A/N: Sorry for the wait, lovelies! First it was midterms (somehow I survived...). Then Daredevil season 2 came out. And then I got pretty sick. Hope you guys like this chapter! Let me know what you think.
Asset. The word turned over and over and over in his mind, glinting cold and sharp and spiky. It tasted like ice and blood and it felt like a sharp stab to his eardrums, a pressure on his eyes, a metal band around his head, pressing and crushing his skull and his mind.
He knew he was the Asset.
He knew this.
He'd been called this so many times before.
So why…
Did it feel so strange now? Why was the word bursting and blooming hot, acid yellow and blood red in his mind, on his tongue, ringing in his ears?
His vision seemed to distort as they walked. The sun shone down on them, a gorgeous green valley stretched in front of them, the girl led the way, her dark hair skimming her thin shoulders, and he…
He thought he saw a ghostly image at the corner of his eye. If he looked at it directly, it vanished—but he could feel it. He could feel them. There were people talking to him. A man—a...a boy? A boy with the sun gleaming on his blond hair as he put hands in pockets and looked at the ground, thin shoulders slumped—
He whirled and saw nothing but—
Felt the ghostly brush of small fingers—tiny sharp bursts of electricity—against his human fingertips, the mountains and sun and sky distorting until he was almost outside on a lawn—on a lawn with a small child, a girl, dark-haired—the girl? The mission? No—
No, a different—
Braids, freckles, gap-toothed smile…
His hand jerked up in a clenched fist, almost as if he were making the victory fist, and he violently pivoted, eyes roaming the landscape for someone—
Who he knew he wasn't going to find.
Who he didn't even know…but felt like he did.
He pressed his cybernetic fingers to the backs of his eyes, trying to cool them down, but the metal was hot. His arm had thermal regulation programmed into it to prevent it from overheating or freezing in extreme temperatures but it wasn't hot enough for the regulation to have kicked in, which meant that his arm would remain uncomfortably warm for now. The last thing he needed right now was more heat when his mind felt like it was slowly melting through the cracks in his fractured skull—
Fractures—
Frac—
A sharp pain in the base of his head and his arm, the cold, a scream, pain, pain, his brain dying, red-hot, white-hot, icy-hot, icy-cold, cold—
A sawing pain—
He blinked away the confusion and took a deep, shuddering, snarling breath. It's the situation, he told himself, commanding himself to stay composed. It's the situation. We are lost. We haven't eaten. I have lost control. I am experiencing a normal hallucinatory setback due to lack of food, overheating, and the burden of keeping the girl alive and well while finishing the mission as fast as possible. Finishing the mission on time was beyond possibility anymore.
Food. His stomach tightened. Food would solve all of their problems. His body worked in a slight catch-22. He was programmed to bear reasonably well on small amounts of food. He had been trained and programmed and conditioned and tested beyond reason of doubt that he could survive in the wild with little food for long periods of time. This was necessary for him to be Hydra's asse—
Asset—
For him to be Hydra's. For some reason…his mind wouldn't let him use the word without mentally stuttering over it. A glitch?
However…no matter how well he was trained to survive without food…his sped-up metabolism, physical activity, and physical size also required that he receive optimum nutrition to function at his best capability. And he hadn't received optimum nutrition in quite a while. They'd been gone longer than they'd anticipated. Why would they have anticipated this? He'd never completed a mission more than a second late before. Had he delivered the girl days ago as he should have, he would have received his specifically-created, biochemically-modified, enhanced parenteral nutrition feedings and then he would have…
Gone back into the deep cold.
He needed sustenance. Something with protein. Meat.
The girl needed something as well. His sharp eyes took in every angle, every aspect, every line of her being. She'd been slender when he'd first taken her but now she was bordering on dangerously thin. Her old bruises were yellow and fading and still she was covered with new bruises, cuts, and injuries—some she had done to herself, some he had done to her. And still she marched on. He noticed the slight limp she walked with, as if she had a pebble in her shoe. He noticed how her head drooped forward slightly. And still she marched on.
It was almost as if she was determined to outlast him. He was almost in awe. His weakest-looking target had somehow ended up being his strongest. He'd dealt with grown men. Political leaders, CEOs, rich and wealthy people with body guards and expensive security systems. And none had lasted as long as she had. Granted, none of them had been put through the paces like she had—but that only made her survival all the more startling. He would have brought her back to life had she had the nerve to die on him but he had to admit, he had fully expected her to die during some point of this mission. The possibility had always been in the back of his mind, spinning with all the other possibilities that he was always thinking of.
