Raphael (Raif) Cruz ★ Cassian Andor (fortherebellion) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2018-08-25 10:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | nadia essex, raphael cruz |
Who: Raif Cruz & Nadia Essex
What: A wounded Raif goes to the one place he knows is safe
Where: Nadia's place in Charlotte, NC
When: Friday night, August 24th 2018
Warnings: Mentions of violence & death
Raif had been stupid, and he knew it. This wasn't like the last time he'd gotten tripped up on a mission - yeah, he'd been a little distracted after Charlie's death, but by the time Julius, the mild mannered sniper, had caught onto him, half of the reason Raif had let his guard down in the first place was because after weeks of careful observation he already knew Julius wasn't much of a threat to him. This? This was different. This was a situation where Raif really should have known to expect company, considering who he was hunting, but he'd been caught off guard.
Was he losing his edge?
Probably not something he should be contemplating while he was still exposed, bleeding on the street as he made his way slowly to the only place he could think of to go. The only place that made sense to him, but that was a thought he quickly buried deep down before it started to take root. He would have had to jump through too many hoops to get back to Camelot right then and he couldn't afford being seen. There was also a persistent wound in his side that was demanding his attention, and wasn't going to wait for Raif to get back to base before it caused him more problems. Raif hadn't been able to get a good enough look at it but he could feel it still bleeding stubbornly through his shirt.
He needed to get to a place where he could safely stitch it up himself. Fast.
The guy that Alan had him tailing had taken Raif on what turned out to be a wild goose chase, until very suddenly it wasn't. He'd known that Jo was coming out to back him up, but stupidly, Raif hadn't waited for her. He'd followed his lead all the way to Chicago, where things had almost immediately taken a turn. First, he'd actually gotten a first glimpse of Jim Moore, the man allegedly in charge of Resistance reconnaissance. The sighting had caught him by surprise, and that more than anything should have tipped Raif off that maybe he needed to take a step back from this, wait for Jo and regroup before he pursued it any further. The second thing that happened was he suddenly found himself facing off against Gabriel Knox, the man he'd lost back in LA.
The fight hadn't lasted long, but it'd been close quarters, and Raif had to get creative. It'd ended with Knox dead, knife buried in his side, but not before he'd turned that same knife on Raif and managed to do some damage himself. Raif hoped it wasn't as bad as it felt, he really didn't want to have to deal with going to the clinic. Not when he was seconds away from her place and his head was already starting to swim. He'd lost his cell phone too, even more stupid, but it was just a burner. He wasn't dumb enough to program any numbers into it and he regularly wiped the call history. It'd still left him without any way to call for help, so instead he'd gone to the first person he thought of. Raif kept his head down inside the hood of his jacket to hide the cuts and bruises on his face as he walked down the darkened streets, trying to make himself as invisible as possible while subtly clutching at his wounded side until he finally walked up the steps and knocked softly on Nadia's door. He wasn't even sure what time it was, he just had to hope she was home. Otherwise he was out of luck.