Thanks Agentkem, aimeegreenwood1 and JediFlashDemigod for being so awesome and still there! Sending countless hugs!
Hope the rest of you aren't silent because the story is getting too boring, too long or too mysterious :( Starting to get really, really nervous. Promise there's a LOT of stuff explained in the next chapter. Hope you'll still enjoy this one.
What the... just happened? One second, Olivia was tightly secured against a tree, feeling more hopeless than she never had in her entire her life and the next, a yellow lighting arrived and zigzagged around her and her surroundings before stopping as fast as it started. The aftermath of this phenomenon left the surprisingly still alive Henry on the ground and at her feet, laying on his side with his face looking in the opposite direction. Impossible to tell if he was currently conscious or not.
"Henry!'' She screamed, the name leaving her lips before she could think about it.
Her first instinct was to fight once more against the restrains with everything she had in a desperate attempt to protect her friend, except, just as she was about to make her move, she surprisingly realized the ropes weren't there anymore. She surely would've remembered breaking herself out or being freed. Unless, could it be? The woman just stood there, slowly analysing the new situation she found herself in; free and with these objects now in her possession.
By the time she was done with assessing the new elements, it was too late to react as her rich boss had now approached the laying, mostly unmoving and groaning form sprawled on the ground. Bad timing, as always...Unless she could find a way to turn it into an opportunity.
"So, you're the one. You're the one who killed my father. I expected you to give more of a fight," taunted Hyde, kneeling in the snow, next to his victim.
Barely hanging on to consciousness, Barry struggled to push himself to his elbows, only to get laughed at and cut the oxygen out of him by a shameless hand being pressed against the wound, a wound that Olivia just noticed now. She needed to act and act fast to save her friend.
"I guess The Ghost's reputation was greater than the man behind the mask. Maybe I should thank you, my father was an old and fragile person and now, everything still standing is mine for the taking."
Smiling cruelly as he was speaking, he obviously wasn't caring about how little of his speech was probably being understood at the moment by his wounded victim. Slowly, he took out a knife out of his long black vest pocket:
"Bye bye Ghosty."
The rich man probably never had time to comprehend what was happening to him as a sharp and long knife blade cut deeply his back, sectioning his spinal cord instantly and sending his limp and dead body to the ground. Well, he didn't exactly land in the snow, it was more like falling on his victim's torso who gasped out in agony despite being mostly unconscious at the moment.
The teenager and the still standing guard's gazes all fell on Olivia who was now standing tall above the corpse of her dead boss with her eyes burning with hate and desperation to live and be free.
"What did you-" shouted the second guard, the one still standing, while reaching out for his jean's belt, probably trying to grab his gun attached to it.
Except, he wasn't fast enough. Running high on adrenaline, Olivia managed to swiftly turn on her feet, to grab a gun that was hidden in her jacket and fire at her opponent.
Before her adversary's gun was ready to shoot, he had already joined his boss on the ground with a gashing bullet hole straight over his heart.
"Nice aim," the girl still tied to the tree commented, eyes wide open as she was trying to understand what the hell happened in the last couple of moments.
"I was aiming for the head," shrugged Olivia. Head or heart? The result was the same either way.
Turning around, the woman aimed and shot the only accomplice that was still breathing and who had been knocked down earlier, causing the teenager to jump in surprise.
"He wasn't a threat anymore!" She protested.
It's not that she had any sympathy for the monsters who kidnapped, beat up her up and brought her to this place, but it was unsettling how calm the woman was after murdering three people in cold blood in front of her eyes.
"He could've woken up at any second now to take us by surprise," Olivia replied, taking the knife out of Hyde's back with a sickening suction sound on his way out before jogging behind the teenager to cut her restraints as fast as possible. With every movement she was doing, her eyes never left her still friend on the ground, desperately looking for any sign that he was still breathing.
"What happened? How did you-"
"I didn't," she answered without letting her new companion finish her sentence, guessing ahead the rest question. How was she able to free herself? And get weapons? It wasn't thanks to her, "he did." She said, finishing her first task before rushing back to her wounded friend and pushing Hyde's body off him in order to free the speedster from the weight. Olivia didn't have all the answers just yet, but it would be logical to guess that Henry probably stole the gun and knife from the first person he knocked down before trying and badly failing, at making his next move.