He was changing his mind now.
He was changing his view of her.
Sophie was dreaming about food. Her body seemed to be moving on autopilot. Her feet kept trudging forward and her eyes remained fixed on the mountains in the horizon but she wasn't taking any of it in. She felt like she had entered a dreamlike fugue state. She was moving through the world and the world was moving through her. Her stomach had stopped aching and now felt it like was folding in on itself. She was vaguely aware of the fact that she was slowly dying—if the starvation didn't get her, the wild would, and if the wild didn't get her, then Hydra would—but it didn't even seem to bother her anymore.
Nothing bothered her right now.
Emotions were just too…exhausting right now. All she could do was numbly think about food—proper food, which felt like a hazy memory at this point—and keep walking in the hopes that she might accidentally walk off a cliff and end this agony. She would have dropped to the grass and eaten it but even that would have taken too much effort.
She wasn't aware of time passing, so lost was she in her own thoughts, but the colors in the sky slowly changed as the day marched on and suddenly she was on all fours, shaking with exhaustion, and then she was collapsing on her stomach, laying her head down on the grass and closing her eyes. Drifting. Dreaming. She felt, rather than heard, him crouch near her and shake her but she was too far gone to respond to him. He could have punted her across the valley and she wouldn't have had the energy to open her eyes. Her skin felt stretched as tight as elastic over her bones and her stomach gnawed in on itself.
His presence vanished like smoke on the wind. She didn't know how she knew but she just somehow could feel that he had left.
Sophie didn't know how long he had been gone but she slowly became aware of a smell…the smell of something cooking…the smell of meat cooking… Her mouth watered and her eyes slowly opened a bit. She stared up at the darkening evening sky and slowly breathed in the most delicious smell she had ever smelled in her entire existence. No food had ever smelled this good and she wondered if she had died and gone to heaven. Laying here on the soft grass, looking up at a violet sky with the first hints of twinkling stars coming out to play, her mind hazy, the smell of delicious cooking meat wafting around…it almost felt like a heaven of some sorts.
Slowly she became aware of heat washing over her and the crackling, sizzling sounds of something cooking. Her eyes opened wider and she slowly sat up as if she were a zombie. She turned her head to see that the Winter Soldier had built a small fire and staked two large branches into the ground. Stretched between both of them, roasting over the fire, was the dark shape of some sort of animal. Small. Looked like a deer but Sophie wasn't sure if deer existed in the Andes mountains. She didn't think so.
"Winter," she whispered. She didn't think she'd spoken loud enough for him to hear—indeed, she could barely hear her own voice—but he looked up and she saw his eyes gleaming in the darkness. For one terrifying moment, a primal part of her froze in fear, telling her that danger was near, to run, to get away—
But then everything was back to normal. He looked as dangerous as he normally did, not especially more.
"What…is that?" she asked, slowly edging closer to the fire, her mouth watering.
"Food," he said tonelessly.
She smiled tiredly. "Great explanation." She leaned dangerously close to the fire, closed her eyes, and inhaled slowly—
And suddenly he was pushing her back with forceful fingertips, painfully prodding her collarbones. Her eyes opened in surprise and they flew open even wider when he picked up the ends of a chunk of her hair and held it up silently, allowing her to examine the singed ends. "Watch it," he said, and then he moved back around the fire so he was across from her.
Looking at her hair made Sophie wonder how she looked now. She wasn't being vain, she was just being curious. She hadn't seen her face in a very long time and considering all that she'd been through… The thing was, Sophie had always been an extraordinarily pretty girl. She was petite, had straight dark brown hair cut till slightly past her shoulders, pink lips, and large sage-green eyes framed by long, dark lashes. And she wasn't going to lie and say that she'd wished she were ugly growing up, because what person didn't want to have good looks? However, her good looks had ended up being a curse. She'd withdrawn more and more as she grew up and her greatest desire was to be left the hell alone. Unfortunately, with looks like hers, girls were always trying to befriend her—thinking she was the pretty, popular type who perhaps liked to party—and guys were always hitting on her. And it always made Sophie incredibly anxious. She had always had trouble turning people down on their invitations to go out or hang out and she had wished once or twice that she was more plain so people would let her melt into the shadows and just let her be.
