By: tatufreak
Another Interlude/Short Chapter:
Intrusion
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There was a prod in her side.
Lena rolled over, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She groaned and stretched out a hand, plucking her alarm clock from the bedside table and squinting at it in the sharp morning light.
"Two am? This had better be good..."
Yulia hovered over her, a dark blur resolving gradually into her delicate features. She was troubled and anxious, whispering to alert her partner.
"There's someone at the door, Ta."
Lena rolled to peer over her shoulder at the door, before frowning sleepily.
"There's no one there, Volk."
Yulia knelt on the bed, leaning towards her.
"I didn't say they had knocked."
Lena stared at her for a moment as her blue eyes cleared. Suddenly she hurled back the covers, almost throwing Yulia off the bed. The dark girl tumbled over and picked herself up off the floor, but Lena didn't take the time to notice or apologise. She was already making her way silently towards the pool table where her gun and a round of bullets lay in plain sight.
"How did you know?" she tossed to Yulia, keeping her voice as quiet as possible.
"I heard them on the stairs," came the whispered reply, and Lena was a little reassured to see the girl was carrying her gun.
There's just something about the way she holds it...I know I'm safe when she's there; unless of course she turns on me, Lena thought with a sardonic smile.
But somehow I don't think it would ever occur to her.
Her knuckles throbbed, reminding her of the previous day's 'disciplinary session'.
At least, it had better not.
Yulia's very soft breathing jerked her back to life, and she looked down at her hands to see the gun loaded and ready.
Edgily she motioned for the girl to cover her while she slowly moved towards the door. Tension built by the footstep as she tried to maintain as much silence as possible, while in her head questions streamed through her mind.
Who are they? What are they doing here? Why are they just standing outside, how many of them are they, and why on Earth did Volk just gasp?
She spun, paused, then lifted her gun and fired a single shot. With the muffler attached the bullet made significantly less noise than the man did as he slumped over his chest wound.
Yulia stared at him. His hand still grasped a knife, the same blade that had been inches from her eye. She looked down with utter disinterest, before returning her gaze to meet Lena's.
"They're in the house."
Instantly every potplant was a hiding place, every corner was a lookout. Without words or communication Yulia and Lena threw their backs together, guns outstreched. Both scanned the apartment furiously for intruders, and then Lena found her hand being gripped very hard by Yulia's own. She kept utter silence, somehow sensing the intensity of the wordless command. Yulia's eyes were shut and her mouth was clamped in a hard, thin line as she forced herself to listen and move through the apartment in her mind. She pulled herself through the sluggish layers of the walls and investigated the rooms, inquisitively. Her exploration told her that there were two other men in the apartment, both in the bathroom. Then she turned to outside, and levelled her gun at the door. Lena turned her head and watched the muzzle weaving slowly up and down before it froze, and then four shots rang out in a tight succession. There were two moans and three thuds, followed by a groan and the sound of the last man sliding down the wall.
The two men burst out of the bathroom and Lena unleashed metal fury upon them. Normally they would be a threat and a foe, but the moment they intruded into her house - the moment they pushed her barriers - that was when the fight had become personal. They were the no longer
the enemies, they were
her enemies.
Bullets riddled their bodies as Lena kept firing, a grim look in her eyes. Yulia half-turned to watch, concerned but unwilling to stop her.
Suddenly something caught her eye, and she held up a hand. Lena reluctantly paused shooting while she ran forward, crouching next to the bloody corpses. Without a wince or hesitation the dark-haired girl reached into the chest of the closest man, withdrawing a navy pin from the pulp. She glanced it, then flicked it away across the floor and got onto her knees, reaching to extract an identical pin from the next body.
“They’re the same pins as the others…”
She got no further as the blonde suddenly ran forwards towards the motionless bodies of the men and began to kick them furiously.
"Who
are you? How dare you enter my home? How
dare you?" She only stopped when she noticed pools of dark red spreading out across the floorboards.
She stood still for a moment, gazing at the spread. Then she turned back to the prostate men and fixed them with a baleful glare.
"And do you
know how long it's gonna take for me to clean that mess up? Do you have any idea?"
Yulia gently placed a hand on Lena's shoulder, which the girl shrugged off. She put her face into her own, her shoulders beginning to shake.
"They could have killed us as we slept."
"No, they couldn't. I was awake."
"What if you had been asleep?"
"There is no
what if."
Lena took her face out of her hands.
"There's something we have in the civilised world, Volk. It's called shock. Just leave me alone right now, cut me a little slack, you know?"
Yulia took this in and hesitated before she turned back to the double bed.
"Ok...but, Lena?"
The blonde remained very still, closing her eyes in the effort of remaining calm while Yulia's anxious face looked over her shoulder.
"What?"
"Do you want me to...um...can I sleep next to you, just for now, just so if..."
"No."
The syllable echoed throughout the apartment and died, taking a little of Yulia's heart with it.
Her shoulders slumped and she turned to her own pathetic little cot-bed.
"Ok," she whispered, barely audibly. Sitting down, she laid her gun next to her bed lamp and swung her legs up, so she was lying on her back.
Lena finally turned a few minutes later, not looking at her as she climbed into her own bed.
"We'll obviously sleep in this morning. I'll call you at ten."
Yulia's dark eyes glanced up, meeting only the huddled shape of Lena's back. She blinked and sighed, quietly.
"Ok," she repeated, and then her lids slowly drifted down, barely touching her cheeks.
She slept.
Lena tossed and turned, awake until the bright morning.