Seeing Vash move like a phantom with that look on his face, she couldn't breathe. There was no more of the light and life that he normally carried with him, just a dark stare that seemed to settle into her soul and chill her to the bone. It was a miracle that she could follow his movements, dodging and firing his gun with so much grace it would have been beautiful if he wasn't hitting the men who'd ambushed them with shots that caused blood to spray over everything around them. One perfect shot after another, laying the men out on the ground in lifeless heaps as he continued toward her. He'd been staring at her the entire time, their eyes locked and unblinking as the men cried out and screamed, choking on their own blood as the life sputtered from them.
Liana couldn't even struggle against the man who was dragging her through the dirt as Vash gained on them, walking now with such stillness in his steps that he almost floated toward them. She could hear the man behind her crying out for Vash to stay back, to stop coming for them, but he didn't even look at him. His dark eyes locked on her as he raised his gun and shot, warm blood spraying over her head as the man behind her flew off his feet and landed on the ground with a sickening thud. She was left kneeling there on the ground as Vash walked to her side, reaching out his hand toward her like he hadn't just slaughtered a dozen men in what felt like a single breath.
And still she reached for him, grasping his hand like a raft in the ocean as he pulled her up to her feet and against him. Her arms wrapped around his body, burying her head against his chest as he just stood there holding her. His heartbeat was even and calm, steady breaths revealing that he was not at all bothered or worried about what had just happened and she couldn't help but sob out his name at the inhumane demeanor. She'd never thought him capable of this….
"It's alright, Lia," he breathed, a sudden hitch to his tone and he was Vash again. The ice in his voice faltering and before she could understand what was happening they were falling backward. Her fingers dug into the back of his shirt as she tried to keep them upright, but he was just too heavy for her. Falling back like dead weight they hit the ground and she pushed herself up on her arms to stare down at him in confusion. He was just laying there smiling at her, dark fluid soaking through his shirt on the left side of his chest. She reached out to press her hand firmly against the wound, trying to call out his name but there was no sound to her voice. "You're okay."
Liana jolted away with a sharp gasp, trying to sit up and look around for Vash, but there were warm hands pressing her lightly back down onto something soft. The space was so bright it hurt her eyes and she tried to squint to get a better look at the figure hovering over her. Warm brown eyes that were clearly worried, eyebrows pressed together in concern. It took her several moments of blinking to finally be able to see enough to work out that she was back in her own bedroom. Had the entire thing been some horrible nightmare? All of it? When she tried to sit up again, pain wracked her shoulder and chest and she groaned deeply as Nell kept pressing her back down on the soft bed beneath her. If she was still in pain that meant it hadn't been a nightmare at all and Vash was-.
"Vash?" she hissed, looking up at Nell with tears in her eyes. "Where is Vash?"
"Sleeping," Nell replied quietly, nodding her head across the room and when she followed the motion she spotted Vash sitting in one of the dining room chairs that had been brought up against the far wall by the door. He was slumped back against the wall and covered haphazardly in his red jacket like a blanket. "He was a nervous wreck when you two got back. Lia, you could have died!"
Nell didn't understand what she was talking about, how she should have been more worried about Vash dying than her. Liana fought to sit up again despite Nell pushing her back down, reaching up to shove Nell's hands off of her. She could see the hurt flashing over Nell's features as she fought to get up, staggering on her feet as the wave of pain in her chest made the room spin. Pushing herself through the pain she shuffled slowly over to where Vash was sitting, reaching out to brush her fingers along his arm to try and get his attention without jostling him too much. There was no way to know how hurt he was and if she scared him awake it might only aggravate his condition. The fact that she was still in pain meant he hadn't healed her completely, but it was hard to tell exactly what that meant for him. When his eyes fluttered open slowly, peering up at her she let out a low breath she didn't realize she'd been holding back. He looked a little pale, but he was there. He was there and he was still Vash. Once he realized that her standing there meant she was up and about he jerked up out of the chair, gripping her gently by the elbows.
"Lia, you shouldn't be up," he demanded, steering her back toward the bed. Nell stepped aside as he eased her to sit back down. "How are you feeling? Are you in very much pain?"
