ana kirsch . (isolare) wrote in exsanguious, @ 2015-08-24 08:37:00 |
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ANA: Being in a state of constant worry about Thaddeus was becoming her new normality. Ana had never been much of a worrier before; situation and circumstance either were or were not and as much as she could affect her immediate vicinity, as much as she could fight and protect and do the things that she had been trained for from childhood there was no affecting things outside of her control. René. Kali. Thaddeus. None of these things were within her power to change at present and they probably never would be. Ana had to come to terms with that. It was perhaps part of being in this modern world that made her increasingly uneasy with that, unsettled with her lack of agency. It was not a feeling Ana liked. So she was hunting.
It was an easy night for it and she had already broken up a fist fight she had happened upon that had nothing to do with supernatural forces simply because she had been there and no one else had who could stop the drunk homeless man putting the broken bottle in the jugular of the slightly smellier drunken homeless man. Now though she was on the trail of something much more up her alley.
Ana had sensed the vampires from several streets away and though she still had no idea how or why she was able to do such a thing and had never confided it in anyone outside of Thaddeus himself, she followed that instinct and went after them. There was a small group of three vampires herding two humans towards a car. Girls. They looked unsteady on their feet, one of them turned a heel but did not so much as react to the pain she must have felt. What was it people said here? They were strung out? Doped up? High? Ana drew weapons, traditional stakes that she had been using for years, and she moved through the shadows to engage.
VALENTÍN: The small blonde heading their way might have sensed the vampires but they had no such advantages, not with her being downwind of them and her footfalls and approach being so subtle and tactical. It wasn’t until she was close enough to actually engage that they realised she was there at all. The girls they were escorting to the vehicles -- there was one parked obviously and another just against the wall, out of the way, sitting in shadow with dark tinted windows -- were indeed strung out, the vampires escorting them had made sure of that. It wasn’t that they were concerned about the girls causing them any trouble, putting up any kind of fight that they couldn’t handle, but the last thing they wanted was to harm them. Damage them. Their lives -- such as they were -- weren’t worth that much.
It was the movement in the air as she got close that tipped off the first of them, he released his hold on the girl he was shepherding and turned to face the threat, not that he perceived it that way. Just a hunter trying to make the world a better place, fighting the good fight, thinking she could make a difference. A laugh spilled from his lips, a smug smirk on his face as he stepped forward to engage her, catching sight of those stakes but not concerned about them as he swung to knock the small blonde off her feet and back several paces.
ANA: It might have been a good hit had it been faster or had Ana not seen it coming a mile away: From the movement of the vampire’s shoulders to the shift in the stance of his feet she saw the way his body was rotating to coil back for the punch and she moved accordingly, ducking beneath it and spinning so that she could slam her booted foot into his ribcage hard enough to knock him off his feet and across the alley, into the brick wall. The second vampire moved then, shoving the girl he had been holding into the other one so that the drugged women collided and fell against a dumpster. They were safe for the time being, safer than they were moments ago, in the midst of the fighting.
Ana met the second vampire head on, using her forearm to block his incoming blow with her right side and then striking his throat with the stake in her left, his heart too much of a stretch to reach just then.
VALENTÍN: None of them saw that speed and agility coming. Hunters were something all three of the vampires were familiar with and as a result they thought they knew what they were dealing with. To say that the blonde caught them off guard was an understatement. With a wet choking sound and a spray of blood the second attacker went down, shock and alarm playing over his face as he tripped over his own feet and crumpled to the floor clutching his throat, his hand wrapped around the torn flesh.
The third of the vampires stumbled back as the ringing sound of the buckled metal and that harsh guttural choke flooded the air, a sudden violent din he hadn’t been expecting to say the least. With a glance at the girls and then back to the car parked against the wall the third vampire moved forward to engage. There were no weapons for him to draw, no gun or blade drawn from his jacket or belt, so when he surged forward, ducking around to try and tackle the hunter from behind, it was his strength and speed he was relying on to get the job done.
ANA: That tackle hit hard but Ana had heard it coming. All that momentum was turned against him: Ana braced herself, tucked her body mass in and reached up to grab the back of the vampire’s neck so that he carried himself all the way over and onto his back. Ana drove her stake into his heart, all in one smooth motion. By the time she looked up the vampire with the stake hole in his throat was struggling to his feet. Soaked in blood and gargling like an animal he looked as though he was going to attempt to get away rather than finish the fight. Ana jumped to her feet over the decomposing mess beneath her and went after him; from the side the vampire she had kicked in the ribs was coming her way again and she grabbed the shirt of the retreating vampire so that she could spin him around and use him as a shield to absorb the blow of the other.
