Chapter 13

Tyana returned to 'work' two weeks later against the advice of a doctor she'd seen the day before. She didn't give a damn what they said, she was the only one out of the entire missions volunteers that had yet to finish collecting their cards. True, she had the most out of everyone, she had the majority of the cards in fact but that didn't change her mind. She crossed the road quickly, running so that the large truck that squealed around the corner didn't kill her.

A shaking began in her back pocket and she knew that the pocket-sized communicator that she'd fixed when out on injury was trying to attract her attention. Tyana found the nearest secluded spot to answer it and dialed in the code. The screen lit up, Bret gazing up at her, his jaw set in stone, telling her that her next carrier was close.

"Where?" she questioned, eager to get back on track.

He paused for a moment, worrying about whether to disclose the information and allow her to put her still healing body on the line again.

"Tyana are you sure you can handle it? You're still hurt from your last one and I—"

"Bret where's the goddamn location?" she asked shortly, having already heard enough from the man that had recently tried to control what she had been considering as her personal life.

He sighed, "Go to the subway station, get on the 2:15 to the centre of Tifton and call me when you get there. Got that?"

"2:15, Tifton, call you. Got it. Thanks Bret" she flipped off the device and in a jog headed off to the station.

In no time at all she was in the centre of Tifton and after contacting Bret to get directions to her destination she was standing outside of it only a bus ride later. She exhaled; pulling the cap she was wearing down further, hoping that her turquoise hair was covered. It was. Good, let's do this, and quickly Tyana encouraged silently, a nagging fear that she'd get injured worse this time shimmering beneath the confident exterior that she carried so well.

She walked up to the house and knocked on its door, for the first time ever making a house call to get one of the cards. The door was answered in reasonable time and the man that stood at it looked at her expectantly,

"May I help you?"

Tyana noticed immediately that this was the man Bret had described to her as the one that carried the card and so smiled,

"Yeah, sorry, you don't know me but" Before she finished her own sentence she brought a powerful fist up to his face and he went reeling back into his stairs. Tyana jumped inside, closing the door behind her and then delivered a swift but fierce kick to his chin. He was knocked to the floor and Tyana realised that he wasn't moving. Glad that she'd finally caught a break she dropped the fists that were clenched in mid air to her sides and kneeled beside him to search for the card. She reached for his upper pocket…

His eyes flew open and his fist thrashed her backwards away from him. Tyana's jaw clicked loudly but she ignored the pain, shook it off and flipped to her feet.

"Dude believe me after this is all said and done you're gonna wish you'd just given me the damn card in the first place so do the you of the future a favour and fork it over" she offered kindly, cracking her knuckles threateningly.

He laughed, "I'd rather have a hot poker shoved into each of my eyes!"

Tyana shrugged, "Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you" on the last syllable of her sentence she uppercut his jaw forcefully and followed up with a right and left hook when his face came down again. She continued the attack, all the while making it look like the easiest thing on earth and needed the continuous punches with a roundhouse kick. He slumped to the floor in pain, bloody but not unconscious. Tyana continued.

She grabbed a wooden chair from what she assumed to be his telephone table by the stairs and smashed it against the wall to break it into pieces. She clutched the largest piece happily and waved it about in the air with confidence,

"I'll give you one more chance, the card?" she held out a hand.

He spat at it.

She sighed as if she wasn't enjoying this, "Ok, well if you insist"

***

Tyana limped into her hotel room, throwing the card onto the bed, a hurt gasp escaping her shredded lips. With her fingers trailing over the deep cut in her bottom lip, she hobbled into the bathroom. She grabbed herself some toilet paper, dampened it and dabbed into onto her lip, before shuffling back out into the bedroom. She found some ice in the mini bar fridge and so tore off her completely ruined shirt and filled it with the cold cubes, holding it to her lip to clot the blood.

Tyana slumped onto her bed with a sore grunt and sighed; she hated it when they pretended to be incapable of defending themselves. It made it that much harder later when you had less energy and they also had all your moves tattooed freshly on their minds.

"Bastards" she muttered, for the first time using a curse word from this reality to express her anger. But the significance of that slid over her as she closed her eyes; sleep in mind. A small beeping began and Tyana sighed, anger evident. Without opening her eyes she used her spare hand to reach out for the communicator she knew she'd left on the bedside table.

"What?" she asked curtly, hissing at the small radiation of a sting from her cut lip.

"Tyana, how did it go?"

Tyana opened her eyes and stared at Bret incredulously, "How do you think it went? Frailing look at me!"

Bret gulped, "The card?"

Tyana rolled her eyes, "I got the frailing card, yes, the cards safe!" she pushed herself up to pace. "As long as the cards safe then that's all that matters!" she muttered bitterly, feeling as if all the injuries she was sustaining were going unnoticed provided she was coming up with the goods.

"Tyana I didn't mean it like that, you know we all care about you" Bret explained quickly, sorry that she felt that way.

"Then why not show it? God, Jeff's the only one that seems to give a damn I swear!" she exclaimed, pulling the self made ice pack away from her lip so that she could make full use of her anger.

Bret's eyes darkened, "Jeff?"

Shit