Liana just shook her head no, reaching up to rest her hand on his chest where her wound would have been mirrored on him and he seemed to understand what she was getting at. He stepped back to talk to Nell, whispering something to her that had her giving Liana a look before she nodded her head and shuffled out of the room and shut the door. Once he was sure the door was shut he crouched down in front of her, gripping her hands in his.
"It's alright, I'm okay. You're okay," he assured her giving her that stupid little smile like he didn't do anything out of the ordinary.
"Did you do it?" she demanded, wiggling her hands out of his and reaching for his shirt again. "Tell me you didn't, you promised-."
He reached up to grab her wrists, holding her firmly so that she couldn't reach for him any longer. When she tried to shrug out of his grasp again he just shook his head no and refused to let her go.
"I said…I would try," he reminded her, the guilt on his face clear as day. "I never promised."
"You could have died! It was too much you should have-."
"Should have what?" he bit, dropping her wrists finally and standing up to step away from the bed. "Let you die? How is that any better? That man shot you because I was there, because you were there with me."
"I was there with you Vash."
"No I mean-I mean with me. They thought that killing you would hurt me and they were right. He shot you instead of me because he knew it would hurt more. He knew that it would stop me coming for him." She tried to stand up to go to him to demand to see just how much of the wound he'd taken. He was moving around like he was perfectly fine, but she'd seen him move and do things that didn't seem feasible. What if he was much stronger than he looked? More durable? When he spotted her trying to stand he held his hand up to point at her and she froze. "No, stay. Please just, stay there."
"And what if it had killed you instead?" she whispered, balling her hands into the sheets to keep herself seated like he'd asked.
"It wasn't going to. I know you think it would have, but it wouldn't have."
"And how do you know that it wouldn't have?" He just looked over at her in exasperation, tossing his hands in the air before threading his fingers through his hair in frustration.
"Because I am not human, Liana! How haven't you figured that out yet?" The words were like a slap to the face, Liana flinching on the bed as he just stared at her in desperation. He looked like he was at his wits end with her and she couldn't blame him, she was lost. "Just-look-look I will show you." He moved back across the room to stand before her where she sat on the bed, tugging up one side of his shirt to show her a rather long scar that looked like someone had once tried to gut him with a knife.
"I was hit with a-a harpoon, I guess that's what it was called. Ripped right through me. I was fine hours later." He pulled up his sleeve to show several small scars dotted along his forearm. "Machine gun, shielding a group of kids from a man that was aiming for me. And-and this-." He pulled down the left collar of his shirt where a fresh bandage was plastered, larger than her hand. "-from that shot. How could I be standing here after all of that if I were just some normal person?"
"I don't…know. Know how-I can't-," she stammered, shaking her head. Of course she knew how, he'd told her. He'd told her all of this long ago that he was capable of things that humans could never hope to do. Seen him move and subdue enemies in impossible ways. "Explain…how it works."
He let out a long sigh, nodding his head when he saw that he was finally getting somewhere with her. Vash just leaned back against the wall across from her and a long silence set in. She found herself fidgeting impatiently and quickly stopped when it caused jolts of pain in her chest.
"I process things…differently than normal people. I can speed up or slow down healing to a degree. It's not a perfect process hence all the scars," he said dead serious. "You were bleeding out faster than I could get you help. It was easier for me to just take the bulk of the wound, enough to stop you from bleeding out and I could fix myself faster than I could fix you if I didn't do it. And sure, I get another scar, but you…live. I'll take that trade off any day."
"Why? I can't understand why you would allow yourself to be hurt for people who wouldn't do the same for you," she mumbled, clenching her eyes closed as the throbbing in her chest caused a wave of dizziness to hit her even though she was sitting. All her body wanted to do was collapse back onto the bed and sleep for days, but she needed answers.
"You would have." Her eyes snapped open, looking back up at him in confusion for a moment before he continued. "You told me to leave you there. To just go and let him do who knows what…to keep me from getting hurt. That is why."
She had wanted him to just run. To leave her there to whatever fate awaited her if it meant it would spare him from getting hurt. It was so easy for her to push her own well being out of her thoughts and focus on making sure he was the one who made it out unscathed. So how was it so different for him to do the exact same thing and have her complain about his lack of self preservation. When it came to Nell and Vash, she would have done the exact same thing. She would have healed whatever wounds they had if she was capable, consequences be damned.