It reverberated through the vampire shield and her own bones. Ana staked her shield through the back, piercing his heart and instantly killing him. The body dropped away and she drove forwards before the other vampire could strike again. Always on the attack, ready to finish the last vampire before the surprise and shock of her swift attacks evaporated.
VALENTÍN: The three who had been escorting the girls weren’t the only vampires on the scene. In the front seat of the car parked in the shadows, out of the light and against the wall off to the side, Valentín had been sat waiting for his associates -- subordinates, technically -- to return with the humans they had been sent out to retrieve. With his phone balanced on his leg he had his eyes down and therefore didn’t see what was happening until it was already in full swing. The sudden burst of motion that wasn’t just figures moving in his direction drew his gaze upward and quickly enough Valentín saw what was going on: a hunter had gotten involved, had most likely followed the other vampires to this point and decided to interject before the girls could be transported elsewhere.
That was unacceptable.
Huffing out an unnecessary sigh he shouldered open his door, leaving his phone on the seat. The idiots he had brought with him clearly couldn’t handle this and the fact that he had to get involved and clean up the mess for them was nothing short of irritating. Valentín didn’t even glance down at the decomposing corpse that until only a minute before had been a vampire -- there would be no tears shed for someone so incompetent a mere human hunter could eliminate them -- and made a beeline for the interfering blonde with every intention of letting her strike his associate and using that distraction to his advantage so he could grab her arm and wrench the whole limb out of place to disable it.
The vampire being charged had blood all down the front of their shirt, some of it had bubbled up their front and out of their mouth, it stained their teeth when he bared them in a snarl, and lashed out in a kick fuelled more by anger and desperation than any kind of logic or tactic.
ANA: It had not escaped her notice that another vampire was coming into the fight. Ana could feel them, after all. Sense them. Before he had gotten out of the car she had known there was another nearby but but focus for the next few moments was the vampire she was currently fighting. As he opted for a kick to stop her short Ana dropped down low, skidding against the rough ground and kicking out against his supporting knee, breaking it like a dry branch. Down he went, screeching in agony. Ana rolled and came out on top of him where she drove one of her stakes into his heart. Dead. Finished.
That was when she could give her attention to the final vampire. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the human girls in a heap buy the dumpsters; one of them was shaking and crying but her eyes were unfocused and confused. They weren’t aware of what was happening so close to them. Just as well.
Some might have tried to offer the vampire his un-life in exchange for the girls, to leave now while he could so that they could rescue the captives. Ana did not. There was little point. Instead she would take him out and then deal with the girls. Ana readied herself for the next fight; something about this vampire made her think he was going to be a tougher opponent, at the very least the fact he had been sitting in the car while the other three did the majority of the work told her he was higher up the food chain.
VALENTÍN: The little bitch was fast, he had to give her that. Before he could close his hand around her arm she was ducking down and sweeping that kick out at his fellow vampire, downing and killing him within the space of a few seconds. Valentín felt his expression twist and sour, his eyes narrowed with his hair casting a shadow over his brow as he turned towards the hunter and growled low in his throat. Nadya wasn't going to be happy about this, especially not if those girls got away, but he didn't even have to look behind him to know they were still there. Maybe he could add this little blonde bitch to their number, it wouldn't matter that his associates had been killed if he still got the girls back to his maker. That was what mattered.
Though there was every opportunity to make some sort of ominous or intimidating remark Valentín wasted no time in doing so, several choice insults he could have hurled her way settled on his tongue but he gave voice to none of them, choosing instead to size her up, make a mental note of the weapons in her grasp, and then attack.
Valentín kept himself between the hunter and the girls as he stepped close, feinted to the side, and then swung and pivoted his weight around on one foot as the other came up and out in a kick aimed for the blonde's head. Once he had her on the floor he could incapacitate her, disarm her, and load her up with the others. If she didn't suit their purposes he could just kill her later.
ANA: When he lashed out with that kick Ana was quick to turn her body into him, sideways, so that she took the impact with her shoulder, absorbing it and stopping it from actually hitting her in the head. At the same time she jammed her weapon into his thigh, just above the knee. Again it was too far to actually reach his heart, she was in the wrong position and she would have to work for it but that was something she was prepared to do.
