Bloody Fingers

“Ugh, I should have braided my hair. It’s all over the place, in my face all the time!”
“Sir, do আপনি mind rolling the windows down? The lady would like to feel the wind in her hair.”
“Nein, nein! Es ist in Ordnung!” the girl assured quickly. She gave the brunette a glare for his teasing, and they both burst into laughter.
“Your German is good,” Callaghan commended.
“I had a tutor,” the teenager explained. “He taught me Earthling languages that I couldn’t pick up on the streets of Elam like I could the Demonic dialogues. German, French, Latin, Greek—in the five years he taught me, I even picked up his American accent when speaking English. It made it easier as a courier, to be able to read messages and…overhear conversations.”
“Ah, yes, a regular double-O 7…or Mata Hari~” He gave her a wink that made her stick out her tongue at him, and their laughter once again filled the back of the cab. She looked towards the city lights passing outside their windows before glancing back to ask where he was taking her for dinner. The girl caught Callaghan staring at her and blushed. “What?”
“You’re eyes, they have this…sparkle when আপনি speak of your home. Tell me more?”

Home? If there were a feeling for it, she thought first of pain, from every time she had হারিয়ে গেছে it. Like losing her brother, being sent away দ্বারা her father, even escaping Elam…pain as intense and real as the metal cutting into her wrists.
Ana groaned and let her head fall back to stare up at the manacles digging into her skin as they supported her body weight. She knew she was lucky to only be a mere 90 pounds, অথবা else supporting herself in that way would have caused her lungs to have collapsed already. Enough prisoners had been tortured দ্বারা her sister in that fashion for her to know that much. Her bare toes just brushed the floor, not enough to relieve the strain in her arms, but the cold stone sent a shiver up her spine. The only thing between her and the cold was a thin hospital gown. Something else, too. Her entire torso felt constricted দ্বারা the familiar bondage of bandaging, but the screaming in her shoulders was too much to consider other bodily injuries left from her fall through the glass ceiling and into the pool. The teenager struggled, turning, making the chains jingle. The thin metal sliced her skin, drawing blood to trickle down her arms.
Ana froze as voices pricked her hearing. They echoed down the hall and grew closer. The girl found herself digging her claws into her palms before even considering the plan; she clenched and clenched, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out, and rivers of blood flowed from her palms, through the manacles and down her arms. She hung her head and allowed herself to go limp just as the young voices arrived outside of her cell.
"You know, she's smaller than I thought she would be."
"Right? Everyone going on about how dangerous this one is--"
"Mein Gott! She's bleeding, a lot!"
"From her wrists? What are আপনি doing?"
"I'm going in there! If she bleeds out, Magnus will kill us both! Stand watch, I'll fix this."
The metal door swung open with a squeal. The first of the youthful guards entered the cell, a black uniform with a white arm band, stepping quickly অগ্রবর্তী to inspect the prisoner. He opened his mouth as the girl raised her head to meet his eyes. Her forehead slammed into his, and his body crumpled to the ground. The সেকেন্ড of the guards heard the thud and entered to investigate, hurrying over to his partner when he saw the unconscious body. He stood quickly to get help, turning to the door, but his retreat was stopped as two strong legs wrapped around his neck. The guard choked, his windpipe collapsing between Ana's calves and thighs; when he passed out, she held on tightly enough that his weight slipped her blood-slickened wrists free of the restraints. The girl thrust out her hands and threw her momentum অগ্রবর্তী as she released the falling man and she used it to summersault into a crouch.
A full সেকেন্ড to catch her breath and still no alarms. The young woman sighed as she stood and bolted for the exit with the knowledge that escape from these people would only be so easy once. Sprinting down the hall on silent bare feet, she searched frantically for any sign that she was above অথবা below ground, in the city অথবা the country side, Germany অথবা elsewhere. আরো voices, another pair patrolling the halls, made her skid to a stop and spin around, speeding back the way she had come. Another patrol ahead forced her through a door into an unmarked stairwell. "Thank আপনি God," she breathed as she raced up the stairs. Ten flights before there was only one left, what looked like a roof access. Hoping for the ground floor, Ana burst out of the stairwell. She slowed, searching the quiet hall for a way out, and froze when her eyes found Callaghan. He was visible through a glass window, laying down. The man was still beneath a blanket, bandages on his arms and visible upper torso. Really, the only sign of life was the beeping of a হৃদয় monitor and wheezing of the machine breathing for him.
Ana gasped and put her hand to the window as if she could reach him that way. The soft thump made the সেকেন্ড occupant of the room look up. His wavy dark hair was touched দ্বারা gray, and the corners of his eyes were scratched দ্বারা lines from years of squinting as thick texts, but the man had the same honey irises as his son. Those eyes were full of sorrow, but narrowed in recognition, and hardened with fury. Ana pulled away from the window with another gasp, only to find a pair of guards on either side.
Without a thought, she slashed at the first to advance. He fell, clutching at his esophagus as red sprayed from his throat. Ana felt wind on her back and ducked, the man rolling over her back and to the ground. A quick মুষ্ট্যাঘাত to the nose sent him into the fetal position with a muffled yelp as he covered his face. Two strong hands grabbed her shoulders, but Ana pushed back and lifted herself into the air. Another attempted to grab her feet, but she kicked a foot of claws into his soft stomach. The momentum carried her back and she flipped over her captor. He turned to grab her, then froze with a gurgle and collapsed. Ana froze, panting, his still beating হৃদয় clutched between her fingers. She looked to the window, where here bloody handprint seemed to warn the man within to stay back. He returned her gaze, calmly. The girl let the হৃদয় drop with a sickening squelch and sprinted back to the stairwell.
The alarms were blaring now, the lights painting everything as red as her soaking hands and feet and গাউন, gown and skin. Footsteps thundering after her up the metal stairs, she reached the roof, the freezing night air. The Spree river was alight with the port lights, the restaurants and hotels and ferry. Ana pumped her arms as she ran, across the roof, to the end, and over the edge without hesitation. The freezing water pierced her skin, turned her skeleton to ice as she disappeared into the dark harbor. But at least the river might wash the blood away.

A/N: Ha, get it, heart wrenching? Coz she wrenched a guys হৃদয় out? Haha...ha...