"You need rest, sleep. To let your body heal," he sighed, gesturing for her to lay down on the bed and for once she didn't argue with him. Swinging her legs up onto the bed she curled into a small ball on her mattress as Vash pulled the blanket up over her body. "After a few days or rest and sleep, we'll be fine. It will be like nothing ever happened."
All she could do was nod blankly, closing her eyes to drift back off to sleep, praying that she would have no more nightmares of Vash murdering people so ruthlessly. The days that passed after they'd returned home were mostly a blur. Nell spent a lot of time at Liana's bedside, changing her bandage on a wound she had to pretend was a stab rather than a shot, even though she knew by the look on Nell's face that she wasn't buying it. She wasn't allowed to leave her room aside from trips to the bathroom because Nell was sure that going up and down the stairs would aggravate her wounds. As far as Liana could tell, she had no idea that Vash was hurt in the slightest and by the way he carried himself he was certainly handling his pain better than she was. Did he even feel pain the same way she did? There were so many times he had acted hurt, but there was no way to tell and she was done trying to ask endless questions of him.
Most days they all ate meals in her room, piled up on her bed like it was some kind of sleepover and for a moment she thought that things might just return to normal. That once she healed they would be traveling around and working like nothing had ever gone wrong. It was a nice little daydream to have and it kept her from going out of her mind being confined to the second floor. But there was a sinking feeling in her stomach every time she caught a glance of Vash when he thought she wasn't looking. When she would catch him talking to Nell in hushed voices at the foot of the stairs when she'd venture out to the bathroom. Part of her felt like maybe he was secretly mad at her and she honestly couldn't blame him, she was mad at herself for being such a hypocrite.
One fine morning she woke up early, finding the house quiet and she thought she might be the only one awake. Deciding that she'd had enough of being trapped upstairs she dressed and headed for the stairs. Her chest still ached when she tried to lift her left arm too high above her shoulder, but it was getting better and she didn't even need the bandages anymore. So she was going to go downstairs and make breakfast for everyone before they woke up. Taking the stairs slowly she peered down into the living room expecting to see Vash sprawled out on the pull out bed like she'd seen so many times before, but the couch wasn't pulled out and Vash most certainly wasn't on it. Maybe he had woken up first and was already in the kitchen?
When she reached the bottom of the stairs she turned to find the front door hanging wide open, Vash standing out on the porch with his back to her in his red coat and dark pants fully dressed like he was about to go somewhere. As she inched closer to him he turned his head to look back at her, nodding for her to come and join him on the porch. Part of her didn't want to go to him, feeling like if she did it was going to lead to the very thing she'd been fearing for a long while after he'd come to stay with them. But her feet carried her out onto the porch with him, leaning on the railing with him as he looked out over the barren front yard quietly. There was no way for her to miss his bag sitting by the steps confirming what she already knew was happening.
"Vash," she breathed shakily, unable to look over at him. "You're leaving."
"Yeah, I am," he sighed, looking over at her. "I have to."
"Why? Because I got hurt? I've been hurt before…."
"Yeah I know, but not like you will be hurt with me." He straightened himself out, stretching lightly like he'd been leaning there for a long time waiting for her. Had he been doing this every night and this was just the first time she'd dared to venture downstairs to find him. She wanted to be thankful that he hadn't just left without telling her, but that thought just made her stomach turn. "You're tough so getting into normal fights and scrapes on the job is normal. When I'm with you people will try to do far worse than just kill you. And if my brother ever found you-. I was never meant to stay here, Lia."
"I know," she muttered, staring down at her hands on the railing. It was the only thing keeping her from falling apart and she was focusing on it with everything she had. "I told you, you're not a prisoner here. But, what about Nell?"
"She already knows. I said my goodbyes to her already," he assured her and she realized all those hushed conversations they'd had were about him leaving. Nell had known for days. Was that why she kept looking at her with such tight expressions? "I just…I wanted to wait until I knew you were truly back on your feet."
She nodded her head slowly listening to the sounds of him shuffling in place like he didn't know what else there was to say. He was leaving and there would be a good chance that she would never see him again. And there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say that would make him stay and she knew it. Without a word she turned back to the house, stepping back inside and fishing her keys off of the table near the door before returning to the porch and holding them out toward him. She kept her eyes on his feet as he turned to face her, his right hand slowly reaching out so that she could drop the keys into it.
