Echoes from the Past

4 - Tempest

The grogginess of coming to did nothing to chase away the pain that encompassed Rosa Diaz's body. What the hell? She thought before vaguely remembering what had happened. They had both heard the gunshots. Gina and Rosa both jumped in response, wasting no time in handing Talia over to her. "Babylon, now," she whispered as she followed them out of the storage room, gun drawn and protecting Gina's six. Once outside of their sacred bathroom, Rosa pushed the filing cabinet out of the way and pushed her gun into Gina's free hand. "Stay, don't come out until I come get you."

"Rosa, no, get in here. How the hell are they going to find you in here?" Gina begged.

Instead of answering, Rosa shoved her just a little harder and then shoved the door closed before sealing their hiding spot with the filing cabinet. She knew that no one would find her in there, and that was the problem. Damon would kill half of this precinct in order to get to her, and she couldn't let that happen. Talia had to stay safe, her friends had to stay safe. Making her way back to the storage room, she left the door open just a crack to watch for mercenaries. There was no other way to get to Babylon except for this hallway, so she couldn't let anyone pass, lest they heard Talia crying. She didn't have to wait long until a shadow crept passed the door. Slipping out as silently as her damaged body would allow, she grabbed the guy in a chokehold before quickly snapping his neck. Unfortunately, there was no time to drag the body back into the shadows of the storage room when three more men rounded the corner and made eye contact with her. She fought back, hard, but she was just too weak to take them all on herself, especially when one of them withdrew a syringe from his pocket and shoved the needle deep into her arm. She watched as the vile liquid disappeared into her system and tried her hardest to fight the sleepiness that eventually consumed her.

Shaking her head to clear away the grogginess, a pained yelp escaped her lips before she could stop it. It felt as if her skull was cracked open, and it could have very well been if she was able to move her hands to feel it. Quickly finding that her hands were bound, she tried her best to get them free. Zip ties. Although difficult to get out of, it wasn't impossible. As she worked, she carefully lifted her head to get a picture of where she was. Dim light shone through holes in the roof of some kind of warehouse and fear gripped her when she realized how close it looked to the one she was imprisoned in five years ago. Not only that, she seemed to be in a cage, a step up in security to make sure she stayed put this time. Laying her head back down, she felt her cheek twitch when a cold stickiness coated it once more. She was lying in a pool of her own blood. Damnit, a head injury is not what I need right now, she though in a panic. A tiny smile of triumph cracked in the corner of her lips when the felt the zip ties pop, so she slowly sat up, her head barely touching the top of the cage. It was roughly six feet wide by seven long, and it backed up against a steel wall behind her. If she stayed in the center all the way in the back, she knew human arms couldn't reach her, but other things might. Reaching her hand up, she found a large gash just next to her temple which explained her headache as well as most of the blood. Just before she was going to assess the rest of her injuries, the door to the room she was in slammed open, and her heart stopped when the lights flipped on; it was Damon.

As he walked closer, another smile cracked across her face as she recalled what she had done to his face. "How's your nose?" she mocked, much to the dismay of her captor. After being sedated in the precinct, Rosa found herself jarred awake not even an hour later. The quick movement ignited pain in her shoulder and side but told her that she was in a van on a grimy floor, on the move to who knows where. Another quick jar tossed her to the side, but it was the face that then invaded her vision that caused her to involuntarily gasp in alarm. The manic smile on the man's lips turned into a confused frown when she smiled back, but that compared insignificantly to the pain and rage in his features that followed her false smile. Blood sprayed from his nose when she channeled all of her anger into one of her greatest headbutts of the century. The copper taste of his blood on her tongue tasted like sweet revenge and followed her back into darkness when the butt of his gun smashed into her forehead.