in love with a villain | choni

-41-

Cheryl coughed out blood as she watched him pull the hammer back, concluding the night with one loud gunshot echoing under the building's high ceiling. Indeed, the loud sound hit her ears differently. She accepted her death right at that moment, but something was off. She heard and felt the man drop on his knees, together with the gun that fell directly on the floor. Even a splash of blood hit her face. Feebly, she opened her blurry eyes and saw a glimpse of a person, standing a few meters away.

Toni didn't expect herself to have done that. She shot him. Right at the back of the head. Once she realized what she had done, she dropped the gun with her hands shaking visibly. She got frozen for a moment, but when she heard Cheryl coughed a few times, she cried and ran to her.

"Babe, babe," she whispered, sobbing while scanning her bruised and cut face, and almost lifeless body lying on the floor. "Oh, my god. No, no, no." She wiped her face gently before she removed her shirt to cover Cheryl's punctured torso.

"Hey, hey," she cupped her left cheek while firmly holding the shirt to prevent her open skin from bleeding, "we need to get out of here, okay?"

"Uhm...." Toni was in panic the whole time. Her whole body was sweating despite the cold of the night and wearing nothing but a sports bra. Watching Cheryl bleed on the floor made her wanna pass out, but she shouldn't. The next thing she did, even though she was too jumpy, was to remove Cheryl's belt from her pants' loops to lock and seal the shirt on her belly.

Toni calmed herself a little by breathing in and out for a second. "Okay, okay, okay, we have to go now. Come on." She tried to carefully make her sit up, but Cheryl refused because of the numbing pain she had to tolerate.

"N-no," Cheryl husked and feebly shook her head, "... you h-have to go... There are bombs... to explode any m-minute now. G-go. Go!." She pushed Toni's hands away, convincing her to leave the place at that second.

"No!" Toni yelled, crying. "I'm not leaving you here. I'd rather die than leave you behind," she said and Cheryl just closed her eyes in exhaustion.

Toni stood up and decided to have a grip on Cheryl's jacket. "I'm gonna drag you slowly, okay? I can't carry you, I'm sorry. Okay, uh... one, two and-" She began dragging Cheryl through the tiled floor.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we're almost there," Toni said when she heard Cheryl grunt in pain. "Stay with me, p-please. We're almost there," she sobbed.

While the noise of clash lowered down, Cheryl's breathing got it sync.

"Babe, please." Toni saw Cheryl with closed eyes, so she knelt to her right. She gently tapped her cheek to wake her up saying, "hey, hey, don't sleep... Please? Open your eyes, come on."

Cheryl didn't comply but coughed weakly.

Toni began crying, looking around and screaming for help. She continued dragging Cheryl out of the place and when they reached the exit area, she heard Archie calling for them.

"Archie!" Toni cried out. "Please help us!"

Archie ran his way towards them. He took his jacket off and gave it to Toni to cover her blood-painted body. He placed the rifle on the floor before carefully taking Cheryl in his arms.

"Toni, grab the rifle and run after me. Go as fast as you can, okay?"

Toni nodded anxiously.

While the other remaining surviving troops were striving to last, Archie and Toni vigorously moved their feet to their service car. Archie tenderly placed Cheryl on the back seat of the van and Toni got in shortly.

"Come on, Archie!" Toni yelled, sobbing. She moved to kneel by the car floor to level her face with Cheryl's.

"Babe? Can you hear me?" Toni softly called, wiping Cheryl's bloody and sweaty face with her hand.