"Human or not, you can't walk everywhere. It's the least I can do for you saving my life," she mumbled, wringing her hands together to keep herself occupied long enough for him to walk away. "And…there's a key. For the house. You're always welcome here, Vash. No matter what."
"T-Thank you. That means a lot."
She nodded, watching as his feet turned away from her toward the stairs and he started walking away. When she heard him heaving his bag up off the porch she turned back toward the front door, reaching out to grip the frame to keep herself standing as she waited the hear the truck roar to life, but it was silent. If she begged him to stay would he listen to her? Probably not, but she wanted to yell after him. To scream and cry and plead for him to just stay.
After a long moment she wondered if he had just ignored her offer of the truck and took off on foot and she almost turned to see if he was walking up the drive when his arms suddenly wrapped around her shoulders gently, pulling her back into his chest with his chin resting lightly on the top of her head. Her heart felt like a lump in her throat as she reached up and rested her hands on his arm, gripping him as tightly as she dared.
"Goodbye, Liana," he whispered, giving her a gentle squeeze and what she could have sworn was a soft kiss on the top of her head before his arms vanished.
She just stood there shaking as she listened to his footsteps thudding down off the porch, gravel crunching under foot and the truck starting. In front of her, Nell was coming down the steps, their eyes locking and the understanding in them was too much. Liana slid to her knees, sitting down on the porch as the truck vanished down the driveway. Nell approached her slowly, crouching down in front of her as Liana reached out to grab her by the arms, sobbing brokenly.
"Let's…get you back to bed," Nell whispered, tugging on her gently. "You should sleep."
Sleep and rest were what Nell kept insisting that she needed to get back on her feet again, but Liana wasn't so sure. There was a tiredness that had settled into her bones that she couldn't shake no matter how long or little she slept. Any time she left her room it was to grab something to eat because her stomach was hurting with hunger or to go to the bathroom. Beyond that she just sat there staring off into space or trying to read a book to pass the time when she wasn't unconscious. She could tell that Nell was worried about her, but she couldn't muster enough energy to even care to reassure her. It didn't matter how many times she told herself that she needed to get up and stop being so pathetic, every attempt to make herself move ended with her planning to go after him.
Those first few days she had amped herself up to go after him, to drive to the ends of the damn earth to find him and tell him he was being an idiot. Then she'd remind herself that he was right about everything and the closer she was to him, the more danger she would be in. That would only cause more problems for him that he already had going on and the thought of being a burden to him was almost as horrible as the thought of never seeing him again. So she sat and kept convincing herself it was for the best. He didn't owe her anything, nor her him, so this was just the way it was going to have to be. But that didn't mean she had to be content with it.
Those days turned into weeks, weeks to months, and one day out of the blue she got up and headed down the stairs to get a snack. She'd been standing there at the kitchen counter, looking around at all the spaces she could still see him standing in, plotting the very imminent demise of the dining table when she heard his name.
"Vash The Stampede———in the city of July———."
Her heart leapt up into her throat as she rounded the counter and spotted Liana on the front porch hanging out laundry. She was listening to the news broadcast and despite her better judgment Liana found herself gravitating to the static filled sounds, inching out onto the porch with Nell to hear what was happening. Was he really in July? That was so close, she could get there in less than an hour and-
"Oh! Lia," Nell gasped, suddenly realizing she was there and instantly tried to reach for the radio to turn it off but Liana held out her hand to stop her. She needed to hear what was happening in July….
"———citizens are warned to avoid traveling———entire city decimated———."
July…was gone? It was one of their largest cities and it was just…gone? Nell didn't wait to hear any more, turning off the radio as Liana just stood there staring at it in disbelief. How was it possible for that whole city to be destroyed? She'd seen the damage in the town outside Augusta, but July was ten times that size. It didn't seem possible. And she knew that it couldn't have been him that destroyed it, he could never.
"Let's go back inside," Nell whispered, reaching out to grab Liana gently by the elbow like she was trying to mitigate some disaster to come. "I'll finish hanging the laundry later."
"His brother," Liana muttered earning a confused look from Nell. Had he never told Nell about his brother? He'd certainly never told her about his abilities. "He has…a brother. He's the one killing people. Not-."
She couldn't even bring herself to say his name. Saying it out loud only made it that much more real and with everything going on there was no way for her to handle it. Nell took in the information but she still seemed confused, just as she had been when he'd first told her.
