Because of the many great comments I got yesterday, I decided to update today instead of tomorrow ;)
Enjoy!!
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When she's regained full conscience, she notices, first of all, she's not in his arms anymore. This makes her a little disappointed, but she shoos away the thought, and focuses on other things. Like the battle ahead of her.
Federico is going full out, punching and wrestling men to the ground. One of his pistols has skidded to a stop next to her. From the looks of it, the battle is not going so great. Three soldiers have surrounded him. One has pinned him to the ground, and the others have started circling him.
Right when Federico notices Ludmila, his eyes go wide and the three men have cut off the air to his lungs. He's still flailing in their grasp, but the movements are slower and slower. Ludmila starts to panic and thinks, What the heck will I do? and then the pistol next to her registers in her mind. She crawls over to it, ignoring the flaring pain in her arm, and grabs it. She checks the barrel. Three bullets.
There would be no redo.
She is strangely confident as she raises the pistol and aims. Federico's face is turning purple from the lack of air, and when she fires the bullets at the men, she knows she's aimed right.
They release him, he's choking, she's leaning against the cool surface of the wall.
Finally, after an eternity, the air is back in his lungs, and he crawls back over to her weakly. "Hey, Ludmi, what happened?"
He shakes her lightly. She blinks slowly, and mumbles, "Hey."
"Are you feeling okay?" The relief is his voice is so evident, she almost laughs. If she weren't so light-headed.
"I'm fine, Granera," she says. "Just a little woozy."
The way he looks at her makes her insides feel funny.
"Do I look like I've almost died?" she asks him.
He studies her. His hair is so ruffled that Ludmila resists the urge to straighten it with her fingers. "No. You look fantastic, actually."
She smiles - hoping she doesn't look too bashful and fangirl-y - and punches him in the arm. "Again, such a flirt."
He helps her up, and she notices how much better she's feeling. A little unsteady on her feet, sure, but the pain has reduced to small spikes in her arm, which is stitched up neatly.
"Who did this?"
"Nobody, really," Federico shrugs, "just a flirtatious blonde who wanted to get into my pants."
"You're kidding."
"I'm not, I swear," he says, laughing. "I could never stitch up your wound so neatly. All she required in payment was this." He shows off his very well-toned arm - Ludmila swallows when she sees his biceps - in which someone had scrawled their number.
