, with a flash of a somewhat unwanted insight, that his cool detachment, as frighteningly disheartening as it was, was just about all that had kept her alive in this whole mess; and still she hoped, hoped with all that she was worth, that once they were finally able to reach the safety of the vineyard, that the hitman side of 47 would be left behind, that the caring, passionate man she had caught such fleeting glimpses of would remain with her.
Nika sighed heavily, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand- get out from under the goddamn train. She scooted forward as best she could while wrapping her left arm over the injured one, holding it as close to her stomach as possible and feeling a little relief from the tremendous ache. She slowly moved into bright, warm sunshine and squinted up to see 47 peering carefully into the thick tangle of trees running along the tracks. She glanced back to the train at the panicked sound of various shouts and wails and saw people beginning to hop from the train car's exits, escaping the teargas that was still streaming out of opened windows and doors. She quickly looked back to 47, but he didn't seem at all concerned by the prospect of an impending mob. A rush of relief swept over her at that fact, taking it to mean that the man lying on the opposite side of the train had been the last remainder of their immediate danger.
She gazed up at him and his eyes, lit to a striking hazel by the bright sunlight, suddenly connected with hers as she sat on the ground beside their derailed train, with her arms wrapped tightly about herself and the last remnants of her tears drying on her cheeks.
He suddenly fell to his knees before her, his face wrought with an indecipherable flurry of emotions. His brows knit together in what might have been concern, before dipping his gaze down to her arm huddled close to her body. His eyes shot back to hers, fire heating the already darkening green color.
Nika drew back instinctively and swallowed hard, casting her eyes down. "I was following you out the window, like you said. I just wasn't fast enough. I…I'm sorry." Her voice hitched painfully in her chest. She did as she was told, did as he asked, she didn't shot on fucking purpose. Oh God, he wasn't going to hit her, was he? He hadn't ever even threatened it in all of their time together, but she braced herself for the strike, nonetheless.
"You're hurt." His voice was low and wavered slightly.
Nika gasped softly in surprise at the blow that didn't come and looked to his eyes.
"You're hurt," he said again. "And it's my fault." He reached his hands out and gently pulled her arm toward him, inspecting the wound carefully. She winced at a flare of pain and looked down. A three-inch gash ran across her upper arm, inflicted when the bullet grazed across her skin, just below the start of her sleeve, and dark lines of drying blood streaked down to her elbow. The wound seemed to have started to clot, though, as there was only a small dribble of fresh blood running slowly down her arm, pooling at 47's fingers wrapped loosely about her bicep. He drug his eyes back to hers, with one of the most genuine expressions of remorse she had ever seen cast roughly across his face.
She licked lips that suddenly felt very dry and tried to offer him a reassuring smile. "Hey, it's not really that bad. There's been… I've had…" She let the sentence drop off, not quite able to bring herself to admit to him that she'd had worse injuries at the hand of Belicoff.
"No," he said softly. "It is my job to keep you safe, Nika. I have failed you and it is inexcusable." Tears glittered harshly at the corners of his eyes and he blinked them away rapidly as he slowly lowered her arm back to her middle. He reached up to undo the knot in his tie and slipped the silken strip of fabric from his neck.
Nika sat in stunned silence as 47 carefully wrapped the tie about her arm. He had shown her the most vulnerable and fragile side of himself, even if it had only been for a fraction of a second, and she knew then, with more surety than she had ever felt before, that she was in love with this man.
She drew in a shaky breath as he lowered her arm again and forced herself to stay calm. She hadn't ever been in love before; she certainly had convinced men that she was in love with them- it was a part of her job that she had learned to play well. But the almost overwhelming feelings of trust and passion and affection that filled her heart to near bursting as 47 knelt before her in the gravel next to their derailed train, his face endearingly pained and expectant all at once, were totally and alarmingly foreign to her.
What the fuck was she supposed to do now? Tell him? If she confessed all these new and terrifying feelings to him and he told her he couldn't understand or –worse- pushed her away as he had done in the alleyway earlier, she knew she'd be devastated beyond all repair.
She swallowed hard and looked up from her hands that lay limply clasped in her lap to her arm, expertly bandaged in his scarlet tie. Her heart fluttered wildly at the sight and the memory of carefully knotting it for him in the hotel room they shared last week flashed brightly to the forefront of her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and drug in a steadying breath. Fuck it. Fuck his reaction and her potentially broken heart. She had to tell him.
She opened her eyes and squinted against the glaring sunlight, mouth already open and ready to pour her heart out. 47 wasn't there. She quickly cast a glance at her surroundings, not seeing anyone with a bald head or a fucking barcode tattoo. Her pulse kicked up a notch at the thought of being left alone, but the beginnings of her blind panic were quickly overshadowed by the burning flare of indignation. Fucking stealthy ninja bastard left her alone again, and right when she was about to admit to him something she had never uttered to anyone in her life, ever. That asshole was gonna get a mouthful when she got her hands on him, and that was a fucking promise.