She wondered what she looked like now. She'd lost weight, she'd been attacked, she hadn't properly bathed or eaten in a long while now. Her skin probably didn't have that healthy glow. She probably had shadows under her eyes and bruises on her face. Her face was probably thinner. Her lips were dry and cracked. Her hair definitely felt more limp and dull. It was almost ironic that just was she was getting braver her looks had fallen from their prime. Was there some sort of meaning in that? She had no doubt that her college English professors would have found one.
"What is it?" she asked, staring at the animal, mesmerized. He didn't answer. She could see the flames reflected in his eyes. Suddenly she noted the heaps of fluff that lay around the ground at his feet. Thick clumps of white fluff…the animal's fur. Deer didn't have that kind of fur. The fluff reminded her of the baby alpaca that had woken her by licking her face. Her eyes slowly raised to the small animal roasting over the fire and her stomach turned slightly, realizing with mild horror that it was a baby alpaca that was roasting over the fire.
She wanted to bring herself to feel more horrified about it—but she was just too weak and hungry and tired to really care. Besides, that's how this world works, she thought to herself bitterly. The weak get eaten and destroyed. She and the baby alpaca, they were in the same boat. Both of them were slowly being burned by the Winter Soldier. She just hoped it wasn't the exact baby alpaca that had woken her (though that was pretty unlikely). She didn't even want to know how he had captured a baby alpaca without its parents giving him trouble. Her mind was filled with images of him slyly luring a curious, innocent baby alpaca away from its herd or group or whatever it was called…
Her stomach flipped unpleasantly and she closed her eyes. Don't picture that.
After twenty minutes, he pulled the animal off of the sticks it was propped on. Sophie thought it was ready to eat then, but no—he tore the animal apart slowly into pieces and then held the pieces over the fire, letting them cook thoroughly. It was a slow, painstaking process and he had to move his hand away from the fire routinely to avoid cooking his own hand. Thirty minutes later all of the pieces were done. Then he said, "Come here," and Sophie scooted around the fire to sit near him. He handed her a piece and she tore into it, not even caring that she was eating like a wild animal. She hadn't had proper food in so long.
In her previous life—the life that had been untainted by the Winter Soldier—she had been picky about her meat. She only ate white meat and refused to eat the dark meat of a chicken. She was squeamish about fat, gristle, and bones. And even now, she had to take a deep breath before diving into whatever unknown body part she was eating. She was starving but she hadn't been away from civilization long enough to completely abandon all her dislikes and likes. However…the hunger overrode it all. She was just going to have to get over it.
And get over it she did.
Spit dripped down her chin and she wiped it away with her arm while tearing into the…whatever she was eating. She hoped it wasn't something weird like throat. Was throat meat even edible? She busied her mind with these thoughts while finishing the first piece and then snatching up another. She didn't know if Winter was looking at her but she wasn't going to look up and check. Let a girl eat like a wolf in peace, right?
After her third piece, her stomach felt comfortably full and she stopped, slowly wiping her hands on the grass near her and staring into the fire. The alpaca had tasted…well, if she was being honest, she hadn't noticed the taste at all. It had been hot and it had been cooked and it had been meat. That was all she had noticed. But she noticed it had been dry with sort of a goat flavor to it. It wasn't very fatty, thank god. If had been fatty, she might have vomited.
Good to know that I can still afford to be picky even after all this. She smiled and then she laughed to herself, unable to control her ridiculous thoughts. She glanced over at Winter and was startled to see him staring at her. She was unable to read his expression and blushed slightly (though she had no idea why). "What?" she asked self-consciously, leaning away from him and folding her arms in a pitiful defense mechanism.
He shook his head and looked down at the piece of meat in his hands. She rolled her eyes and looked away. Of course he wasn't going to respond. He gave new meaning to the phrase "silent and deadly." Of course…if she was going to be honest…he also gave new meaning to the phrase "tall, dark, and handsome."
Her cheeks felt hot as she squinted into the fire. Stupid Sophie. Why did I think that? However, it was true. She couldn't help but think it. She was too much of a book lover and she'd read one too many books with heroes or anti-heroes described such. But she'd never come across a character who fit the bill as well as the Winter Soldier did. He was definitely tall (to Sophie's 5'4" frame), his hair and general aura definitely made him dark, and his face—if Sophie was going to be totally unbiased and ignore all his actions and behaviors—was definitely handsome. Aside from the whole empty-eyes and cuts, bruises, and scratches.
