Heat was beating down through the concrete walls. Smell of blood, sweat, exhaustion. Death.
"Теперь мы только ты и я![It's just you and me now!]" the man seethed. He threw the gun on the ground without a care, though she noted that he left it close enough. Should he need it, he could take it any moment. No more running.
The fight so far had coated the both of them in loads of injuries, bruises, scratches and cuts, some momentarily forgotten, some too big to be. Both wanted to just take one of the guns thrown on the ground and get it over with, but they were both too prideful to fall so low. No way out.
The plan hadn't gone as it should have, she should have been gone by then. She should have been dead. Eventually, the pieces turned and settled in her head, and she found that she had been ignorant enough to be lied to. No more illusions.
She had to finish this, and finish it once and for all. She wasn't scared of what was to come, she knew how to end him, though the thought of what waited for her on the other side left her mind unsettled. Her head was burning, her brain going into an overdrive, her instincts screaming 'KILL HIM'. And yet, something wasn't quite right.
The heat of the moment had passed, until it wasn't instincts and anger anymore. It was precision, strategy, calculation. No more games.
The abstinence of her medicine was making Dagmara's head hazy but she had temporarily found a way to keep her brain concentrated into what was important at the moment. Staying alive.
And even then she did not expect to have to deal with this. A thick, heavy, metal chain was thrown her way, catching her by surprise, and before she could jump to avoid it, the heavy end hit her straight in the stomach, and she felt the cracking of her left floating rib. Bearable pain, she's felt much worse.
Dagmara got up with difficulty, holding a hand over the new wound she received. Though a second whip of the chair was something that took away her ability to go on. The sheer strength of it was enough to push the oxygen out of her lungs, break another rib or two, and fog the processes of her brain, since it hit the back of her head as well. That was it. That was the end. The moment when she couldn't go any further, when she couldn't last much longer. The moment when gave up completely.
I hadn't taught you to be weak, he had said, I'd given life to a warrior. As it turned out, all her assumptions had been correct and nothing was a coincidence. He had planed all of it, every second. From the moment of the announcement of the new mission, all the way through the whole process up until that very moment.
So there she was, lying on the floor, choking on her own blood, with broken ribs and a hazy mind, in front of the father she had dreamed of meeting every night of her conscious life. She almost laughed at the irony at that very moment.
"Step away from her, Vilain! She's just a child!" said an old, aged and experienced voice somewhere behind Daga's, though she found not the stamina she needed to turn and look.
"Ahh, Barney Ross! It is good you came to join the fun!" Vilain exclaimed pseudo-excitedly.
The man at the door did a double-take as he tried to take in the whole scene. A girl, long ago starved from emotion, looking for the father she lost in another life. And then there's the father, beating down on the girl with an old rusty chain, broken from the lonely years. How ironic again...
"She doesn't have to be a part of this, Villain. Let's settle this like grown men." Barney shouted at the Russian man before him. He was desperate to have the girl free of the threat that was her own blood, free of the inner war she's had for as long as she remembers. "Or are you afraid?"
That just about did it.
"Afraid?" In a moment of manly pride Villain chuckled darkly, instantly forgetting about his daughter. Or the gun he left behind, for that matter. "Of you? Don't flatter yourself, Barney Ross!"
The men started circling each other, readying for a fight.
"But we'll do it the right way. We'll fight like men, not like sheep." Barney instantly unsheathed his guns and dropped them to the ground.
"Have it your way." the ex-soldier growled lowly, entirely concentrating on his opponent.
That was all the chance she needed. Best opportunity she'd get. Dagmara took a deep breath, soundlessly slid on the floor to the nearest weapon she could find. Her hazy mind and weavering vision intensified the difficulty of the shot as far as to make the trigger a moving target, yet the girl was determined to finish this once and for all.
But was it all worth it? The searching, the hours in front of the icon of Virgin Mary, praying as a woman to a woman, to have just a second, just one tiny moment of her father's attention. She had asked for too little and received too much. He had given her a simple offer: return to Russia with him to his empire and make it stronger with their combined power or die by her father's hand.
Dagmara laid on her back behind Villain, took aim and...
"Are you okay, kid?"
"Just minor injuries: a few broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, maybe some brui..."
"That is not what I meant."
"...I know."
The plane ride was silent. This time Jonathan had refused to tend to cuts and bruises while Daga's life could literally seep out between her fingers. After the doctor's work was done she had laid her head on his lap, stretching her legs over those of her teammates and let all the worries be carried away from the turbulence. Her lover stroked her hair soothingly, afraid to ask about the details of the family reunion. Barney had already told them enough, Villain was dead and him and Daga were both alive, so much was certain.
The only one who dared open his mouth wider was the other genius on board. Gunner Jensen. He knew better than to leave someone like her in her own thoughts -the consequences would be fatal. He could already see the gears turning behind her eyes into an overdrive, he knew that well enough, he had been in her position. Almost.
"So, what're you gonna do now?" he delved on in a few seconds.
"...I don't know..." Dagmara mumbled under her breath begrudgingly, making the viking chuckle.
"It kills you to say it, doesn't it?"
"...You already know the answer to that!"
Her lungs burned in need of her very favorite drug. Nerves shaking, heart breaking, brain collapsing, yes she needed it. Her hand started a search for her pack and found it in the pocket of her jacket. Opening it she found the usual sight, six cigarettes left from a 20-pack and, guess what? No match or a lighter. It must have fallen somewhere.
Her sigh was all that sounded through the plane. Really, she thought, honestly?
"Anyone got a light?"
"Here. If you so need it, kid." Barney grumbled from the cockpit, throwing a lighter at the laying girl. As if seeing it, Dagmara caught the lighter and quickly closed it on the end of the cigarette that was already waiting between her lips.
"Daga, your hands are shaking."
"No, K, I think you're mistaken." she threw back sarcastically.
"Let me." Caleb offered, without much thought about her comment.
He took the lighter from her hand and lit the end of the cigarette, as she took the first drag, holding it for a while with her eyes closed, then releasing through her nostrils. The Russian finally took notice of the object in her hand.
Barney's lighter. It was chromed, heavy and had a big skull in the middle.
"A skull? Why a skull? Is that like a reminder that smoking kills you?" she called back to the cockpit, noticing the old guns fall into a careless wave of chuckles.
"That's like his thing." Ceasser stated nodding towards the owner of the object of discussion, "These things are everywhere. On his ring, lighter...and you know what?" the huge man lowered his head a bit as if preparing to tell her a secret, "If I wasn't a ladies-man and took the time to check" he looked around pretending to be careful, "I'd probably see them on his underwear too!"
A tide of laughter followed his last words as well as one playful "You're not my type, Caesser!" coming from the cockpit.
See how little they needed to lighten the mood.
