The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Forty-Three

Nothing that Holly had said sounded good.

The first thing I knew, I was leaning over Ivan's body, my hand at his throat, while gunfire rained down around me, the second, all the agents had killed themselves and my sister, who used to be on the team of the people trying to kill us, was screaming at me about some missile that was coming down to destroy us all.

Story of my life.

Holly yanked me up by my armpits, which sucked, because A): I had just dislocated my left shoulder and it felt like a bajillion knives were repeatedly stabbing into my arm, and B): I was sweating so much it was Lake Erie under my pits, which made me blush bright red, as Holly was probably thinking I was disgusting, and, though I knew she didn't care (she was more interested in surviving the missile aimed for us), I was still a teenage girl who got embarrassed by pretty much everything. I hissed through my teeth, clenching my fists. "Do you mind? My shoulder is actually dead here." I snapped, wobbly rising to my feet.

"No time for that," My sister replied, yeeting the remote out of my hand. It clattered to the floor. "There's a massive missile headed for this mall and if we don't get everybody out in five minutes from now, we'll all be six feet under before you can say pumpernickel."

I swallowed nervously. "Why pumpernickel?"

Holly shrugged. "I dunno. First word that popped into my brain I guess."

"Four minutes, fifty three seconds remaining," Nat said, running up to us with the others in tow, her phone out. She looped her arm around my waist and I gratefully put all of my weight on her, smiling at her wearily. 

"Come on!" Fury snapped after a momentary silence. "Back the way we came - there's no way out otherwise." He, Steve and Peter began to move off in the direction of the staircase, Nat and I limping after them. When we got to the top of the staircase, ready to head through the vents, I noticed that Holly wasn't following us.

"Holly, we gotta go," I hissed, a sharp pain ripping through my limp arm. "Come on."

Holly looked determined as she rubbed her cheekbone to remove a drip of blood. "No," she said.

Steve's eyebrows furrowed. "Kid, you're coming with us and that's that. So hurry up - we only have four minutes left."

"Yeah, you might be an asshole, but seriously. We're not gonna just let you blow up!" Peter said. I glared at him, a silent promise to knee him in the shin later.

"No, it's not that..." Holly blew on a stray strand of red hair. "There's a hundred or so kids with gifts that Agnelsson was experimenting on in the cells under this base. I know we can't get them all out, plus all the civilians in the mall above, but I think I can stop the missile."

"How?" Nat looked confused, her eyes showing pain and wonder.

"I-" Holly swallowed. "I'll need Kira's help. And Evie too." She took a deep breath. "We need to access our powers."

A chorus of outrage burst out through the others. I heard Nat yelling the loudest, followed by Steve, and of course Peter, who looked angrier then I'd ever seen him. Fury, of course, looked angry all the time, but he was yelling against Holly's idea, so I suppose that was more normal. Once everybody had calmed down slightly, fury said, "Miss Adams. We're not going to let you do that. You can come with us if you want, but if you wish to die, you can stay here."

I elbowed Fury in the stomach, something I didn't think was possible. Everybody was silent, and I was very aware that the longer we stood here, the less time we had. The ominous beeping coming from the remote on the ground next to Ivan's lifeless body wasn't helping, either. Everybody started yelling again, a chorus of 'nopes' and 'hell nos' and 'nuh-uhs'.