Still, that didn't excuse anything he'd done or who he was…or wasn't. Sophie still wasn't sure if he was all there. If he was fully a man. Fully a human. She was definitely beginning to doubt it, based on how empty and cold he was. No real person could be this emotionless. It was like he'd had a lobotomy. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.
He finished eating and then they sat around in silence for a while, both staring into the flames. Sophie wondered what he was thinking, if he was thinking anything at all—but of course he would never volunteer that information so she didn't even bother asking. They sat there, a faint golden glow on their withdrawn, closed faces, and the fire slowly burned out until it was just deep orange embers—and then it went out completely, curling tendrils of gray smoke fading into the darkness above them, the stars hidden under a blanket of clouds tonight. Sophie wondered if it was going to rain. She hoped not. She moved back to the other side of the fire pit and lay down, pressing her hands together and using them as a pillow, staring at the ground and thinking about nothing in particular.
She had drifted off to sleep when she was suddenly woken by terrible shrieking cry echo from somewhere near them. Her eyes flew open and she sat up like a shot, rubbing her eyes quickly. Hardly daring to breathe, she listened closely but heard nothing. Did I just dream that? She looked around and saw that Winter was sitting up, slowly looking around. So it hadn't been just her.
"What was that?" she whispered just as they heard it again—a shrieking, guttural, snarling cry that echoed from somewhere west of them. It sounded louder and closer this time. Her heart seized in her chest and she scrambled over to Winter, crouching near him and not even caring how cowardly she seemed. "What was that?" she hissed fearfully, eyes darting left and right, looking for the source of the noise. It hadn't sounded human.
"Mountain lion," he murmured so low that she almost didn't catch it.
Her blood went cold. "What?" she began but he reached behind him and gripped her wrist in a crushing grip, pressing down to indicate that she needed to shut up now. He slowly stood up and she followed suit. He let go of her and slowly reached into his pocket, pulling out a gleaming blade.
"Why not a gun?" she hissed in a panic, clutching his arm and peering around him, heart hammering.
"So we can call every other predator to us?" he whispered sarcastically.
They waited in tense silence, both slowly looking around. The night around them was still and silent but Sophie couldn't stop imagining that the mountain lion was out there, just beyond her vision, waiting and watching…
After an extremely long pause, the Winter Soldier straightened up from his offensive, half-crouched pose and said, "It's probably moved on—"
Suddenly there was a horrible, drawn-out shrieking, snarling cry and an enormous mountain lion leaped out of the darkness straight at them. The Winter Soldier shoved Sophie out of the way so hard that she flew ten feet back and hit the ground hard. Her head swam for a moment but she struggled to her feet, wildly looking around to see what was happening—and was happening was terrifying. The mountain lion and the Winter Soldier rolled around, wrestling. The lion was snarling and batting at the Winter Soldier with razor sharp claws, mouth snapping open and shut, trying to go for his throat, and the Winter Soldier had his metal hand fisted around the lion's throat, face screwed up in concentration and pain, trying to gain the upper hand.
"What do I do, what do I do, what do I do—" Sophie kept whimpering as she wildly looked around, clutching her head. She needed to get away, she needed to run, she needed to—
No, a weapon, she needed a weapon, but what—
She lurched backward in fear as they rolled toward her and she felt her heel press on something flat and hard. OF COURSE. She could have killed herself for how stupid she was. She had blades hidden in both of her Converse! She ripped her right shoe off and yanked the dagger out, backing away from the fight, mouth dry and heart pounding. The lion was letting out horrible snarls and screams and she was terrified that it would call its pack (if it had one) to him or her before long.
She darted forward with her blade but chickened out as they rolled toward her, the Winter Soldier desperately trying to stab the lion with his dagger, and leaped backward, letting out a shriek. "Just—get his throat!" she shouted uselessly. "He—" Come on, Sophie, come on, COME ON—
And suddenly the mountain lion raised an enormous paw and slashed at the Winter Soldier's chest. She heard the sound of clothes tearing. She heard him cry out in pain and shock. And then his head dropped and he was still. Her blood turned to ash and her legs felt like jelly. Had he died? No—his arms were still moving—he was still fighting back but the lion must have really hurt him for his reflexes to slow this much—
The lion reached up and opened its jaws to show a row of glistening, gleaming canines dripping with saliva—
IT'S GOING TO RIP HIS THROAT OUT!