This was what being a hunter was; those girls by the dumpster might not know what they were involved in, what had been about to happen to them but it was her job to see that they got out of this alley alive. That meant killing this vampire.
With the strike to the leg landed she forged forwards with a punch squarely aimed at his face, however, intent on using that momentary lack of balance against this vampire.
VALENTÍN: It was an understatement to say he hadn’t seen that strike coming. It was a fair enough assumption that most hunters wouldn’t utilise their favoured wooden weapons anywhere other than the chest but this little bitch of a blonde wasn’t like the others of her kind it seemed. Valentín had just enough time to see her arm arcing through the air but not enough to pull himself back out of the way and when the tip of the stake pierced and drove through the flesh of his thigh he released a harsh bark of pain that was as much indignant as wounded. Anger flashed through him, blinding and sharp, and when she surged forward swinging that punch he did what he could to compartmentalise and shut out that pain so he could repay the little bitch for the wound she’d had no right to deal him in the first place.
Twisting his weight as best he could in close quarters he brought both arms up to deflect her swing, sending it sailing harmlessly past his head and freeing himself up to drive a fist of his own into her side, aiming for her ribs, using that tight proximity and his enhanced strength to his advantage. That was the plan at least.
ANA: Checking herself for injury from the strike to her ribs would have to wait until after the fight, Ana wasn’t sure it it cracked or bruised or broke something, the force behind it was great enough to wind her and both her hands were occupied at the moment it hit home. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Not paying close enough attention. Not leaving herself a defensive move to block with. So she went with the force of the strike and put distance between them, just a few paces so that she could counter and bring her body into a more controlled stance.
With his eyes on her, his focus absolute, she knew she would have to create opportunities to strike now. Ana flung the stake at him, hard and fast, much harder than any other hunter could manage, her strangely superior strength making the thing fly like a sharp wooden bullet. It struck home in his shoulder -- no route to the heart again but that wasn’t the point -- and she followed it with a fist aiming at his face like a sledgehammer.
VALENTÍN: If Valentín had any say in the matter the ribs wouldn’t be the only thing broken by the time this fight was done. Before she’d driven that stake into his leg he would have been content to knock her senseless and finish the job later but now he wanted to hurt her, wanted to hear her cry out in pain and watch her bleed on the ground. First he had to overpower her and that was going to take a little more work than he had first anticipated, clearly. No matter, he had overcome much worse odds than these, Nadya had trained him well and if nothing else Valentín was too stubborn, too bull-headed, to quit now.
That distance made him bold, he’d seen an opportunity to drive forward and put her on the defensive but the hurled stake put an end to those plans before they had even taken form. Valentín tried to twist out of the way but too late and another snarled yell ripped from his throat moments before the punch landed. His head was snapped to the side but he set the anger and any kind of plan aside and fell back on instinct. Valentín let the force of the punch carry him all the way around, following through with a spin but not in a kick this time, lashing out with the back of one hand balled into a tight fist to smash her across the side of the face. At the same time he was reaching up with his other hand to rip the stake out of his shoulder.
ANA: If nothing else he was fast. Ana had to give this vampire that. Dimly, far off in the foggy reaches of her cogent mind she wondered how old he actually was but the part of her mind that was present in the fight had to focus on trying to counter the swiftness of those moves. Though she brought her hands up to block his strike she only managed to lessen the impact of it and it still hit with enough force to split her cheek and throw her back into the wall behind her. Ana twisted as she went, bracing herself as she hit brickwork and tasted blood. She never saw him take the stake out of his shoulder, she was much too preoccupied with unclipping a knife from her belt to strike back at him with.
Ana shoved herself off the wall, using it to propel herself towards him, not striking with the knife yet but using her strength and agility to run that short distance, leap, and put both boots to his chest in a strike that would cave the sternum of a mortal man.
VALENTÍN: It was with a satisfying crack of flesh upon flesh that the strike connected and Valentín allowed himself a split second in which to feel pleased before that was shut down too. Nadya had taught him better than that, emotions had no place in a fight because they got in the way of getting the job done, it was much better to focus and feel the elation and enjoyment after the fact. Still there was no denying he was going to enjoy beating this little blonde into the asphalt and a great deal at that, some might say too much but she had drawn his blood and that was an insult that simply could not stand.
