Venomous

48. Escape

"You gotta get outa here," Natasha murmured, grabbing my shirt and shoving me towards the door, on my heels.

"Like hell," I grumbled, breaking through the doorframe, hesitating only a second. A second was long enough for a bullet to go whizzing directly by my head. Natasha's grip on my shirt tightened as she pulled me down.

"Disappear. Now. Go." Natasha hissed. I glanced over her shoulder to Yelena who was still looking at me like some kind of insect. That looked evolved a bit as she watched me vanish into thin air. This was going to be fun. I double-tapped Natasha on the ass and she moved past me immediately. Yelena went to follow and ran into...well...a wall of me. Or AV. A wall of us that she couldn't see.

Yes. Us.

The blonde grunted on impact, her gaze moving upwards towards where she remembered my face being. The glare was familiar. Natasha had one just like it. It was insane to me, having met Yelena, that these two were not blood related. She huffed and pushed past me, bumping me a little harder than normal on the shoulder as she passed. Once she cleared the doorway, I turned to run back inside. Just as I did, Natasha was back, grabbing my wrist. How the hell did she find our invisible wrist? "Be careful. They're mind controlled." We blinked. We must have missed that part of the conversation. This was going to be more challenging than I thought. We grunted our understanding, and the redhead was off again, dodging bullets while I turned to the several widows still inside. It wasn't surprising that disarming someone who can't see you isn't particularly difficult. It didn't stop them from drawing blades and swiping at the air, attempting to get whatever it was that they couldn't see. Three different tendrils slammed them into the walls hard enough to knock them out, but not to cause permanent damage. They could deal with a concussion, right?

Movement outside caught my eye, and I looked out the conveniently curtainless window just in time to see Natasha and Yelena both running across the roofs, being pursued by a woman in all black, and she was gaining on them. They grabbed the drainage pipe, kicking it away from the building no doubt intending to ride out of the range of danger. I watched in horror as the woman chasing them made a wild leap to try to catch up. My breath caught in my throat. There was no way she was going to make it. Sure enough, she collided with the pipe with enough force to send her ricocheting off of it. Natasha grabbed her wrist in a desperate attempt to hold on. We leapt from the window, scaling the side of the building in an attempt to get to them in time. We were too late. The woman fell to the ground hard, and when the pipe collided with the building across the gap, Natasha was falling too, her grip compromised by her attempted save.

I reached the ground and was in the process of becoming visible just in time to hear her saying something about not wanting to do it, looking on horrified as she shot herself in the face with her widow's bite. Yelena rounded the corner, vial in hand only to take in the scene, shrugging her shoulders.

"Do you believe me now?"

"How many others?" I looked towards Nat as she spoke. We knew that voice.

Tiny redhead angry.

I bit back the urge to chuckle – I doubt Yelena would have been amused, and Natasha was not in the mood.

"Enough." Yelena spun on her heel and headed towards the entrance of the alleyway again.

Natasha looked back at the now-dead widow, up at me, and then squared her shoulders. "Do something," she murmured as she moved past us, giving our fingers a reassuring squeeze that she was okay. We did something.

Natasha and Yelena were heading towards a motorcycle, but we had our own ride. We vanished as we rounded the corner again, ready to run interference so the girls could escape.