Title: A New Flame
Timeframe: Late Season Three, after Remnants
Author: Edes
Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me
General Note: Did Will ever go meet that painter? How's life treating him in Wisconsin?
Summary: Will and Leah meet an unexpected adversary
Feedback welcome and appreciated!!!
Part Two: The point
[Will]
Will clawed at Leah, caught her wrist. Ignoring her screams, he hauled her to the window that was mercifully open on that hot day. He shoved her out, shouting instructions. Her eyes were blank with fear, but her feet finally got into it and she flew down the metal stairs. He dove after her as the first bullets hit the windowsill.
"Go! Keep going!" he shouted, but it was unnecessary. She was climbing down faster than he would have thought possible. He skidded after her. A rain of bullets followed them, but they were a full landing down, and Will thought a clean shot unlikely. Unfortunately, he didn't hear steps following them. Which meant they were probably tearing down the stairs inside.
"When you get to the ladder, jump, don't climb!" He shouted. They were going to have to risk broken bones. Will thought he heard Leah make a strangled sound in her throat, and he began to doubt that he would walk away from this.What if she can't do it? Leah surprised him with an expert drop and roll. She launched back up and ran in the first direction she could think of—towards the community garden. Seconds later, Will followed.
They were almost to the relative cover of the trees when two men and a woman burst from the apartment complex. Their pursuers sprinted toward them.
"Go, go, go!" Will shouted. Leah didn't look back once, but started dodging through the trees with notable agility.
A few minutes later, Will knew it was useless. They had run right up Picnic Point—a small peninsula jutting out into the waters of Lake Mendota. God damnit.
"This way," Will breathed, dragging Leah off to the side of the trail to the relative concealment of the thicker trees. "Don't speak. I'm going to have to fight. Stay out of sight."
Leah's breathing was jagged, and she clutched a stitch in her side. Her face was drained of color, but she nodded. With visible effort, she quieted her breathing and crouched into a clump of weeds clustered around a rock.
Will dashed up the trail and into the trees on the other side. His breath slowing a little, he ran through his options. He debated picking up a stone, almost laughed. What would Syd do? What in the hell would she do?
Will waited. He knew he didn't have long.
[Leah]
Her disbelief would have been absolute if it weren't for the rushing sound of fear in her mind. She could hear it. It roared like a waterfall, like a river running over her shoulders, around her ears. Leah fought to stay conscious. It seemed like the only thing she could see before her eyes were her paintings. Her paintings, which always showed the world as it should be, were all melting into one another before her eyes. But this was all wrong.
Nothing she had ever painted had captured the quality of her fear as she waited for three people—chasing a man she'd hardly met—to come and end her life.
None of her paintings had ever shown the terrible speed with which her pursuers came upon their hiding places.
No work of hers had hinted at the haunting grace that Jonah exhibited as he leaped onto the trail, meeting the first of the assailants with a roundhouse to the head.
And nothing she had ever imagined could prepare her for the strength she found to do what she did next.
[Will]
Oh shit. Here they come.
The first kick was easy. He'd spent the last two years waiting to fight. He'd spent hundreds of dollars on tae kwon doe lessons with Master Yeoh in his tiny, stifling studio. He'd spent countless nights tangled in his sheets, racked with adrenaline as his mind conjured up Allison's taunts, Syd's "last" moments, and nameless pursuers in black. Pursuers kind of like these.
His roundhouse rendered the first assailant unconscious, but the next one was already on him. No time to think. Three elbow strikes in the right places and a sweep of his right leg brought the second man down, too. Will marveled quickly and wondered why he hadn't been shot yet. He lashed around, looking for the woman. He heard the cock of a gun behind him and froze.
"Where is the girl?" said a cool voice. "Tell me or you die right here, right now."
"Who's asking?" Damn his curiosity. It was always a problem. Expecting a bullet any second, he dared to turn around slowly. If he was going to die, he wanted to do it face first.
"That's not the right answer. Stop moving." Will froze again, wondering when he'd ever heard an Australian accent sound so unfriendly. He could see her now, though. He didn't know why he was surprised that she was beautiful. Syd was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, and the most dangerous, if he could believe all the stories that had flitted around headquarters.
The woman continued in a flat voice. "You mean nothing to me, and I will find her anyway. Why not buy your life and save me some trouble?"
Her cold logic burned his mind. Why not, indeed? But he said, "What is she to you?"
"Wrong again. Think carefully before you answer." The summer sun burnished her blonde hair but did not warm her voice, which rose to a bark. "Where is she?"
"I'm here," Leah said. And dropped from the tree above the woman, tackling her as she fell. With a surprised grunt, the blonde was down, twisting to aim the gun at either of them. A moment later and she would have thrown the lighter Leah off, but Will was back in the game and pinned her right arm with his foot. He grabbed the gun, and she stilled. Leah sat awkwardly on the woman's back, seemingly stunned her gamble had paid off.
"Why are you here? Who do you work for?" Will held the gun near her head. The woman said nothing, but glared at him through slitted blue eyes. Short breaths of rage escaped through her large, square teeth. Grit sanded her otherwise flawless skin. Recognition suddenly slapped Will. He had seen her before. He knew it.
The woman knew it, too. She heaved abruptly, and Leah was thrown back. Will did the first thing he could think of: he pistol-whipped her brutally in the face, knocking her cold. She collapsed to the ground in an ungraceful bundle of limbs. Why couldn't I shoot her?
He hadn't been sure that he wouldn't hit Leah with a shot. Leah, whose body was trembling with apparent fear. Leah, who was clutching a wounded right leg. Leah, who could run through trees like a deer and drop from them like a demon. Leah, whose paintings…
Will re-aimed the gun. Leah recoiled, her blue eyes dark with new shock.
"Jonah—." She almost whimpered.
"How do you know Irina Derevko?" he demanded.
End of Part Two