The stake that he tore from his shoulder was hurled back at her but she was pushing off the wall and in doing so managed to -- by sheer dumb luck, he was sure -- duck just under the point as it sailed towards her. It struck the wall harmlessly and skittered off somewhere, where it ended up he neither knew nor cared as she rushed towards him. When she leapt that was surprising, he had been expecting her to slash or lunge with that knife and her boots struck him in the chest with enough power to drive him back. Valentín didn’t waste any time or energy on trying to keep his balance and instead let himself fall back, using that momentum to roll himself all the way over his uninjured shoulder and up again, baring his teeth in a snarl as his wounded leg pulled and burned. With one hand on the ground he used to other to pull that stake out of the wound as well, bringing himself upright enough to hurl that weapon back at her as well.
ANA: Subverting enemy expectations had been just as important a lesson from her father as how to wield a knife or a bow or a stake. Keeping them guessing kept a hunter alive. Ana’s back hit the ground but she immediately leapt up again, rocking her weight back and then throwing herself onto her feet. When he hurled the first stake back at her she deflected it with the knife and when he threw the second she had righted her balance enough that she caught it out of the air. With a weapon back in both of her hands she went on the attack again. Ana knew she had to make an opening to strike in, she had to keep up with his speed so that she could end him.
When she was close enough, just a few steps, she spun to kick him, to slam the heel of her boot into the side of his face, intending to crack something, the zygomatic arch or even his nose, but her real intent were the strikes that followed with the knife and the stake.
VALENTÍN: The irritating little bitch. Valentín had just enough time to snarl before the blonde was coming at him again and he had to balance his weight just right in order to meet her when she swung, when she was close enough to do so. The way in which she pivoted her body told him she was about to spin and when she did he wasted no time in raising an arm to deflect the blow. As much as possible he had to keep her hits from making contact, he had to keep her off balance and cut off her opportunities to lash out.
She was quick, he had to give her that, freakishly fast for a human, but he was a vampire. That was all he needed on his side, he had the power and the experience to back up his attacks where this little girl couldn’t possibly keep up with him. It had been luck that had seen her driving those stakes into his leg and shoulder respectively and Valentín had no intention of letting her draw any more of his blood. The same arm that had blocked her leg moved with preternatural speed to grab at her ankle and twist. She would have to roll with the twist and rethink her attack or deal with a shattered joint.
ANA: Self preservation was always key, she had always been taught that her life depended on the kind of snap decisions she made in a fight, that a sprain or a break in battle on one night could easily spell her demise on another. It was about staying in peak condition, staying at her absolute prime. So she went with the twist, hard enough to break the hold, and as she threw her body weight into the motion she brought her other booted foot around to smash the heel of that boot into him instead. Neck. Head. It didn’t matter as long as she made contact with him. It was all about the end result. It was all about saving those girls. Putting him down was a secondary concern.
VALENTÍN: A flash or anger was quickly overwhelmed by the flood of pain that followed the crack of her boot heel against his jaw, the blow connected with enough force to not only snap his head to the side with stunning force but also all but ruin his balance altogether, it sent him staggering to the side, stumbling on his wounded leg. Stars exploded across his vision and he tasted blood in his mouth, a sudden rush of it that told him he’d bitten his own tongue or sliced the inside of his cheek open on his teeth, it didn’t much matter which. Getting his balance back was more important, one hand had gone down to the asphalt before he could centre and steady himself again but he managed to save himself from crashing all the way to the ground. Low as he was he had a good angle for what he did next, throwing all his power and speed into a charge so he could tackle her around the waist, drive her up off her feet completely before smashing her down to the ground or into a wall, whichever was closest.
ANA: When he tackled her that way she had only just righted herself from how he had grabbed her ankle and twisted it, her centre of balance thrown by the sudden adjustment she had needed to make. Even if she had been able to correct herself more quickly his reaction was fast enough that she was not sure she would have been able to defend against it anyway. One moment she was on her feet and the next he was smashing her into a brick wall hard enough to buckle brick. Ana was a silent fighter most of the time but the sudden impact pushed air past her dry, parted lips with a tiny squeak of discomfort. She tasted blood. One hand, her right hand, grabbed the left side of his head, she wrapped a leg around his middle and hoisted herself up over his shoulder in one smooth, deadly fast motion. From there she drove her stake into his back, missing his heart in her dazed state. It would have to do. Ana pitched her weight forwards, tightening her grip on him and tucking herself in tight to bring him sailing over her and hitting the ground, hard.
