LOUIS🗡

Saturday, 12:24pm

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GETTING SHOT A FOURTH TIME WASN'T SO BAD.

It hit me in the side, right below the ribs, and I felt the sting of pain skyrocket up my skin and towards the nerves in my brain. I never could get used to it. Left you feeling like you were about to lose everything, and the future was turning grey with uncertainty.

But I didn't mind the risk.

What was more important was knowing that I saved her.

Maybe she didn't need my saving—I knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, since I'd seen her strength countless times before—but I felt this was the one thing I needed to do. I didn't see it in an arrogant way. I didn't see myself as a good person for it.

All I hoped was that she'd know she was worth saving.

So as I felt my body falter from the hit, I let my back hit the floor, my eyes blurry with pain. A gunshot wound was worse than a punch. I could feel the bullet searing through the layers of my skin, burning straight into my body and setting my blood aflame.

"Louis!"

She called me by my first name.

I hated it when she did that—especially now, when she said it in front of two of the most dangerous criminals in the eyes of the SIS. I hated the way my name rolled so effortlessly off her tongue, as if she'd been saying it every day of her life. I hated it. It made me feel like she knew everything about me when she didn't.

But it brought me a sense of peace, for some odd reason.

Hearing her whisper my name over, and over, and over, and over again, hovering over my limp body as she willed me not to fall asleep. It was enough to make me forget about the pain for just a second.

"Louis..."

Ash.

I wanted to open my mouth and tell her I wouldn't leave her, but before I could muster the strength to form my words, a hand grabbed the back of her shirt, and she was wrenched off of me.

There was a scream, followed by the flash of a dagger's blade, and suddenly chaos reigned. The girl suppressed by her parents was gone now, and the Ash I knew was back. Even though it was getting hard to see through the fog of my eyes, I recognized the fire she brought with her, constantly begging for a fight.

I had to help her.

We were a team, now.

Groaning, I slowly lifted myself off the floor, my hand pressed onto the wound of my gunshot in an attempt to stop the blood from draining out. Hell. I need to suck it up. I can let myself die later, I just have to make sure she lives first.

"Ash," I called out, holding out my hand.

She flipped around, her hair messily strewn over her eyes as she blocked a punch from her mother. She looked surprised that I was able to stand, but knew what I was asking. Ducking another blow, she slid the dagger out of her hand and sent it skidding across the stone floor towards me.

"Thanks," I said, picking it up, "shall we?"

While Martha was off battling her daughter, Robert seemed to have noticed that I had resurrected from my wounds and was prepared to obliterate him out of pure malice.

Charging at me, he aimed for my face, but I swiftly dodged to the side, digging my elbow into his backbone. Did I want to stab him? Yes. But I wasn't going to do anything reckless without Ash, so I suppose the dagger would have to serve with other uses.

Grabbing the collar of the man's tattered suit, I dragged him to the corner of the kitchen, slamming his head against the stone wall. Hm, rock won't do the trick. As the man struggled to resist, I blocked every blow he sent my way, pushing him towards the kitchen counter instead—made of wood, and very easy to penetrate with a sharp blade—which is exactly what I did.

Pinning the sleeve of the man's shirt onto the surface of the table, I held his other hand down to make sure he wouldn't move.

"Nice work, Partridge," Ash said, trying to wrench the pistol out of her mom's hand, "but I'm going to need that dagger back."

I winced. "Got it."

Turning back to the father, I stared at him with a split second of dwell. What shall I do with this miserable excuse for a human?

"Apologies," I said curtly, "but it seems you'll have to say night-night now."

Dusting off my fist, I gave him a shrug before sending a harsh blow to his jaw, knocking him out almost instantly. Good. Now that he was unconscious, I didn't have to worry about him anymore.

"Ash," I said, ripping the dagger out of the wooden counter, "heads up."

She sent me a panicked glance. "Don't you dare throw that, Partridge."

"You said you needed it!"

