Prophet - Five Hargreeves X oc UMBRELLA ACADEMY

15

When Five reopened his eyes, the scene had not changed.

Anneli's gun was pointed. Her jaw clenched, and a bullet floating between the weapon and it's target.

A disappointed sigh from his right diverted his attention. "Such a shame. She was a good one."

Five's mind was racing a mile a minute.

Her aim was not on himself, but the Handler, the bullet just inches away from her face.

Anneli was frozen, still as a statue, unable to see or hear anything they were to say or do, eyes lit with determination.

The Handler moved slowly around Eirene like a vulture, hands behind her back.

Five watched cautiously.

A deal was struck, but his eyes remained on Anneli throughout the discussion. The Handler seemed content with brushing what just happened under the rug, but for Five it stuck ever present at the front of his mind. He still couldn't quite comprehend what was happening.

He shifted all the bullets to protect his siblings and the woman held out her hand for the deal to be struck.

Five turned to side eye the frozen girl.

"What if I wanted her to live too?" He ventured to ask, taking a precautionary step back.

The Handler chuckled, shaking her head. "That's just not possible I'm afraid," she folded her hands in front of her. "She knew the consequences."

Unease swirled in his gut and he frowned slightly. "What if she did shoot me?" He asked, narrowing his eyes at the woman.

This woman was making him a deal (that he was going to break anyways but she didn't have to know that yet) after she'd tried to have him killed on multiple occasions. He didn't trust her but there was no other way to save the world and he didn't know what else to do.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, you're far too valuable to me alive. I would have intervened," she continued, as though it was obvious. "This was a test of her loyalty. She failed. I can only hope you'll learn from her mistakes."

Five went to shake the womans hand but hesitated, his mind still on Anneli next to them.

He didn't know what to feel. Did she really betray him? He didn't know what to think. Everything was so messed up. She had left at a convenient time and then showed up randomly, leading him to believe she really had been tasked to kill him. But when he remembered her yelling at him previously about Klaus, she had been upset. She had been angry. Protective. That had been real.

Which left the question, what was the truth?

Even if she was tasked to kill him and allow the apocalypse to happen, she still didn't in the end. Was that supposed to make him forgive her?

"What happens to her now?" He inquired curiously.

"She won't survive the next twenty four hours," she answered simply, grasping his hand in a handshake. Just before they disappear she smiled wickedly. "You're not attached, are you?"

He glared up at her and before he could deny it they disappeared in a flash.

•●•●•●•●• •●•●•●•●• •●•●•●•●•

The peculiar thing about Anneli's abilities is that she was gifted with a sixth sense of sorts. After pulling the trigger, she could physically sense the Handler stopping time around her.

She became stuck in her body as Five and that awful woman conversed, and she took note of the few times he couldnt help but glance at her.

The scenes passed before her rapidly, like a video that was sped up, so when she blinked, the space in front of her was suddenly empty.

She lowered the gun and span around rapidly, searching for the others. Five and the Handler had gone, that was clear.

A car engine met her ears and she snapped her head round, finding the remaining Hargreeves getting into a car and driving away from Hazel and Cha-Cha who run to retrieve their guns and shoot back at them.

Her heart hammered in her chest when the car raced away, no one noticing that she had been left behind. They didn't even know she was there in the first place.

Swearing under her breath, her eyes widened as Hazel and Cha-Cha spotted her.

She wasted no time in sprinting in the opposite direction, mind racing to come up with a plan.

She was going to be hunted down and killed if she didn't do something. What could she even do?

Bullets whizzed past her head and she ducked, stumbling to a tree before turning and shooting back. The bullets missed and the two got back in their car.

She blanched, pulling the bullets back into her hand with her mind and loading it again. Anneli raced through the tall grass before they could get their car started, the gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

All she could think were colourful words for her old boss as she pushed herself to get into the city, find some way to escape and hide out.

She couldn't go back to the mansion, she'd draw danger to the others. Klaus would have to understand that she had left for a good reason without telling him.

She wanted to scream in frustration; everything had gone to shit so quickly.

Five thought she had betrayed him and was going to kill him all this time, the Handler had tricked him and now she was going to be hunted by commission officials until she was dead or the apocalypse happened. (In which she would also be dead.)

Anneli personally wasn't happy with either of those options.

Not knowing what else to do, she did what she did best, the very thing she had tried to avoid doing for years; run.