Ignoring the pain in her jaw and dislocated left shoulder, Olivia moved the man on his back. It wasn't that hard, once that was done, to see what was wrong with her friend once she took notice of the huge red mark on the shirt. It sure wasn't finger painting.
"Is he going to be okay?" nervously asked the teenager who suddenly appeared next to Olivia and saw the full extent of the situation, "we have to call 911!"
"Dammit Henry, how many times do I have to fix you?" Olivia grumbled between her teeth while avoiding responding to her new companion
Despite her weak try at lightening up the mood, worried could be heard in every syllable. First thing first, she needed to focus on her friend, there was no time to chit chat much with the other prisoner, not to mention that 911 wasn't going to work in Europe... That poor girl had probably been taken in America if it was the only emergency number she knew. Not really a surprise considering her American accent.
Slightly putting up her jacket with her injured arm, biting her cheeks in an effort to keep her own agony away, she exposed her pale white and green flannel shirt and used her knife to cut part of it. The next moment, she did the same for her friend to expose his wound. or, more like, to expose the blood covered area under which was hiding the injury. Rolling the cut part of her shirt in the snow, Olivia pressed it in her hands in order to melt the snow and wet the fabric. Once it was done, she rubbed it against her friend's side, whispering and humming to him as the speedster weakly tried to get away from the painful and freezing contact.
"Shhh, it's okay, Henry, it's okay. I got you."
That definitely was a bullet wound. Staying deaf to his muffled protests, Olivia turned him back on his opposite side to get a better look at the full extent of the injury. All right, no exit wound. At least, on the bright side, the wound was barely bleeding anymore, which was slightly suspicious, but it was good. The woman sighed and turned toward the girl:
"What's your name?"
"Amelia," the young woman answered with tremors in her voice that matched her badly shaking body. Hard to tell if the symptoms were signs of shock settling in or if it was just the adrenaline rush leaving her body. Either way, Amelia slightly turned her head around to avoid looking at the bloody scene and at the corpses laying all around.
"Alright, Amelia, I'm Olivia. I need your help. I need you to stay by his side and hold him down while I treat him, alright?" She asked, gently, while looking around for anything that might help in her task.
Treat him? As in...?
"Are you crazy?!" Exclaimed the teenager, fearing that she might be understanding what Olivia had in mind, "you can't seriously consider treating him out here! He needs an ambulance, he needs real equipment and a clean, sterile, environment!"
"Trust me, alright? I know what I'm doing," she responded with her authoritarian tone of voice leaving little place for arguing.
First thing first; her arm. She wasn't going to get much done with her shoulder out of his socket. That wasn't going to be fun. Rushing to a close tree with two trunks close to each other, only leaving a narrow opening, she pushed her arm into it and jammed it in place under the cautious and terrified look of her observer. Lives were depending on her, she couldn't waste time getting help and waiting to heal.
"ARRG!" She screamed, almost completely covering the loud pop, when she forcibly put her limb back into place, before falling on her now staggering knees, thanks to the pain.
Come on, girl. Get up, she encouraged herself, getting back on her feet.
Now, time to the next task. A moment later, she was already moving from one corpse to another, searching into their deep jacket and jeans' pockets and taking everything that could turn out useful: their phones, wallets, and a flashlight.
Despite already having collected these useful items, she kept on searching 'til she finally exclaimed: "Got it!" She proudly raised a pair of pliers in front of her face, smiling.
They weren't exactly clean, they were in fact very rusty, and red with dry blood too. Who knows what these people had been doing with it, but Olivia was just glad she was right about these monsters carrying a pair around. Probably for torture purposes...
"You can't use that!" Protested Amelia, her eyes widening a bit more and really starting to question the woman's sanity; ''Please tell me you're not planning to take the bullet out with those, even if we do get it out, the infection and shock will kill him!''
"I treated him for worse and we can't risk going to the hospital with his powers. Just hold him down as much as you can and hold the light," Olivia instructed, handing over the flashlight before leaning over the wound, trying to stretch the skin around the hole to have a better view and access.
"Yes!" She exclaimed only after a few seconds, "I can see the bullet; it hits the ribs and got stopped by them."
Thank the good Lord it didn't land higher or it could've hit his organs, she thought to herself. Impossible to tell if the ribs were broken from the light and under these conditions. It was highly probable, but it didn't matter.
