A/N: I realize Sad and Green Street aren't the most original street names ever. Sorry ;o) Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy.
He transferred the gun to his other hand in order to close the door—and the gun was gone. He could swear he hadn't felt it leave his hand. "¿Que—"
"Hold this," she demanded, and let go of the steering wheel.
He held that. If he didn't, they'd crash.
She was reloading his gun while holding hers in her lap. Then she was scooting toward the driver's side door, and only then did he notice the long, deep gash on her upper right arm, leaving a thick dark red streak on the tan leather. Then her head was disappearing out the window. Weiss, trying to steer from the passenger seat while she pushed herself further out the window, wished desperately that he could control the gas pedal, too. "What are you—"
"Drive," she told him patiently, and began shooting. Shots echoed back in their direction. The black sedan that had been screaming toward them when Weiss first checked the street popped a tire under one of her bullets. Then another sedan, and another, took the place of the first, both with more shooters gunning for them. They passed an intersection and a non-descript van careened around the corner, joining the chase.
Meanwhile, the Mustang was careening around with abandon. It wasn't just that he wasn't in the driver's seat. In fact, the singularly bad driving wasn't even completely due to the fact the most stressful and traumatic day of his life was producing such high levels of adrenaline that his brain was very nearly fried. No, a very large part of it had to do with this tangle of legs and hips getting in his way. She was—very curvy.
She showed no signs of focusing on the driving, twisted as her body was to shoot double fisted out the window. They couldn't go on like this for long; as many bullets as she was sending their way she couldn't take out all three vehicles at once, especially since her injured arm had to be weak. Soon one of the gunners would hit their gas tank and he would be dying with this blonde on top of him, which he was sure, despite popular belief, couldn't be the best way to go.
Weiss swerved as a civilian car roared up from the other direction. Heart pumping double time, he tried to keep his mind from erratically jumping all over the place. He was sure he was about to go crazy. Eyes on the road. Eyes on the road. What would your sophomore Driver's Ed teacher say?
Alright. Road. Car, car, truck. Dumpster. Calle Verde. Light. Oh, looks like we're not stopping. Car. Mailbox. Cat. Crap, is this what I get for not liking cats? Good, we didn't hit it. Car. Camino Triste—He froze. The rendezvous was on Camino Triste. They needed to turn. Now.
Weiss grit his teeth. This was not going to be pretty.
Straddling the console, he slammed on the brake as he whipped the wheel around and as the blonde fell into his lap. "Hold on," he shouted, a little too late. The speed of the turn threw him for a moment into the driver's side, and then slammed him back into his own seat. The blonde was flailing; shots were ringing out; he was reaching to try to steady the wheel—
Then they were on the road and going straight. There was more blood on the seats and on Weiss; his hands were sticky with it—from the girl, he realized. More than just her arm was bleeding. She, however, was sitting up and pumping the gas for all it was worth, speeding down Camino Triste, all the while cursing him out in low, dirty Spanish. "What the hell are you doing?" she finally spat.
Weiss, for a moment safe in the feeling that they were not going to crash, despite the break-neck speed they were going, looked behind them. The two sedans, the van—gone. "Hey, it worked," he replied.
The woman was silent, and the momentary dead time was almost eerie. Weiss wondered if this was another one of those precious moments in which it would be alright to breathe. "It doesn't make sense— . . ." the blonde muttered, shaking her head, and then, for the third time that day, she had a gun on his head; he could feel the circle of the barrel against his temple. "This is your rendezvous. You're meeting your team, aren't you?" she accused.
She was using her right arm to train the gun on him, her left to steer. Her attention was divided and her entire right arm was trembling, still gushing blood. He could probably grab the gun easy; no problem, despite the sharp pain from his own wound in the shoulder. But maybe because she did have a gun to his head, or perhaps because he was just plain tired, he didn't do anything except sit there. He didn't even try to play dumb. "You helped me. They'll be fair. They'll treat you alright."
"Quiete." With the hand on the steering wheel she whipped them around another corner, taking them of Camino Triste. The gun, impressively, did not waver any further than her original trembling allowed. "I don't care how they'll treat me. I'm not about to meet them on their terms." Her voice was determined, but underneath it sadness, confusion. Desperation.
He wasn't sure what she meant. She sounded as if she might want to meet them—he assumed she meant his team—if it wasn't on their terms. How much did she know? Did she know that his team was CIA? Did she work for a neutral party who would be interested in ransoming him? He didn't think the Alliance would be interested in ransoming him. Those guys were only interested in killing.
Perhaps she worked for a government agency, then? Considering what had happened with the woman so far, it seemed likely. It was amazing how clear his head got when someone pointed a gun at it. "Look, unless you're friends with Noriega or maybe Selena they're not going to care very much what you—"
"Quiete."
That was the thing about this girl. She hadn't yelled or screamed, not once. The more intense she got, the quieter she got. That gentleness with such steel underneath it was enough to shut anyone up.
