Cut It Out and Restart *Daredevil*Damned*Agents of SHIELD*

5) In the Limbo

Nica's head was spinning, air coming out in raspy short breaths – every single one of them hurting like hell –, she tasted copper in her mouth, one from the blood dripping down in a trickle from her hairline and she saw next to nothing, darkness seemingly closing around her vision with each terrified beat of her heart.

She supposed she deserved that. For that stupid quip at Gibbs and her fake self-confidence, for ever thinking she could pull this somehow, even if it was only to run away from the prison of her previous life. God, she had been so fucking stupid and this served her right. This was how she was going to die.

Had her comms been still in work, had she had a chance at survival, she would start her mission report like this, letting her imagination go wild, going back years and years when they were learning how to write a narrative in a goddamned elementary school. With my heart in my throat, fear of the fall and the landing stealing my breath, I jumped out of the jet, leaping into air... Yeah, that sounded about right.

Good news? She hadn't ended up a puddle of tissue on the concrete roof as she had originally thought she actually might.

Bad news? Twenty minutes or so into the mission, she was most definitely pinned under a block of concrete, that thing heavy as fuck and feeling like it was crushing every bone in her body to dust and turning her internal organs to mashed potatoes with beetroot.

She really needed to control her imagination and get her head in the game.

Was there any chance at winning though? Because Nica was willing to bet all of her money that she was bound to lose.

She had no superpowers. And for all she knew, there was nothing but pain in cards for her, even if she got out. What was the point in trying?

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," a voice echoed through the dusty ruins of what once had been a warehouse, a haunting exasperated whisper reaching Nica's ears over the sounds of dripping water, crackling electricity and ... thuds and beats of her own heart.

She blinked her eyes open, her mind fuzzy and buzzing as she couldn't even begin to hope to put a face to the strangely familiar voice. She was met with a sight of a barely lit corridor, if it could still be called that, and squinting, too tired and too scared to even move her head to try and follow the voice, she focused on identifying it.

Her throat burned, dry and scratchy and she attempted to cough, tears spilling as sharp pain shot through her shoulder and her torso, her ribs screaming with agony. Her gaze trailed along the broken block of concrete, both of her arms trapped under it as well, her left one more than the right one.

Nica was fairly sure there was a metal bar pierced through her shoulder, one sticking from the concrete, but she wasn't sure, barely able to tell which part of her body hurt and the light was too poor, few rays barely getting in, to actually see it. She was terrified to as much as shift in her position, because if her spine was damaged too, then one move could mean that the pain might go away while her consciousness would remain; and lying there paralysed until the death took her, now that was just too much of a sickening image and a nightmare coming true.

Fucking shit. Forget voices, maybe that was the angels – or the gatekeepers of hell – calling her. Just fucking take her already and make the pain go away along with her consciousness--

"You know what? I'm really, really pissed at you right now," the voice grew louder, as if the woman was coming closer and for whatever godforsaken reason, Nica strained her neck, turning her head a bit to the left so she could see her--- and her heart positively stopped at the flash of orange hair, seemingly glowing even in the dark.