VALENTÍN: There was no way to see that retaliation coming, it was beyond the capabilities of any human and so much faster than he had been expecting, not just in terms of recovery time but also response, the speed and efficiency with which the small blonde moved set off alarm bells in Valentín’s head, in the back of his brain, but he didn’t have time to react to them immediately. As it was the sudden intense piercing pain in his back wiped out everything that wasn’t instinctual, all he could feel was the agony of the strike, he was dimly aware of his own voice as he howled in reaction, equal parts anger and anguish, and then he was in motion without driving himself in any one direction. The girl had done it, twisting and hoisting and when he hit the ground it was with enough force to jar his entire body, it felt like, if he’d needed to breathe all the air would have been slammed out of his lungs and left him gasping and even without the need for oxygen he was dazed. Stunned. The pain in his back was all but blinding, it had missed his heart but that didn’t make it any less damaging, any less of a shock to his system, and Valentín could barely even think for several seconds as he reflexively struggled to push himself up from the ground, staggering and stumbling, his body suffering for the loss of blood and the sheer power behind the blows. This girl was no mere human. There was no way a human could do what she had done.
ANA: The vampire had hit on his front, his chest slamming into the ground, and Ana had landed on her back. It wasn’t without pain, she felt the jarring sensation but she had been prepared for it and she was used to it, so she recovered more quickly. Ana rolled to the side and to her feet immediately. It put her between the vampire and the girls who were clinging to the side of the dumpster, still too drugged out to really move.
If the vampire wanted them now he would have to go through her and she was not going to be an easy obstacle to move. If she had to choose between killing a vampire and saving the girls she would choose the lives of the girls without hesitation.
Ana wondered, briefly, if this vampire knew that. So she told him: “Leave.”
VALENTÍN: In his lifetime Valentín had felt pain of various kinds but it was more than he’d grown unaccustomed to it as opposed to any sort of general unfamiliarity, in his years with Nadya he hadn’t felt it much at all not only because of her teachings but because of her protection. There was no doubt in his mind that his maker would do whatever was necessary in order to protect him, her progeny, just as he would go to the ends of the earth in order to make sure no harm ever came to the woman who had given him everything. Nadya was not here though, she was miles away in her home and she had entrusted this task to Valentín, her favourite, the one creature in all the world she could always count on to do the job and get the results she so desired.
There was no way in hell Valentín was going home empty handed, his maker needed these girls, wanted them, and so he would take them to her. Whatever harm came to him in the process he would see things through.
Finally making it back to his feet, panting raggedly despite how needless the task was for him, a creature who required no oxygen in order to function, his back aflame with the damned length of sharp wood still sticking out at such an angle that he suspected he couldn’t reach it properly, not without a struggle, Valentín fixed the little bitch with a hard stare, baring his teeth at her. If he could just catch her gaze he could compel her, command her to walk towards him so he could sink his fangs into her throat and drain the life right out of her. “Get out of my way.” Such was his anger that he didn’t even hear the Slovak words that came out of his mouth, his brain defaulting to its native tongue in its disoriented state.
Despite the pain of the wounds, the blood -- stolen as it was in the first place -- he had lost, Valentín moved forward again, striding with a surprising amount of steadiness and assertion for someone fairly riddled with holes, swinging a blow towards her head with the intention of slamming his fist into the side of her skull and knocking her out of the way so he could reach past her and grab the girls.
ANA: At this point in the fight the odds were stacked heavily in her favour; he was injured and though he was a vampire the stab wounds and leaking blood would hinder him. When he swung a fist at her Ana moved like lightning to deflect it grabbing his wrist from the outside and bracing her other forearm against his elbow point. Swiftly, brutally she applied a sudden pressure to snap the joint in the wrong direction, breaking it so easily. Ana did not let go either; keeping her hold she moved around so that she was at his back where she could wrench his arm around place a boot on the small of his back and all but jump on him to force him to the ground, her other boot landing on the back of his neck to grind him down. Smart. Fast. Efficient in her movements, economical the way her father had taught her to be.
Ana looked up at the girls. They appeared to be coming around a little more. “Get to the car.” She nodded in the direction of one of the SUVs the vampires had brought.
A moment later sirens began to scream in the darkness. Someone must have seen or heard the fight. They were coming this way.