Thus it was in semi-silence that the gun-fired. The blonde panicked, eyes widening, breath shortening, grip loosening. Weiss had seen the black sedan pealing around the corner after them a split-second before the shot, so he registered what happened faster than she did. They were minus a back windshield, but other than that, fine. He grabbed the woman's wrist and took the gun, and she did not resist. The eyes she turned on him were wide, her chest hitching close to hyper-ventilation.
She thought she shot me, he realized. She thought her finger had slipped.
Her reaction told him much more about her than working out who she worked for ever could have. Though she had been holding the gun to his head, it had been a mere scare tactic. She hadn't planned on shooting him. She hadn't even thoughtof it. For the moment, she was definitely one of the good guys.
Weiss forced the woman's eyes into contact with his. Then he squeezed her wrist, placed her hand on the wheel, and echoed the command she had given him. "Drive. Before we crash."
Then it was his turn. Somehow, hanging half out the window and shooting double fisted with two guns at guys with assault weapons chasing you was easier than trying to drive with a gorgeous woman in your lap. Besides which, the woman had mean driving skills.
They'd already lost the van and one of the four-doors, and pretty soon Weiss had shot the driver in the third vehicle—how many men had he killed today?—and the car had careened off the road. He kept his head and shoulder out the window, at the ready for anyone else, but after five minutes of fast driving, sharp turns, and no sign of Alliance baddies, he slipped back into the Mustang. "I think we lost 'em," he told her, probably unnecessarily.
"Bueno," she murmured.
He sighed and tossed the guns on the console between them, a sign of a truce. She picked one up, eyes still locked on the road. He shook his head. "They're all empty, anyway."
"Bueno," she said again, and hit him over the head with the butt of the gun.
He went out like a light.
The Mustang was pulling up a gravelly road—slowing down—stopping—when he came to. Or maybe it was the stopping that made him come to. Everything was fuzzy up there in the cerebral zone and making sense was a little hard. Weiss decided not to try.
The woman beside him opened her car door and got out, slamming it shut. Weiss thought maybe he should open his car door, get out, and slam it shut, too, but it just seemed like too much work. The idea of escaping the inexplicable blonde didn't even cross his mind. She, like the leisure suit, had become a permanent feature of this doomed mission.
Weiss pondered that. Spy shows always made it seem like picking up a blonde on a mission was how it was done. After a few seconds thinking about it, Weiss concluded that the world watched too much Charlie's Angels.
She was doing something with the trunk. Weiss thought about moving his head slightly to look into the review mirror, but decided against it. Soon enough, she strolled up to the passenger side, opened his door, and shoved an assault rifle in his face.
Oh. So that's what she'd been doing with the trunk. He should have known. This was her car, after all. He wondered when had been the last time he hadn't found it natural that a gorgeous babe kept assault weapons in her Mustang. Too long ago. Oh well. He was used to the gun-in-the-face thing, by now.
"Get up," she told him, and he got up. He'd also gotten used to doing what she said. Pain laced through his shoulder, but the throbbing on his temple was gradually subsiding. He didn't think he really had a concussion, just a big bump.
She, however, wasn't looking too hot. Well she was, because she still had on that skimpy dress and she had great—but well, anyway, her skin was no longer the rich ivory it had been but now a milky, green-tinged white. Besides the large gash on her arm, she had several cuts on her stomach, blood soaking through the dress.
The wounds weren't all that bad, he guessed. A little rest, some bandages, she'd be fine. However, she didn't even seem to notice. She was forcing him up the path with the gun at his back, toward a bungalow in the middle of a . . . farm? He frowned. Her safe house, perhaps? How long had they driven after she conked him out? Was this her rendezvous? Maybe she was meeting her own team. Or maybe this was just the place she liked to call home. Either way, somehow he didn't think there was a cross-stitched "Mi casa es su casa" sign waiting inside.
"Open the door," she told him, and he opened it to a large, dusty, mostly empty room. There were some old chairs, a fireplace, a small kitchen area, and a door to what he assumed was a small bed and bath. She forced him inside and then moved around, closing the blinds, still pointing the gun at him. She was being careless, though, because she was still using her injured arm and wasn't giving him her whole attention.
Once again, Weiss decided against doing anything. Even if he hadn't been feeling so weak and addled, he wasn't sure that he would bother any more. She hadn't killed him, every chance she'd had. She'd even helped him. She had, however, kept him, when he could see no real reason for it other than ransom. And because she was a little bit careless, because she was young and obviously inexperienced, he guessed it wasn't ransom. As such, he wanted to know what the hell it was. The curiosity was killing him.
Finally she turned to him, standing near the door while he stood deep inside the room. She brought up her left hand to steady her right on the gun. For a moment, she seemed intent on staring him down, her wide, dark eyes momentarily causing his head to spin again. "What do you want?" she said at last.