Entering her improvised and dirty equipment into the wound, she flinched at the yell of pain that escaped the man's lips but kept on going. Digging further, she swore when a click sound made itself heard when the pliers contacted something metallic and the bullet escaped her grasp. The exhausted teenager was having trouble keeping the hero as still as possible and all this digging around in the wound surely wasn't helping.
"Stop! Please!" His raspy voice shouted in protest, his pleads staying mostly unheard as Olivia kept on working.
"Shhh Henry, almost there. Almost... GOT IT!" She triumphantly shouted as she took out the small projectile and shined it under the flashlight beam that followed the equipment's movement, needing confirmation and blinding Olivia's eyes in the process.
Olivia moved her glance away to avoid the light and, after a second of silent deliberation, she put the blood-stained bullet in her vest pocket.
"Now, what's the plan?" Growled Amelia, pressing down on the wound that started bleeding again thanks to all the digging, not receiving a single sound from the injured man as he had completely succumbed to the darkness. Gosh, he looked terrible and not just because of his bullet wound, he took quite the beating and his nose looked broken.
"Now, we do that," said Olivia, putting down the pliers and raising her hands... before freezing midway, pain and doubt passing like a shadow in her eyes.
"Olivia?" Asked Amelia, after a few seconds of silence, "we need to do something!"
"On it, on it," Olivia just took the deepest of breaths, fearing the worst. What was Amelia going to think of her? What would Henry think if he as to wake up now? No, she couldn't think like that, especially not after her mysterious friend just showed some powers of his own and that fact didn't stop Amelia to try and help him.
Closing her eyes, Olivia let the energy flow inside her body and toward her extremities, feeling the warm and comforting sensation taking control. A gasp coming from her right prompted her to open her eyes and to look down at her hands that were now glowing with a pale blue shade.
"Whoa, that's cool," Amelia stared eyes with fascination at the phenomenon. There was no fear in them and no disgust to be heard in her voice.
"Watch and learn," softly said Olivia, closing her eyes once more, this time in concentration. Confidently, she pressed her hands down on her friend's abdomen, right over the gashing hole. It didn't take too long before her breathing started getting faster, more erratic and before sweat started appearing on her forehead.
"Olivia?" Nervously asked Amelia, just as all physical contact was lost and Olivia dangerously whirled like she was about to fall over.
"I'm okay," She assured after a couple of anxious seconds, putting her right arm on the ground behind her to prevent herself from crashing in the snow, "I'm okay," she repeated, stabilizing herself and leaning forward to the wound before smiling in relief, "everything's going to be good; I made sure to heal all the damages and broken ribs. You don't have to worry, there's no risk of infection anymore, he just needs to rest," she said, wiping her runny nose.
Indeed, there were no signs of the bullet wound anymore. Hell, even most of his bruises looked completely healed up. Well, almost everything considering that her friend's nose still looked broken, but it could wait 'til they were safe and until she had a place to rest herself.
"That's definitely cool," Amelia replied, smiling as much as she could despite her sore features, "you guys saved me. Thank you."
That's definitely cool
These simple words felt like a wave of relief washing over the kneeling woman. She had heard a lot of things to describe her abilities since the explosion, but cool had never been used before. It surely wasn't what Olivia was expecting. Getting up and staggering for a few steps until she stabilized herself, Olivia turned toward her new friend:
"Alright, Amelia, can you walk and help me?" Amelia nodded, prompting Olivia to continue, "we can go back to the road and grab back the car I've stolen. After that, what do you say I drop you to the closest town? You can go ask help to the police. Just make sure you give us a couple of hour head start first. try to keep us as much out of the story as you can."
As she was talking, Olivia was filling her pockets with the cash, phones, and credit cards she took from the corpses earlier, feeling she was going to need every available resource for her trip awaiting her. Hopefully, by the time the police would figure these men's identities, she and Henry would be as far away as possible, where they wouldn't be able to track them or link them to this whole mess.
Amelia frowned in confusion, "what about you? You need to take care of your own wounds."
"We-" Olivia looked down at the fallen hero, "we'll heal and we're going home."
A/N: Anyone who saw it coming that Olivia was a meta? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on the chapter.
Raise your hand if you're ready for some long awaited honest chat between Barry and Olivia because it's coming next week.
