belladonna | alejandro vargas ✓

【Chapter 18】

Bullets flew by her head by mere inches. She barely had any time to fear for her life as she got pushed on the ground behind some wooden pallets. She fell on her knees and her shoulders smacked against the pallets, making her wince.

"You still don't want to give me a gun?!" Beadie yelled above the fight going on around them, her eyes shifting to Alejandro.

"Not now, Bella!"

She felt like smacking him across the head for being so stubborn, but she was busy trying not to die.

Getting to Valeria in here seemed a little more difficult than they originally thought so. And the fact that her hands were still bound together didn't help either, but nobody had the time to try and set her free.

And Price, the Captain of 141 didn't trust her, understandably so. But this started to get pathetic as all she could do to hide like a coward. Not like she wanted to injure (potentially kill) her men, but now the Shadows thought she betrayed them, too.

Like nobody wanted her on their side and was ready to kill her at any moment. And that was one of the saddest moments of realization. That she now didn't belong anywhere.

The sudden silence falling around them was what snapped her out of her thoughts. Looking to the side she could see that everyone in their team was alright, which only meant that her other team paid with their lives.

A tug on her arm forced her to her feet, Alejandro urging her to hurry up. All they seemed to do was run around, kill Shadows, and run around some more. Everyone was in direct contact with the others, the three teams updating each other frequently.

There was one of the teams led by Alejandro, their mission being to find Valeria. Still needed her for intel and deep down Beadie wanted to save as many lives as she could, even if they weren't good people.

The other team included Ghost, Soap, and Rudy, but since she didn't have any radios or comm links, she didn't know anything about them. Even though they didn't believe in her and still thought of her as just a Shadow, she hoped they would get out of this alright.

"Are you okay?" Alejandro's voice came from closer than she expected, making her flinch away. She forgot how deep his voice was and how it was coated in honey whenever he talked to her.

She wasn't. But she wouldn't tell him that.

"Yes," she nodded, forcing her eyes to not look at him. She wasn't strong enough right now to look him in the eyes. "You?"

He nodded, his shoulder bumping against her softly as he kept up with her pace, both of them following after Gaz. She hadn't met him before they were assigned to the same team – well, she was forced to come with them –, but he was the only one who didn't treat her as a traitor. He was just there to do his job, make occasional small talk with them to lighten up the grim mood and mind his own business.

She liked Gaz. Beadie hoped she would get more chances to talk with him. Preferably not in the middle of shooting other people next time.

Alejandro turned his head to glance down at the blonde next to him, only to see that she turned her head away entirely. He opened his mouth to say something, but after failing to find the right words, he just closed it and acted like nothing happened.

They still had one hangar to go through, since they kept Valeria in Hangar 3. The three of them moved across the now clear Hangar 2, dead Shadows lingering in their wake. Beadie tried to shut them out for the sake of her mental health, but the air was heavy with the smell of blood and gunpowder. And with every breath she took in, she was reminded of what they did.