"Twins. He's his twin," she clarified, turning to walk back into the house without Nell's help. She shuffled slowly up the steps, feeling Nell hovering just behind her as she went. "That's why they hunt him. Because they think his brother is him. That bastard…."
"So do you think that his brother is the one who destroyed July?" Nell asked, following her into her bedroom.
"It has to be. You know he wouldn't have done it. Not if he could help it."
Nell stood there watching as Liana moved to her closet, digging out her bag and tossing it onto the bed. Liana moved without really thinking, going to her dresser to pull out stacks of clothing and sitting them on the bed next to her bag. She couldn't go after him without putting more of a strain on him, but she could go after the people that were framing him. She knew if she stayed in that house she would have been more likely to burn the place to the ground just to erase the memories of him that lived there.
"You're…going to July? But they said it's gone," Nell breathed, stepping over to the bed and to her shock, started grabbing the stacks of clothing she was sitting out and stuffing it down into her bag.
"I have to stop the people that are spreading all these rumors about him," she demanded, noting the small look of relief on Nell's face as she helped her pack. "Someone has to tell the truth about him and I'll be goddamned if I sit here wallowing in self pity and they're out there making him into even more of a monster."
"Can…can I go with you?"
Liana glanced up at Nell in confusion. She'd never wanted to come with her whenever she'd gone on jobs and she'd chalked it up to being afraid but she didn't look afraid now. She was just standing there loading clothes into the bag with a focused expression. He had been her friend too so it was silly of Liana to think that she wasn't suffering too. They'd bonded so quickly and he had genuinely made her laugh so of course she would want to help him in anyway she could too. Liana just stepped back over to the bed, pulling her bag from Nell's hand and gave her a small nod of approval.
"Go pack your bags, I don't know when we'll be back."
Sitting there wasn't doing any one of them any good and if she could find some way to help him without having to be at his side, she would take it. The smallest hint of a connection that she could hold onto without dragging him down. They would go to July and see the damage for themselves and from there…try to track down the people responsible. She'd chase down the rumors until she found whoever was spreading them and put a stop to them once and for all. She swore that if it was the last thing she did on this earth, she was going to show people that he was not the monster they all believed he was. She was going to set the record straight.
"Have you been to Augusta before?" Nell asked from the driver's seat of the jeep, glancing over at Liana as she tied her hair up and out of her face. It really was getting too long, well past her shoulders now and if they had the time she was going to have to have Nell cut it for her.
"Not the city proper, no," she huffed, flattening out the map she had been using on her lap and marking little notes along the edges and crossing off a small town just outside of the main city of Augusta. "The closest I've been was here, Little Jersey. That was two years ago though, when-."
When she'd been shot and he had walked out of their lives. She didn't need to say it for Nell to know when it was. They never talked about that time anymore, like it was just something that had faded into the past and they would never visit it again. They'd been on the road for a long time, only returning home a few times after particularly rough jobs. The two of them found that there was no shortage of criminals out there that were all too happy to use the infamous name to pretend they were tougher than they really were. The last seven they'd come across claiming to be the wanted man himself had all been hacks they'd dragged off to jail. New July was still in the process of being built, but there were enough detention centers and repurposed warehouses to lock the scum away. And with each one they took off the streets she was able to sleep a little easier at night.
Now they were heading to Augusta where a man was reportedly smuggling guns and boasting about the now sixty billion bounty on his head. She knew there was no chance that he would truly be distributing guns to anyone, let alone other criminals so it was a good place to be. The less guns in the hands of murderers would help everyone. If they could find him, though she didn't think that would be too much of a problem. The ones that were boasting that they had such a large bounty on their heads usually weren't that hard to find if you knew where to look for them. The police certainly weren't too interested in actually tracking them down in case they came across the real deal. He still scared the police shitless and she took a little bit too much satisfaction in that fact.
The upside to visiting the larger cities meant they would have a nice place to stay for a few days instead of sleeping in the jeep or her little tent out in the middle of nowhere. She and Nell always shared a room even though it gained them rather odd looks, but neither of them really cared what others thought of them. Once they'd settled their things into their room, happy to find they had their own adjoining bathroom they set out to work. The two of them would usually split up and wander around the areas trying to see if they heard or saw anything that might lead them on the right path and would meet back at the hotel within the hour.
