Embracing The Light (Arno Dorian x OC), an Assassin's Creed Fanfiction

Chapter 22 : T Stands For...

Arno rushed inside the sanctuary as fast as he could, carrying the unconscious Rosalie in his arms. Doing so made him catch the attention of a few assassins around him.
"I need some help here !" he yelled and, as he led towards the nursery, a couple of hooded men and women decided to follow him.
Rosalie's head was lying on his chest and her face was hidden by her hair, while her right arm and her legs were swaying as the man was moving around. Once he approached the nursery's entry, Arno met the masters coming from the front.
"Monsieur Dorian ?" Trenet said with surprise. "What happened ?"
"It's Rosalie." he quickly replied and his voice revealed how panicked he was. He then walked inside the nursery room and, a few feet away, noticed an empty bed.
As he neared it, he heard Trenet ask from behind. "Is she breathing ?"
"Barely." he said. Arno then delicately lied Rosalie on the bed and removed her hair to look at her face. She looked more pale than usual and had a wound on her left temple, showing that she probably hit her head when she got thrown violently due to the explosion. She had a couple of bruises on her legs as well, and Arno was concerned about the woman's state as he kept staring at her closely.
"Arno." Trenet called him from behind, making him come back to reality. "Let them help her."
The man then looked around him and noticed a couple of assassins waiting for him to move so they could take care of Rosalie. As he worriedly glanced at her one last time, he stepped back and approached the Mentor and the two masters.
Trenet still had her eyes on the woman. "I can't believe how stubborn she is. I've told her not to go after you on her own !"
"It's not that." Arno told her and the Mentor turned her gaze towards him as he kept watching Rosalie with sorrow. "She did save me last night without getting caught. But it all happened a couple of minutes ago, an explosion in our house. It hasn't reached me but..." he then paused and shook his head as he reviewed it all in his head. "...Bon sang, I can't believe I did not see it coming." he finally added with frustration.
"What was the source of the explosion ?" The Mentor asked.
"Je ne sais pas (I don't know)." he sighed as he glanced at her. "It was the least of my worries at that moment. Maybe Rosalie has seen something, but she obviously can't speak now..."
"Maybe you should return to the apartment and see if you can find any clues or witnesses." she then proposed.
But the man's gaze was turned at Rosalie, lying unconsciously as the assassins were checking her bruises. He did not want to leave her now, he wanted to be here when she would wake up.
"Arno." Trenet brought his attention back to her and she noticed how concerned he looked. "She is in good hands." she reassured him.
The Assassin first stared at his mentor, then slowly nodded to thank her. Against his own will, he glanced at the young woman one last time before he left the nursery with a heavy heart.
While he was leading towards the house, all those things Rosalie told him earlier kept echoing inside his head.
« You're right. I've been careless. I did not think straight, but it was because I was scared ! »
« Not for myself, I was scared for you ! »
« Why are you being so cruel to me ?! »
The worst part was that those were her last words to him. This was how he had left her, with tears in her eyes and a trembling voice begging for him to listen and understand her. And instead, he had let his role of mentor take over his role of friend. He had preferred to listen to his brain and ignore his heart. He had decided to leave and not to stay. Maybe if he stayed, he would have noticed whatever caused the explosion there. He could have protected her as he should have. But no, he was so mad at her for putting her life in danger because of him that he forgot to protect her when he could. And now he had to live with this guilt and hope for her to forgive his mistakes, once again.

Once Arno unlocked and opened the house's door, he took a first step inside and noticed that the smoke dissipated since they had left. He looked around and saw the broken table and chairs dispersed a little bit everywhere inside the room. As he easily guessed that this was the consequence of the explosion, he then remarked a dark circle-shaped trace on the floor, between the table and the window showing the street. The man knelt next to the trace to look at it closer and quickly gathered that this was specifically where the object exploded. Fortunately, it was positioned a bit far from where Rosalie was, the young woman was standing at the back at that moment, near the door leading to the tunnels, whereas the bomb landed on the other side of the room near the front door. Arno thought that this was possibly what « saved » her life.
But he also remarked that the size of the circle was too big to be the trace of a simple bomb. A fresh air caressing his cheek made Arno look at the window and realize that it was broken as well. He could see a hole in the middle of the window which had the same size as the trace on the floor. The person who was behind this operated from the street, and he threw something as big as Arno's open hand. The man concluded that the thrown object was big and loud enough to be a sort of mortar.