I'm Here | ✓

15 - Followed

Something's wrong.

I glance at Steve from across the living room. He's lounged across the couch, reading from a thin little book. I was thinking about some of the memories I had written down in my previous journals and transferring them to my new one. I don't know what it was, but something didn't feel quite right.

I scanned the room. Nothing had changed. Steve flipped a page in his book calmly.

It was quiet outside. That's what I noticed first.

We had kept the curtains drawn over the windows as a precautionary measure and hadn't opened them since we got here. I leaned back in my chair and drew it back to peek outside. There wasn't anything, except the red Jeep Natasha dropped off a few days ago so we could replace the stolen one. No cars, no people, no reason to be worried, just... silence.

"Bucky? You okay?"

I dropped the curtain and looked back at Steve. "Yeah. Yeah. Just paranoid."

I glanced back outside. Something was really wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

My eyes drifted to the Jeep, and I noticed something out of place. Wrapped around the front bumper was a little metal piece that was oddly silver as compared to the red of the car. I tilted my head, staring at it.

It blinked once.

I launched myself up from my chair, and Steve looked up at me again, startled. I yanked him up off the sofa and backed away from the window. "There's a tracking device on our car. I used something like it once." I slammed the curtains shut violently.

"A tracking device?"

"Yeah. I bet that guy we saw last night, he was a distraction. I could see the car from where we were sitting, but I had my attention on him."

Steve set his book down and grabbed my arm. "Are you sure it's a tracking device?"

"Yep."

He turned and paced to the bedroom. I followed a few feet behind him, concerned. He picked up the metal shield T'Challa had sent him, and I took the cue. I opened the drawer of my nightstand and took out the knife I had hidden there.

"Shoes," I whispered. "Just in case."

"Good thinking." We crept to the living room and I slid on a pair of tennis shoes. Good thing I was already dressed; if we ended up fighting, I didn't want to be doing it in sweatpants and a T-shirt.

"Natasha said the windows were bulletproof, right?" I asked, looking outside at the tree line.

"I think so. I hope so."

Something moved in a way that a tree shouldn't, and I kept my eyes trained on it. It was bigger than a bird or a squirrel. The shade of the trees made it difficult to see, but based on the style of my attackers, I bet it was a sniper. I didn't see a gun, but I didn't see much of anything.

"Steve. I think there's one over here."

"Yeah, I was about to say the same thing." I glanced at him, and he was peering out the kitchen window in the other direction. I looked back at mine. A sniper wouldn't move this much. They were practically begging for attention, and that's exactly what they got.

Something fell out of the trees, bouncing and rolling towards the house. A little metal disc.

A bomb.

"Get down!" I screamed at Steve, lunging towards him. The explosion went off, ringing in my ears, and we pulled each other closer. He brought his shield around in front, but in the smoke and creaking metal, it was impossible to tell where the attack was from. I glanced around, my eyes stinging, breathing hard.