"Absolutely Not."

Chapter 40: Red

The pain in my hand knocked me to my knees, my vision immediately flashing white from the sudden assault. I could barely even look at the damage as I tried desperately to catch my breath. With the amount of sleep I'd gotten, or lack thereof, and the sustenance they barely provided, my head swam while warm liquid coated my entire my appendage and leaked onto the cement beneath me.

Red.

I no longer saw red from anger as it spilled right from the chunk missing from my hand. I'd stupidly, somehow, covered the barrel's mouth of Mara's pistol right at the wrong time, and I immediately became nauseous at the accidental mutilation.

My eyes could see that I was missing a finger, but my brain couldn't process it. Not until the other woman who'd shot me tried to minimize the wreckage by crouching down to my level and seeing if she had anything to wrap it with.

There were no tourniquets or really anything to help staunch the bleeding but the restraints already tied around my wrists. Without warning, she tightened the handcuff on my left wrist, and when I made a sound of protest, she only tightened it even more.

We needed to move again, but my head wasn't cooperating. Not when it could hardly comprehend the fact that I was missing a fucking finger.

"You dumb ass, covering the gun up like that," she hissed out. "We need to get to the other side of the hallway so we can properly wrap it. If I'm going to kill you, it's going to be intentional."

In shock, I let her yank me up in a standing position and subsequently rush me to the end of the hallway where she could better help me from bleeding to death, and I wondered if we were being followed yet.

With my uninjured hand and an unsettled stomach, I bore down on the wound with my bare hand, the nausea worsening when I felt wet bone and tissue instead of skin. I had to swallow down the nausea for the sake of survival.

Without a perfect tourniquet to completely pinch the flow, I had no choice but to leave a trail of crimson as we ran down the hallway in the opposite direction from where we'd originally heard those other gunshots.

There was no way they hadn't heard what had just occurred between Mara and myself. Had I screamed? Shrieked? I couldn't remember, but with the two gunshots almost back-to-back... surely that rose some red flags.

My head swam from too much trauma inflicted upon my body. The hunger, dehydration, and now blood loss, I could hardly stand up straight.

Bruises bloomed on my skin already, but all I could feel was the agony bursting in my hand, throbbing with each time my heart beat. If I had the energy or the contents in my stomach to do so, I would have thrown up.

"Get up," Mara growled at me when I fell to my knees again, but I couldn't. My knees were now balls of pudding, unable to withstand my weight.

The ground beneath my shaking legs and blood-stained hands trembled and swayed as if I were on the deck of a concrete ship with both war and a heavy winds causing the vessel to rock.

This time, it was my own blood that I had on my own hands, and it felt almost like karma was continuing her joke as Mara tried to pull me to my bare feet. Where was the punchline? The whole thing had to be one giant nightmare, right, because how could I get this fucking unlucky?

Scarlet smeared against cold grey as I countered Mara's yank, my injured hand smacking against the floor's hard surface with a slick thud, and I yelped out in pain.

Her words were hissed out in panic, but all I could hear was a train heading straight towards us while my head spun to see where from which direction it was coming.

With my good hand, my wounded one dangling right behind it, I weakly shoved her face away from mine, but it only smeared blood all over her, too. It was getting everywhere.

Whispering to herself, all I caught was her repeating, "fuck, fuck, fuck," as she tugged me forward again, but I was practically dead weight at this point — drained in all sense of the word.

"Get the fuck up!"

I couldn't.

All of my limbs seemed to have been replaced with sand as the blood trickled out of me, and I became an exchange of substances, an off-kilter balance that couldn't make sense of reality.

She dragged me a couple of inches before she suddenly stopped, leaving me to uselessly tend to my hand when she let go of me.

When she spoke next, it wasn't directed towards myself but to whomever stood behind me, and by the click of a gun that I managed to hear above the ongoing train engine, we weren't alone.

'Please, for the love of some god out there, get me the fuck out of here,' I thought to myself.

Squinting up briefly and swaying slightly, I witnessed Mara holding up her arms in surrender, her eyes holding nothing but determination. I pulled my drenched hands to my chest, kinking the blood flow as much as possible and creating elevation.

I wasn't going to make it much longer if I kept bleeding like this.

The person behind me took a step towards us, and my gaze flickered to Mara's fingers that I knew itched to reach for her gun she'd sheathed in order to get me up to my feet. They spoke first, "Move, and you'll paint the walls red to match the upstairs walls like your friends."

Gaz?

I'd never heard him so angry before.

"I was helping Holland. She's injured," Mara said, and I hated how her response wasn't entirely a lie.

I had minutes left. Maybe, if I was lucky.

"You think I'm stupid?" He spat out, and he took another tentative step. As soon as her hands dipped a centimeter, he barked, "Hands up!"

Her panic was starting to show. She knew Gaz to be a good shot having 'been with' the task force long enough to know everyone's skill levels. One wrong move, and she was fucked.

"Kelsey, you good?" He then asked after ensuring the danger had been subdued for a moment.

My back was to him so he had no idea the extent of my injuries, but the blood I'd now trailed like a goddamn fairytale character should have screamed that I certainly was not okay.

With a grunt, I strained out a "Peachy" before everything spiraled further into the depths of hell.

I wasn't sure if it was because Gaz's eyes had flickered down to look at me when he had regarded my injured state or if Mara thought he had truly dropped his guard, but either way, she took advantage of his attention temporarily being on me instead of her.

As soon as one of her hands flew down, curling around the same pistol behind blowing my finger off, I didn't hesitate in reaching up and pulling down on her forearm so that her hand wouldn't move from where it froze.

I clenched my teeth together to keep myself from letting go or screaming out in pain from having to cling onto her with all nine of my fingers, the ghost of the tenth one begging for mercy.

My scarlet fluids caused my hold to slip slightly, but I'd be damned if my friend got hurt, too. It was my fault that I'd gotten everyone into this mess, and he wasn't about to get injured on account of my mistakes.

The bang of the gun behind me resonated down the hall, and the mercenary standing above me crumpled to the ground almost on top of me. I had to act fast and recoil so she wouldn't land on me.

Instead of two blue eyes looking back at me, there was only one as the other had been replaced with a gaping hole.

I guess the third time was the charm to bring the bitch down.