Finding Jade - A Bucky Barnes Story

Chapter 9. To Die For (Violence, Violent Death)

As her father approached her with the knife Jade began to panic, trying to pull herself out of the strong hands of the two men who held her impassively.  They lowered her to the floor and one held her legs down as the other sat on her left arm while stretching out the right.  Without hesitation her father inserted the tip of the knife into her right arm and pressed the blade into it.  The pain, the white hot pain, seared itself into her brain.  It was much worse than what she had experienced in the dreams from Bucky's memories and she screamed both in her mind and with her voice.  As he told her more of his warped plans her father cut into the artery and she felt the blood spurting over her face.  There was nothing left in her, nothing but despair and disbelief that a man would do this to anyone much less his daughter. 

She never even registered the sound of a rifle, or the spray of blood that bloomed at the back of her father's head.  The look of surprise on his face would always stay with her but as he fell forward onto her she became aware that the two men who had held her down were suddenly fighting hand to hand with someone.  She tried to look but whoever it was moved too fast for her to concentrate.  Then two soft hands were under her arms,  pulling her away from under her father's body and off to the side and she heard her mother's voice.

"That bastard," she cried, looking over Jade from above.  "He hurt my baby.  I had to kill him, he was hurting you.  Hold on baby, I have to put a tourniquet on you, fast."

She raised her head and had a better look at the fighting now.  It was Bucky in a knife fight with both men.  He had a knife in each hand and was whirling and twirling the knives as if he were a circus performer.  His skill was incredible and as hurt as she was she felt awe and pride that it was her man, her love that was fighting for her.  Her vision started greying out and she felt fuzzy in her mind until a sharp pain on her arm drew her attention back to her mother who had ripped her shirt off to use as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding in her arm.  The sharp pain was her twisting the shirt tight to stop the artery from bleeding her out.  Running to a bathroom Ma grabbed a towel and brought it back to apply to the wound itself, protecting it from further trauma.  Together they both watched Bucky do an impossible horizontal roll in the air and slice one of the men's Achilles' tendon with his outstretched knife in hand.   That man went down screaming in agony, holding his leg with both of his hands.  The other man succeeded in planting his knife in Bucky's shoulder as he fell to the floor but he just ignored it and actually pulled it out, throwing it away, before flipping back up and attacking the remaining fighter.  The man on the floor tried to pick it up but Steve and Clint had arrived by then and aimed their guns at him.

"Steve," yelled Ma, seeing him at the door.  "She needs a hospital now!  He cut her brachial artery."

Steve nodded and used his comms to call Sam, who came crashing through the doors of the balcony within seconds.  He picked Jade up and ran out the doors flying up into the sky.  Steve came around and pulled his jacket off so Ma was covered.  Together they watched Bucky and the second man continue to fight.

"Shouldn't you stop him?" asked Ma.

"No," said Steve.  "He won't kill him, just hurt him really bad.  Actually, he's kind of playing with him right how.  He just needs to get it out of his system and I have no problem with it.  We have control of the estate.  Excuse my language but these fucking people didn't think what they did was wrong.  Is that a mummy on a throne?"

He pointed at the mummy of Elder Abraham and Ma gasped.  "He's dead?" she exclaimed.  "John's been using a dead man to take people's money and live like a king.  Why did he need Jade?"

Bucky climbed up the second man's body wrapping his thighs around the man's head and neck putting him into a choke hold and held him until he was unconscious and fell onto the floor.  Then he released the unconscious fighter, shoving him away, and sat there on his knees getting his bearings back.  He was barely winded, looked around and when he didn't see Jade he started to panic.