Alone ✧ KATE BISHOP

15 - Not the Guy You're Looking For

"YOU ALRIGHT, KID?"

Jasper turned from where she was gazing out the window, looking at the taxi driver in the front seat. The older man was staring at her through the rearview mirror with a concerned expression, one eyebrow raised. Clearly he had seen the brief altercation between Jasper and Kate before she got in the car.

"Oh - yeah," Jasper replied, nodding a few times. "I'm good, thanks."

The driver raised his other eyebrow. "Doesn't seem like it to me. That looked like you and your girlfriend got into a fight."

Jasper's cheeks flushed. "Oh, she's not my girlfriend. She's just a friend, that's all."

The driver chuckled and shook his head. "You sure she sees it that way?"

Jasper frowned. "What do you mean?"

"She followed you out into the cold without a jacket just so she could speak to you. Clearly she sees you as more than a friend."

Jasper glanced away again, her cheeks flushing once more. Now there was another person claiming that she and Kate weren't just friends. Was there something there she wasn't seeing?

"Anyway, where you headed?" the driver asked Jasper after a moment.

"Red Herring Apartments," Jasper said, then added quickly, "But no rush. I'm not in a hurry, I just gotta pick up something."

The driver nodded, and the two fell silent for the remainder of the ride.

When the driver pulled up to the front of Jasper's apartment, she paid him generously and stepped outside of the car. The driver pulled away almost immediately, and Jasper turned, wrapping her coat tighter around her body before heading for the front gate. But then, an ominous chill went up her spine, and she looked around. Something felt off. Something wasn't right.

Jasper looked around, seeing a suspiciously parked white van behind her. She took a step forward, moving towards the gate, but she had barely moved an inch before a pair of hands grabbed her arms and wrenched them behind her back. Jasper immediately fought back, trying to escape, as another hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her screams. Thinking quickly, she bit down hard on the hand over her mouth, leading the person to howl in pain and uncover her mouth, and she violently jerked her head back, bashing her head into someone's face and causing the hands to release her arm. Jasper then broke off into a mad sprint, rushing down the road. However, moments later, the sound of a gunshot rang out behind her, and blinding pain shot through her shoulder, causing her to scream in pain before collapsing on the ground.

Jasper's head pulsed, her vision flashing as she panted in pain. She heard voices around her - voices with thick Russian accents - but the pain in her shoulder was so great that what they were saying barely registered in her head.

"Hey, hey! What the hell, bro? Why you shoot her?"

"Bro, she was running away! And our job was to bring her in to be questioned!"

"Yeah, bro! Alive!"

"Relax, bro, I shot her in shoulder. She will be fine."

Strong hands grabbed Jasper's arms and hauled her to her feet, making her cry out again as her injured shoulder was jostled. However, as she was shoved into what she assumed was a van, she heard another voice - a woman's voice, that wasn't Russian, but British.

"Hurry up," the woman snapped. "We still have to pick up Hawkeye."

Jasper faded in and out of consciousness, struggling to stay awake due to the throbbing pain in her shoulder. She was vaguely aware at one point she was transferred from the vehicle to the outdoors and then shuffled into a building, and then put on some sort of plastic seat before being tied to it, but she kept fading in and out even after that. However, after a moment, she heard a voice - the last voice she expected to hear. However, she wasn't necessarily surprised to hear it, either.