VALENTÍN: The girl was far from human but she was no supernatural, not in the strictest sense, there was no way a mere mortal could move the way she did even if they had had years of training. It was too late for that knowledge to do Valentín any good though and furious indignation shot through his system almost blindingly when she grabbed his wrist. What did actually blind him was the pain of his elbow being snapped forcefully, sharply, the shock of it raced all the way up his arm and set his whole body alight. It wasn’t just pain, it was agony, worse than anything he had felt in decades, and no amount of age or experience could keep the cry from ripping out of his throat. Valentín didn’t actually hear it, didn’t even really feel the way the blonde swung her weight around and forced him down. One moment he was on his feet, unsteady for the pain though he was, and the next he was face down on the ground with her boot pressed into the back of his neck. The sound that broke out of him then was more of a roar, unbridled rage and murderous desire and when the girl twisted his arm and sent another jolt of agony through his body it only made him more desperate to tear her into bloody chunks.
A vicious string of Slovak curses spilled from his lips, he could taste blood in his mouth and it did absolutely nothing to ease his fury. With one arm trapped under his body on the ground and the other so badly broken he could barely even feel it now, that goddamned stake still buried in his back, there was very little he could do but thrash futilely, spilling more blood with each failed attempt to throw her off.
Valentín barely heard the sirens, still cursing and threatening in a language the blonde probably didn’t understand, but he did see the girls stumbling away, heading out of his field of vision. No. That sight was enough to give him the strength to shove forcefully against the ground beneath his chest where his other arm had been pinned, bucking his hips enough that he could add the power of his legs to the upward rush of movement. It was enough to throw the blonde off but too much for Valentín to correct properly and with one arm out of commission and various other injuries slowing his reflexes considerably he only succeeded in throwing himself over and back to the asphalt. The stake shifted in his back, driven just that little deeper, and Valentín’s body went all but rigid for the shock of it, tears springing to his eyes and his mouth dropped open even though no sound came out.
ANA: That was her opportunity to go, not to escape exactly but to get the girls out of there and somewhere safe. If she thought that she had enough time she would have staked him there and then too but as it was there were flashing lights bouncing off brick and in moments the cops would be on them. So she left the stake in him, she left him lying in agony on the floor of the alley and she bolted for the car the girls were staggering into. Ana helped the second girl into the back seat with a gentle shove at her behind as she was half crawling into the foot-well back there, and she slammed the door behind them both before she jumped into the front seat. The keys were in the ignition, thankfully, she had no idea how to make one of these things go without the keys so it was with relief that she grabbed them and gave them a sharp twist. The engine roared to life and with a screech of abused tyres Ana pulled away.
They would go to a motel. A cheap one. There she would stuff the girls into a room and message Thaddeus. Now that she was out of the fight and in the car she could feel the bruises the vampire had given her; her back would be a mess, all mottled and sore from being thrown against the wall, but it was all worth it for the sobbing heap of girls in the back seat.
They would be okay now.
VALENTÍN: In a ragged cough Valentín brought up a mouthful of blood that spilled down his chin and out over one cheek where he lay awkwardly, watching powerlessly as the blonde piled the girls into the back of one of the cars, hearing the engine turn over, the tyres squealing against the concrete before they were pulling away. The sirens were getting close now, the lights were flashing in his field of vision and there was no time to lie there feeling enraged and indignant, no time to feel the agony of the injuries inflicted on him by some child. There was only enough time to get out of there, drag himself over and out of the haze of sickening pain and onto his stomach and then to his knees. Staggering and stumbling with his vision narrowing and every inch of him throbbing and burning he managed to reach the vehicle he had exited only a short time ago, the same car in which he had been waiting for his incompetent -- and now deceased, nothing but ash -- associates to return.
The phone that had been balanced lightly on one leg was still on the seat, knocked to the floor to bounce into the footwell when Valentín hauled himself back inside. Blood oozed and pulsed from the wounds, his broken arm hung limply at side, banging against the car’s door as he all but fell into the driver seat. The damned stake was still in his back, buried beyond the point that he could reach it, forcing him to hunch over the wheel as he fumbled for the keys with one arm, cursing breathlessly and raggedly all the while.
As ashamed and empty handed as he was there was only one place where he could go, only one person he could turn to, only one person who could help him. Loathe as he was to admit he needed help at all he had no other options. Nadya. He needed Nadya.