"NO!" she screamed, throwing herself forward. Normally Sophie would have been no match for a mountain lion but she had the advantage of the lion not even noticing her presence in its fervor to rip the Winter Soldier's throat out. So she managed to slam her dagger down into its back. It let out a snarling cry and seemed to pause just for one moment, a rumbling sound coming out of its mouth—
But that was all he needed. He slammed his blade up into the lion's throat viciously. The animal let out a choked, gurgled shriek, and then the Winter Soldier yanked it out and stabbed it in again, dragging it across the animal's neck and slitting it. Sophie yanked her dagger out of the lion's furry back and stabbed it in again for good measure, sweating and shaking, hands trembling so hard she could barely grip the dagger. She tried to pull it out a second time but the animal let out a keening, wailing sound and slipped off of the Winter Soldier, collapsing near them, making snuffing and gurgling sounds that almost made Sophie pity it.
"End it," she whispered, shaking violently. "Do it."
So he did. He slammed his blade into the lion's neck one last time and began sawing in so deep that he almost half cut the thing's head off. Blood leaked all over his fingers, both metal and flesh, and she saw him grit his teeth in—in anger? Or in pain? He kept sawing even though the animal was long dead and Sophie felt sick when she saw the pale pink flesh in the faintest glow of sunrise.
"Stop," she said.
He kept cutting viciously.
"Stop!" she said.
He stabbed the blade in again and again and again, red blood spraying against his hands, his arms, his face—blood drops dotted his face and his hands were slick with dark red blood—
"Winter!" she said, dropping to her knees next to him and grabbing his arm. "Winter, STOP! It's dead! You're acting psychotic!" He didn't stop and she shook his arm, pleading with him. "Winter! It's dead! It's dead!" she suddenly screamed and his eyes widened as if he had just realized Sophie was still here. He stopped stabbing and sawing at the lion's throat and let go of the blade, letting it fall to the ground. He slowly looked at her, looking almost dazed. Sophie gasped when she saw his chest. The lion had slashed clean through his heavy combat clothes and left four very deep bloody gashes across his entire chest. The entire front of his vest was slick with blood, though she didn't know if it was his blood or the lion's—probably a mix of both.
He slowly looked down, following her gaze, and she saw one of his eyebrows raise, his mouth drooping down flatly. He didn't even look surprised to see the deep wounds. But then he fell backwards slightly and then lay down completely. Sophie knelt anxiously over him. Was he dying? His eyes were closed, his forehead beaded with sweat, and his skin looked extremely pale.
"Hey—you need to clean these cuts up," she said, shaking him. "Stay awake. We need to—" She looked up and helplessly looked around for some help. What was she going to do? She wasn't a doctor, she didn't know how to stitch people up. And she knew she needed water to clean his wounds out but where was she going to get that? The stream had long since ended and going back wasn't an option—was it?
Come on, Sophie. Don't wuss out now. You need him to survive.
Did she need him for her to survive?
Or did she just need him to survive?
Not wanting to dwell on questions that made her head hurt, she took a deep breath and then forcefully said, "Take off your shirt."
He mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like an expletive. It was one of the most human expressions she'd ever heard him use. Clearly he was in no shape—or mood, judging by his closed eyes and ugly scowl—to be doing this himself. Well, she wasn't going to just let him lay around and die or sulk or whatever he planned on doing. She began unbuckling his vest. She expected him to stop her but surprisingly, he didn't. There was a zip that ran from top to bottom and she unzipped it. That part was easy. Getting the entire vest-jacket thing off of him was harder. She had to roll him on his side to tug it off of his human arm and he was heavy, so rolling him wasn't easy—plus he let out a snarl of pain when she touched him, which made her jumpy.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of shoving and nudging and yanking and mentally swearing like a sailor, she got his top off. Wiping the sweat off of her brow, she tossed it aside and wondered what to do next. Having water to clean and knowing how to stitch wounds would be the most ideal—but she had neither of those things. So she would settle for next best. She grabbed the tight long-sleeved shirt he'd stolen for her in Cuba and decided it would work. Then she grabbed the cargo pants and used them to slowly wipe away the excess blood on his chest. She tried not to notice how built he was—it was almost terrifying to see how muscular he was because it kept reminding her of how physically powerful he was. How violent. He could probably crush her throat easily with either metal hand or human hand. It wasn't fair. He had all the advantages on his side—physical strength, weapon expertise…
Except he's injured now, she reminded herself. Focus on the task. He can't die from these injuries because then you're really screwed.