With this city being larger than the others they usually investigated they decided it would better to go around as a pair rather than split apart in case they got lost and couldn't find their way back to the hotel. It took them two whole days to come across anything close to a lead, finding a group of grubby looking men huddled together in an alleyway. They were talking about large stores of weapons. It certainly sounded like what they were looking for, they just had to hope that when they followed the group that they actually took them somewhere worth while. If they had to spend an entire week just chasing this man down there was no telling how many guns he could get into the hands of other criminals in the city.
She and Nell were able to keep close enough tabs on the group of men as they moved through the streets, pretending to window shop arm in arm. Tourists weren't uncommon in the larger cities so no one aside from the random street vendors paid them any attention. It wasn't until the group moved away from the main roads that things became a little more difficult. They had to skulk along down the alleyways with him, hiding behind corners and bins as they went. The group had stopped outside a large warehouse door, knocking a few times before they were asked several questions before they were let in.
"Clearly sneaking in through the front isn't going to happen," Nell mumbled, peering around the corner with her as the group vanished inside and they could hear a heavy lock sliding closed. "What do we do now?"
It didn't take long glancing around the building for Liana to spot the service ladder on the side of the building that lead up to the roof. If there was any kind of roof access they may have been able to slip into the building that way and try to see what was going on inside. Nell didn't seem all that thrilled about climbing the building, but she didn't complain as she followed Liana along down the side of the building and went straight for the ladder. It was old and rusty, but it held as the two woman climbed it slowly to avoid alerting anyone inside that they were there. The top of the roof was in no better shape than the ladder, several large sheets of plywood laid out everywhere covering what she assumed were holes in the flat roof. As far as she could see there was no access door on the roof, but there were several large skylights lined up along the center of the roof. The glass was dingy and dirt covered, Liana having to use the sleeve of her jacket to smear off a little corner enough to see through.
"So, this guy supplies the weapons, free of charge, and all he wants us to do is hand them out…," a loud male voice called out, drawing Liana's attention to a rather tall man sitting on a stack of crates. "You can see where I have doubts about this. Too good to be true."
"You can think whatever you like, I am simply delivering the message. The Master expects you to distribute the product and sew as much chaos as you can. The more attention you draw to yourself, the more likely he is to show his face." The second voice belonged to another man Liana couldn't see, glancing all around to try and spot who had been talking. The entire group of men were all facing off into the warehouse better the stacks of crates, presumably listening to man that was hidden away in the shadows. "And why he does show, you kill him. It's all rather simple."
"Simple? If it was such a simple job, the Typhoon would be dead already, now wouldn't he?"
Whatever it was she had thought they were planning before, this was worse. Not only were they handing out weapons to cause more crime, they were doing it to somehow lure the real Vash out. Had he been in hiding since July? That would have certainly explained why they hadn't managed to run into over the past two years. Was this so called Master the twin brother he'd told her about?
"Do what you are told," the hidden male voice snapped and the group of men seemed to shrink back by their tall leader seated on the crates. "If he has to come down here himself, none of you will be left standing."
The room stayed silent as the hidden man's footsteps started stalking away from the group. Somewhere downstairs she could hear the lock on the front door sliding open along with the doors to let the man leave. She found herself slinking over to the edge to try and catch a glimpse of him as he was leaving, seeing the tail of a while coat and dark hair vanishing down the alleyway they'd followed them men down.
"Is that his brother?" Nell asked softly, inching over to try and see the man for herself.
"I don't know, I couldn't see his face," she hummed, nodding her head back toward the skylight they'd been using to spy on them. "Let's see if we can do something about these idiots first and worry about that guy later."
Maybe once the group left they could set fire to the building and burn it all down before they had a chance to hand out the weapons inside. Of course that would mean possibly setting fire to the buildings around them too, but it wasn't a particularly populated end of town. A fire would be easier to put out than crates and crates of guns flooding the streets. She could have Nell go ahead of her and report the fire before setting it to be sure they were able to arrive on time to put it out before it spread too far.
"Nell, you should head back and alert the police to a fire down here," Liana muttered, peering back down into the room through the dirty skylight. "I'll wait a while after you're gone to set it. We can't let them hand out those weapons."
"And how exactly do you plan to start a fire?"
"I'll figure something out. Just be careful getting down-."
