The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Forty-Five

It hurt.

Everything hurt.

I groaned and moved slightly, every part of me aching. My head was throbbing, throbbing like it never had before. I was trembling, I realised, and when I tried to stop the shivering, a blinding pain lashed through my entire body. I blinked slightly, hissing through my teeth at the pain that that tiny movement caused. I could see stars flashing before me - dancing in a dizzying spiral, swirling and whirling behind my eyelids. Swallowing a blob of phlegm and clenching my fists with the pain it caused, I opened my eyes and pushed up behind me, blinking dizzily.

I surveyed my surroundings. I was lying atop a pile of rubble, smoke and dust drifting up around me. Small fires scattered the bleak landscape, which were slowly drifting in and out of my vision, darkness swimming at the corners of my eyes. Not wanting to pass out again, I moved my left leg slightly, causing myself to cry out in pain. Tears bubbling in my eye sockets, I looked down at my leg, which held the majority of my injuries. Horrifying scar tissue covered in blood and dirt ridged over on my skin, a dull pink laced with white bone and dark crimson. 

Well damn.

Hissing as a blinding pain speared through me, I shakily pushed myself onto my feet, wincing grimacing as I surveyed the rest of my body. My clothes were ripped and covered in blood; my fingernails were cracked and broken, my left arm, the one that had been dislocated, hung like a dead weight off my shoulder, and the entirety of my body was covered in angry, purple-and-yellow bruises. Not a pretty sight. I stumbled over to a small puddle lying in a sinkhole in the centre of the rubble, where I looked down at my reflection in the dark, muddy water: my red hair hung in limp, soot-coated tatters down my back and I had a badly bleeding cut on my forehead. 

I looked around, searching for any signs of life. I hadn't landed in the mall, thank god - when the missile had exploded, I remember being pushed off north, towards an apartment currently being renovated, so hopefully nobody had been inside when I'd fallen into it. I limped around, crying out when I tripped down the pile and landed with a sickening crack on the mud-covered ground. Breathing in and out slowly, I staggered upright and continued in my search, looking in vain for the girl who I knew had fallen with me - Evie.

And the girl who I knew was surely dead, sacrificing herself for the good of the world - Holly.

Choking back a sob, I began to hobble around, the cold, harsh wind buffeting into my face. After half an hour or so of wandering, I saw something that made my heart do frantic, fearful backflips in my chest - a lock of blood-soaked red hair, lying on the ground next to an even larger pile of rubble. 

I hurriedly dropped to my knees, frantically pushing away the rubble, my fingers bleeding and arms aching with the effort, but nothing would stop me. Not even stopping to wipe away the tears that snaked down my cheeks, I pulled at the final piece of concrete that was separating me from the person inside the rubble, and, gritting my teeth, I unearthed an arm, pale, lightly-freckled, and covered in blood and dirt. 

Evie.

I pulled at the arm, my own body straining with the agony of the effort, until I managed to get Evie's torso free of the rubble. Her body slumped against mine, her red hair blowing across her face, which was bleeding from a massive gash on her cheek. I pressed my head to her chest, yearning for the small flutter of her pulse, my heart stopping completely when, after a couple of seconds, I couldn't hear anything.

Until...

A tiny fluttering movement pulsed against the side of my face. Evie's chest, still until now, rose and fell like the ocean, steady and small, but there nonetheless. The rhythm of her breathing was music to my ears, and I sobbed in relief. After I'd dug out her legs, which were ruined, just like mine, we lay there, her head on my lap and me too exhausted and in pain to do anything else.

"Kira?"

I whipped around, my eyes widening when I saw the source of the voice. It was a girl, her ink-black dress in tatters, her arms and legs covered in bruises and scratches, a massive gash on her scalp dripping blood, which ran into her matted amber hair. Her sea-green eyes shone like feverish beacons out of the hollows of her gaunt face. As she stumbled towards me, she tripped, steadying herself just before she hit the ground.

I let go of Evie and, wincing, pushed myself towards her, staring at her in confusion and wonder. "Holly... how... you're... you should be dead!" I took in her appearance, every nook and cranny of her familiar face, and almost sobbed in relief.

Holly threw her arms around me and we sank to the ground. Her body was shaking and she looked terrible, but she was alive. I squeezed her even tighter and said into the crook of her neck, "You totally died!"

She let out a watery laugh that quickly turned into a sob. "I'm sorry, loser," she breathed. "But I couldn't leave my Salvatores. That includes you, you know." 

"Yeah," I sniffed and let the tears stream out of my eyes. "I know, Holly."

After the hug had ended, we stood up shakily, smiling at one another through our tears. Holly took Evie's legs and I her arms, and together, we carried our sister through the destruction and debris, the smoke curling in spirals beneath our feet as we walked. "We're in a bit of a pickle here," I mused.

Holly snorted. "Ya think?" Seeing my look, she coughed, a bubble of blood popping up at the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away. "Yeah, it's not good."

We kept on walking, scrambling up piles of rubble until I began to hear a sound coming from about twenty feet away. Holly and I rushed towards it, gasping when we pulled through the debris to survey a streetscape, police rushing around with yellow crime scene tape and detectives swarming around the wreckage like flies. Sirens wailed and bright lights flashed. Twenty or so shocked heads turned when they saw Holly and I stumbling out of the debris and rubble of the wrecked building.

One woman in a sergeant's uniform ran up to us and asked cautiously, "are you girls okay? Did you come from the building?"

"Yes," Holly answered wearily, ready to lie, because saying that it was us who caused the collapse by stopping a Russian missile with our bare hands didn't seem exactly believable. "It collapsed on us. We managed to get out but my sister Evie is unconscious and Kira's injured." She nodded to me, blood dripping down her hairline.

A couple of paramedics rushed up to us with a stretcher and took Evie, attaching a breathing tube to her mouth and moving her off into an ambulance. Another doctor put a blanket around both Holly and I's shoulders and moved us into the back of an open fire truck, where we sat and waited as doctors looked at us. The doctor who was checking my wounds, a woman with frizzy black hair and a soothing Irish accent, said, "that's a fracture in your right wrist and a nice clean dislocation in your left shoulder, sweetheart. Your forehead and hand are going to need stitches. Your legs are severely burned which is strange... are you sure that was caused by the collapse?"

Before I could answer, a loud rumbling caught my attention. I looked up and gasped as I saw the sky open and a rainbow pour out, coming with it Thor, his hammer smashing into the ground of the street and sending people flying; the entire Avengers team plus Peter, Ben and Tina, and all the Salvatores following behind, their eyes blazing.

But only one Avenger truly caught my eye, and that was the red-haired woman with blood dripping down from her cheek, her cat-like black suit dirty and ripped, and her face determined and set in a straight line. She caught my eyes and gasped, and in that moment I'd never seen her look more beautiful.

"Hey, mum."