No Tears | NR

Chapter 36

Oświęcim, Poland

A scary moment of silence followed after the shot. Yara looked down to find that she was fine. The sound of someone being in pain caused her to look up. The scientist was holding her stomach and applying pressure to it with both hands, but that didn't stop a steady stream of blood from spilling out of a wound on her stomach. That's when Yara finally snapped out of it.

She grabbed the injured woman by her shoulders and slowly eased her down on the floor. Then she pulled off her sweater and shoved it into the scientist's hands who pressed it onto her stomach.

Neither of them spoke a word and both of them had temporarily forgotten about Griebel. They were only reminded of his presence when another shot went off. This time, Yara knew that he had gone for her even before the bullet hit her. She felt the small piece of metal pierce her flesh and bones and latch itself into her shoulder. Yara stumbled forward, almost stepping on the scientist's leg, and hissed in pain.

She had lost count of how often she had been shot and killed by bullets and her sensitivity to pain had decreased immensely since her childhood. But that didn't mean that the shot didn't hurt. Her tiredness was becoming increasingly worse and she feared that it would overwhelm her soon. Nevertheless, she still managed to attack Griebel.

Yara practically jumped at him and threw him onto the floor with her on top. She started punching him repeatedly. Her fury was giving her strength and her vision was becoming blurry. All she could feel was her anger and hatred as her fists came down on her torturer's face again, and again, and again. The skin on her knuckles tore, but she didn't notice or care. She broke his nose somewhere along the way which didn't stop him from grinning at her viciously.

Her wild rage almost made Yara miss that he said something. She stopped hitting him to hear his words.

"You can't win." Griebel grinned wider. His voice was barely more than a whisper, but he still managed to give it its usual edge of cruelty. "There's others like me-" He took a break to breathe and coughed up blood, before he continued, "-who're going to find you." Griebel chuckled which cost him his last strength. Then he passed out.

Yara backed off of him immediately, almost like his skin would burn her. She stared at his beaten-up, unconscious body.

"What have I done?"

Her eyes landed on her hands which were covered in blood. Most of it was Griebel's but some of it was her own. She wasn't able to keep them still. They were shaking and she couldn't tell if it was from tiredness or something else. Her legs buckled underneath her, no longer strong enough to support her weight, and she fell to her knees, ignoring the resulting pain.

"What have I done?", she repeated in a whisper, not being able to tear her eyes away from her hands.

A sound behind her caught her attention. She looked back to be reminded that there was someone left in need of help. Yara gathered the little bit of strength that she had left to get back up onto her feet. She stumbled over to a cabinet, dragging her feet across the floor, and went to look for anything that could help the scientist.

The brunette returned to the other woman a short while later with several small bottles, gauze, and a syringe.

"What do I do?"

Yara felt panic rising in her chest. She had never had to help anyone. She knew how to take someone's life, but she never had to save someone.

"Too - too late", the scientist coughed up blood.

Yara knelt down in front of her. "No, I can help you. Just tell me what to do!", the brunette insisted.

"Too late for me-"