She'd stepped to the side of the window, peering around the rooftop for anything she could use to light on fire with the lighter she'd taken to carrying to start campfires with when they were caught in between towns. She was so worried about Nell getting down safely that she wasn't even really paying attention to her own footing, stepping onto the side of one of the sheets of plywood scattered around the roof. There was a loud groan from the wood where she stepped, both her and Nell freezing in place at the sound as they waited for something to happen. When the wood didn't give out under her wait she let out a long, shaky sigh and stepped back off of the wood just to be safe. Liana slowly shuffled herself a little farther away from the plywood, but apparently it wasn't what she should have been concerned about. The roof itself was what had apparently been groaning. She'd stepped onto a soft spot in the rotting roof and there wasn't even time for her to get words out as it gave under her feet and she was falling with a loud yelp.
The fall from the roof to the floor could have been enough to kill her if she landed just so, but luckily for her there were several stacks of crates in her way to break her fall. She tried to throw her arms out and grasp for the crates as she fell, but the first one she collided with along her right side knocked every ounce of breath in her she had. The men all turned to stare at her in shock as she bounced off the first wooden box and landed on a second, rolling down until she smacked face first onto the dirty concrete floor with a groan of pain.
"What…is that?" One of the men muttered, something nudging her in the side harshly. "It's a chick!"
"Why don't you help our little bird to her feet?" She hissed loudly as someone grabbed her by the arm, wrenching her up off the floor and pushing her toward the man that was sitting on the stack of crates beside where she'd fallen into the room. "What brings you all the way down here little one?"
"I was looking-for someone-," she gasped, feeling her ribs ache sharply when she tried to draw in a breath. "-got lost."
"Oh, you're lost alright little bird," the tall man cackled, sliding down off the stack of crates to stand in front of where she was being forced to stand before him. "Do you have any idea who I am?"
"N-No, can't say-that I do," she breathed, shrugging her shoulders lightly.
"I have the single largest bounty on my head and you don't know who I am?" the man laughed, all his men around him cheering a whooping. "I am Va-."
"No, you're not," she spat, realizing she'd apparently bitten her tongue on the fall. "Don't insult him like that."
The man glared down at her, watching her closely as she refused to shrink away from his stare. She wasn't exactly in an ideal position to be running her mouth but she had to hope that Nell would be able to find some way to distract them long enough for her to get away. She couldn't chance glancing up to see if Nell was even able to do anything in the first place without possibly giving her away. She could see that her little interruption didn't set right with the leader, watching him grind his teeth as he pushed into her personal space and reached out his hand to pat her sharply on the cheek.
"Oh, and what are you going to do about it if I do?" the man chuckled, gripping her by the chin roughly. "You're lucky to be standing after a fall like that. Maybe we should break your back and finish the job."
Several of the men around them started laughing, others muttering about not letting her go to waste. Sure she was hurt, but she wasn't entirely immobilized. All she needed was one good distraction and she could get away from them. With all the crates surrounding them she could easily hide and whittle their numbers down. Liana just smirked up at him as she nodded up, watching as the man followed her gaze to the hole she'd fallen in through. A small silver canister fell in through the hole, bouncing off the same crate she had before it hit the ground with a loud clang. All of the men just stood there staring at it in confusion before it suddenly erupted into a cloud of smoke.
Wrenching her arm free of the man who'd hauled her up off the ground she slammed her elbow back into his gut, causing him to double over and her to slip away into the warehouse under the cover of the smoke bomb Nell had dropped in on them. Crouched behind one of the crates she listened as the men coughed and cursed, the tall man shouting for them to find her and kill her. She wrestled a black scarf from her back pocket, tying it around her face to cover her nose and mouth so that she could breathe a little better with all the smoke flying around. Now all she needed was something to start a fire with.
The men were in complete disarray, unable to really navigate the smoke well enough to find her. She kept low to the ground, creeping around and through the crates until she spotted several bottles of whiskey they'd been drinking on. Carefully snagging one of the fuller bottles she laid the others out onto their sides carefully, allowing what little whiskey was left in them to spill out onto the floor. Inching toward the wall where the smoke wasn't as dense she pulled the scarf from her face and started tucking it into the whisky bottle she'd stolen, tilting it upside down a few times to wet the fabric before she pulled her lighter out and lit the very end.