She wiped the slashes clean as much as she could. When she was done, they looked like four bright-red gashes on his chest and they still looked gross—but at least all the blood on his chest was gone. Then she took her tight shirt and began strategically wrapping it around him so that most of her shirt covered his front. She pulled it as tight as she could against his wounds and then she grunted, "Roll over, would you?" She didn't even have the energy to try on her own. He complied and she pulled both sleeves around and knotted them tightly against his back. He rolled back over and she leaned back on her haunches, sweaty and satisfied. Voila—there they had it. She'd made a makeshift bandage from her own extra shirt. She felt pretty damn cool right now, if she had to be honest.
What now?
"We keep moving," she decided.
One of his eyes slitted open and he looked at her.
"We need to find water and wash your wounds," she said. "Even I know that they'll get infected otherwise."
He slowly sat up and ground out, "I'm fine," through gritted teeth. As he struggled to his feet, Sophie saw red blood bloom against her shirt like ink spilling on a silk canvas.
"Uh, the blood on your bandage says otherwise," she said. "Come on, let's go before"—she looked around fearfully—"the rest of its friends decide to find him. Do mountain lions have prides?" she asked him.
"How would I know?" he snapped.
She paused. "Well…because…" Because you always seem like you know everything. But she couldn't say that without sounding incredibly weird. So she shrugged and let the topic drop.
She tentatively offered her arm to him, wondering if he needed some help walking, but he rudely shouldered her away, lips flattening and eyes narrowing. He looked incredibly angry and Sophie guessed that it wasn't often that he found himself wounded like this. Then again, his opponent had probably never been a mountain lion before. Sophie still had to suppress a shiver when she thought about the enormous beast, the way it had pounced with its powerfully-muscled body, the way it had shrieked and snarled…
They walked on.
Dawn slowly rose in the sky as they walked, the sky turning lighter and lighter, the air slightly chilly and misty. Sophie heard the screech of some bird high overhead but when she looked up, she couldn't see it. The same clouds from yesterday still blanketed the sky, covering the sun and giving the day a gloomy, overcast feeling even as the temperature heated up. The air felt humid and heavy and wet, as if the skies were threatening to burst and bring down rainstorm upon them at any moment. She could feel a storm coming at some point and hoped they'd be able to find some shelter before then. The trees had long vanished and now there were just plains in the valley all around them.
He lagged behind her. Whenever she turned and looked, she saw that he had one arm pressed to his chest, as if trying to hold his blood in. His expression was stony but she saw that he winced every now and then. She didn't blame him. An open wound was bound to hurt. They had to find a way to close them…but how? He didn't put his vest top thing back on and walked shirtless with Sophie's shirt tied to the front of his chest like the world's weirdest bandage. She peeked back at him a few times and was alarmed to see that his skin looked pale, the shadows under his eyes were darker than ever, and the red stains on her shirt seemed to be spreading further and further…
They marched on through the valley and Sophie wondered if it would ever end. Were they stuck in some sort of hallucination? Some sort of dream? Was this valley never-ending? Was she destined to die here? All she could see were mountains and she hadn't seen hide nor hair of a single person. Where were all the humans of Peru? Surely there had to be someone who lived in the mountains? What desolate world had the plane dropped them in?
The sky peeked through the clouds at times but remained mostly hidden. The day got hotter and Sophie's hair stuck to the back of her neck. She wished she had a hair elastic to tie it up in a pony and sighed, remembering small luxuries like hair elastics and proper food and a soft bed…
Around midday they stumbled across a small pond that began to widen into a stream and then…her heart lifted when she saw that it seemed to widen into a small river up ahead. "Finally!" Sophie cried in relief, throwing her hands out and dropping to her knees. She used her hands to noisily slurp up as much water as possible, not even caring that she was making a huge fool out of herself. After she was done, she splashed water on her face and then turned to him, using the hem of her t-shirt to pat her face dry. "Alright," she said, taking a deep breath. "Take your bandage off."
