War of Hearts(3)

Just as the robber’s finger trembled on the trigger, Thea bridged the distance between them in less time than it took a human to blink. She grabbed the wrist of his gun hand and twisted it with such force, his high-pitched scream of agony followed the sound of it breaking. The gun clattered to the floor and Thea kicked it out of range.

Tears streamed down the robber’s face and he begged in a language that wasn’t Hungarian as he cradled his wrist and tried to get up. He scrambled to his feet and backed away from her as if she were the devil.

Shaking her head, Thea watched the guy run out of the store. Dread immediately weighed in her gut.

That little stunt was like sending up a flare to any supernatural after her. Or worse … him. Now she had to get out of Hungary, and she hadn’t saved enough money to get a train out of the country. She automatically zoomed in on the cash register. Guilt niggled her at the mere thought.

But he did run out of here, leaving you to possibly die.

That was true.

Thea rounded the counter. People always disappointed in the end. Why should she be any better? Before committing the crime, Thea opened the cupboard behind the counter and found the old-fashioned VHS security. She pulled the tape, wincing at the flare of pain that spiked up her neck from her wound. She could feel hot blood sliding down her chest and back, soaking into her shirt and jacket. She needed to move fast.

The register was locked so Thea tore it open with a brute strength that belied her five foot eight, for-the-most-part-slender build. Remorse pressed down on her shoulders as she took what she needed plus a little extra from the register. However, she reminded herself she had to do what she needed to do to survive. And she’d just saved this guy’s life. It wasn’t unreasonable to ask for monetary compensation for the two goddamn bullet wounds in her shoulder.

Sirens wailed in the distance, shooting a jolt of renewed adrenaline through her. Walking calmly out of the shop, Thea strolled down the street, toward her apartment, with her head held high.

Then she felt blood trickle off the fingertips of her right hand and cursed. She’d leave a trail that led right to her apartment. Curling her hand into a fist and lifting the arm to rest against her chest, Thea winced against the pain. Then she saw the young homeless man from earlier staring intently at her.

He’d probably seen the gunman and the shopkeeper run out of the shop.

But she’d counted on that.

Digging into her pocket with her good hand, she found the “extra” she’d taken from the cash register and stopped by the homeless man. She held it out to him.

He smirked as he took the money from her. “Ha kérdezik, sosem láttalak.”

Deducing he understood the payment was for his silence, Thea nodded and took off. She moved faster, the shadows of the trees seeming to envelop her, turning her into shade as she returned to her apartment. The sirens had gotten louder, giving her less time to get the hell out of there. But first things first.

The old building smelled of urine and mustiness. The plaster had fallen away from the walls not only in the stairwell but in Thea’s apartment too. The space was just big enough for a bed, a small counter with a sink, burner, and microwave, and a tiny room off the side where they’d squeezed in a toilet and shower. The apartment was dark because the only window in it looked down into a courtyard typical of the architecture in Budapest. Drawing her threadbare curtains closed in case any of her neighbors got nosy, Thea tore off her ruined jacket and shirt, growling in pain. It wasn’t agony, like it would be for the average person, but it still wasn’t fun.

It also, unfortunately, wasn’t the first time someone had shot her.

Moving around the small space like a gale, Thea pulled out the backpack she kept packed so she could run at a moment’s notice. She rummaged through it to find the first aid kit. Stumbling into the bathroom, she stared into the cracked mirror above the sink and saw her olive skin was pale with blood loss. Her eyes zeroed in on the bullet holes. The through-and-through was almost healed over completely. The other was fighting the foreign object inside her.

Picking up her tweezers, Thea gritted her teeth and plunged them into the hole. A wave of nausea swept over her, but she fought through it and moved the tweezers deeper toward where she felt the bullet residing in all its foreignness.

Widening the tweezers to catch hold of it caused a flare of hot, sharp pain down her arm. Grunting, clenching her teeth, Thea yanked with all her might and out came the bloody squashed bullet. When it hit the sink, it tinkled, almost merrily.

“I hate guns,” Thea sneered at the blood-spattered sink.

There was something so dishonorable about using a gun in a fight.

Then again, it was easy for her to say that. She could handle herself.

The skin around the bullet hole tingled and Thea watched as it began to close over, good as new.

Cleaning off the blood, she watched her skin return to its natural golden tan. Good. The last thing she needed to look like was a girl recovering from two bullet wounds. Thea layered up with a T-shirt and sweater since her jacket was ruined, bundled all her bloody stuff into a trash bag, and swept the apartment for any remnants of herself.

Pissed to be leaving somewhere new so soon, she took it out on her landlord by not leaving what she owed in rent. The hag charged a small fortune for the shithole and there had been more than once she’d used her key to come into the apartment unannounced. Just last week Thea had watched the landlady evict a single mother and her two young kids for missing rent by a week. Thea had listened to the woman beg, asking for more time, while the landlady beat at her with a broom, shoving her down the stairs while her kids tripped at her feet.