Standing up from her hidden spot she made sure to mark where the exit door was as she tossed the lit bottle into the center of the room where the other bottles lay discarded. On impact the bottle shattered, spraying fire all around and she could hear several of the men screaming. One of them had been hit in the initial explosion, his clothing catching easily and no matter how he thrashed on the ground it didn't go out. He was essentially rolling the fire around, spreading it with the whiskey trails on the floor to the stacks of wooden crates surrounding them. It hadn't been her goal to kill any of them, but at this point there was nothing more she could do to stop what she'd started.
As the men all ran for the door she crept along the wall along the side, making sure they were all out before her so that she wouldn't be leading any of them out to where Nell was possibly waiting. As she spilled out into the alleyway she could hear the men yelling and cursing as they fled, glancing around the see Nell climbing down from the ladder that lead to the roof.
"Lia! Lia we have to go," she hissed, grabbing her wrist gently as she started down the opposite end of the alley that the man had fled to. "The fire is spreading fast."
She could already hear the crates inside crackling and popping as they caught, smoke billowing out of the high windows on the warehouse walls. It didn't take them long of running down the streets to find a police officer, telling them a story of how several men had tried to kidnap them and in their attempt to escape lead to one of them knocking over a kerosene lantern. They were both out of breath and with Liana smudged with soot it wasn't hard to convince the man, watching him as he ran off to no doubt gather more men to go and fight the blaze. At the very least the guns would either be destroyed or taken in by the police themselves. Now all they had to do was get out of dodge and leave the city as soon as they were able.
The trek back to the hotel wasn't pleasant, Liana hugging her right side as she hobbled along beside Nell as quickly as she dared. Most of the people they passed were headed in the other direction either to help or spectate the fire that was now burning bright enough that it lit the darkening sky with an orange glow. With the hotel in sight, Liana stopped caring so much about the people passing them, focused on getting inside and seeing to her ribs. They were likely bruised and she hoped that was the worst of it. If they were broken there would be a good chance they'd be heading home for a while until she was able to heal.
But that mean the possibility of losing the man with the blue hair she'd seen fleeing the warehouse. He was interested in drawing out Vash which meant he was someone they needed to stop. Either the man was Vash's brother or he worked with him, either way it was something they were going to have to look into if they wanted to stop the rumors going around accusing Vash of every horrible thing that happened in their world. Maybe, just maybe, once everyone stopped treating him like a monster he would be able to come back to them.
"Let's see," Nell murmured, locking them in their room. She'd eased Liana onto the bed, helping her to pull off her shirt as gently as possible. "They're definitely bruised."
Looking down at herself she could see the scrapes where the wooden crates had dug into her when she collided with them, the faint outline or purplish brushing starting to form in a large area along her right ribs. Nell's hands moved lightly over the space, pressing gently here and there to test if they were broken. As far as she could tell they were just tender and Nell seemed to settle on the same conclusion, grabbing for a washcloth and wet it so that she could clean the scrapes a little before they set back out again.
They packed their bags in a hurry, ready to get out of dodge before anyone could track back to them for starting the fire in the first place. Nell shouldered both bags even though Liana had insisted she was fine to carry one, leading them back down the stairs and outside the hotel to load everything into the jeep. Liana rounded to the passenger door to get in, pausing when she spotted Nell just standing at the back of the jeep staring at something.
"Nell? What is it?" she called, stepping around the side of the jeep to see what she was staring at. "We have to go."
Nell just pointed to a spot along the side of the hotel building, a beat up gray truck parked there, several new bullet holes along the side like it had been shot at. She hadn't seen the old truck in so long that it took her a moment to recognize it, her heart thudding pathetically in her chest. There was always the slim chance that they would run into him sooner or later, but part of her never thought it would happen. There was no chance that she could be fortunate to get to see even one more time, but there the truck was. Maybe someone had stolen it from him and they were now using it to get from town to town? Maybe it was just a different truck all together and it was just wishful thinking that he could really be there.
"Lia?" His voice was like a blade cutting through her, so familiar and clear, unlike the fuzzy memories of him that she'd tried to hold onto. He was standing behind them somewhere, Nell immediately turning to see where he was, but Liana couldn't move. She felt like being there was a betrayal all on it's own and if she looked at him now, there would be no way she could let him walk away from her again. "Liana…?"