"And I still do!" She yelled, kicking her mom towards the doorway, "but I don't need my hand chopped off if I don't catch it properly!"

Ah, yes, that's a good point.

While she was brilliant in her hand-to-hand combat, I forgot she didn't take a training regiment dealing with daggers and swords. I'll keep that in mind. Flipping the knife in my palm, I sprinted across the kitchen, joining the fight.

Ash snatched the dagger out of my hand before I could even come to a stop.

"Thank you," she said, before shoving Martha up against the doorway and pressing the blade to her neck.

What a lovely family.

That was sarcasm again, if you couldn't tell.

"You've gotten better, [y/n]," Martha choked out, her eyes wild with struggle, "I'm proud."

Ash ignored that comment, her eyes narrowed and flared with pure anger. While she was preoccupied threatening her Mother, I decided to be a good sport and search for anything useful. Maybe an extra knife, maybe a toastie, because I still haven't had breakfast.

"I could kill you," Ash spat out, "is that what you want?"

Martha grinned. "I don't think it'll make a difference."

"Difference?"

"Killing me won't stop The Embers, if that's what you mean," she drawled out, "they'll have London in the palm of their hand before you even make it back to England."

I looked up from the drawer I was snooping through, panic in my mind. I'd managed to find a bit of rope and a sharpie, but that was it. Now I had to worry about whatever secrets were left to be uncovered.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ash hissed, pressing the blade closer to her mother's neck.

Martha laughed. "You didn't think you were the only thing standing in the way of them, did you?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Then you should have known about the bomb," the woman grinned, "brilliant contraption, you know, almost as good as the ones we make."

Bomb.

"What bomb?" I said, the words slipping out.

Martha flickered her eyes towards me. "Who are you again?"

"He's my associate," Ash frowned, "now tell us what you know."

The woman opened her mouth to speak, and I could almost feel the tension rise in the room for the briefest moment. The world was already hanging on by a thread, and yet this was the chance to find out how to patch it back together. Whatever The Embers were planning had to be disastrous. We were running out of time. But all she said was:

"I know nothing."

And the tension fell back into place.

"You're lying to me," Ash spat out through gritted teeth, "tell me the damn truth."

Martha glanced away. "For once in my life, that was the truth."

"You have to know something!"

"Only that many will die," she grinned sickly, "I admire them, actually, that group."

I noticed Ash's grip on her blade started to falter, but I hesitated to take a step. I wanted to take over for her, so she wouldn't have to deal with her past and her present at the same time. But if I moved, then her mother might know something was wrong.

"They actually follow through with their plans," Martha continued, narrowing her eyes at the girl in front of her, "they've proved to be smarter than you, [y/n]."

Hearing those words, Ash shook her head, eyes glazed over with pure hatred.

She raised the dagger up above her head, the blade pointed straight towards her mother like a drill. My heart nearly dropped when she grabbed the handle, bringing the knife crashing down towards the woman faster than I could blink. I thought she'd do it. She had every reason to; every motive.

But then the dagger spit through the seams of Martha's shirt, pinning her to the wall behind her.

"I don't need to prove anything to you," Ash said under her breath.

Shoving the woman off her hands, the girl beckoned for me to tie the two up, eyes trained on the rope in my hands. It was silent now, not even the sad excuse of a mother daring to speak.

So Ash left the kitchen without another word.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

I GAVE HER SPACE.

It was surprisingly hard to keep my distance from her, because I was still bleeding out from a gunshot wound and desperately needed to get it cleaned and tended to soon, but I could wait.

After tying the Ash Duo to their own kitchen table, I wandered out of the building, searching for the girl who had so silently left. A lot seemed on her mind, but now that she had a good chance to think, I didn't want her to be completely alone.

So, I found her sitting in the sand, staring up at the stone walls in front of her.

"Hi," I said softly, crouching down beside her, "are you okay?"

She turned her head. "Define okay."

Her eyes were stained red, and I knew she had been crying. She wore the tear marks like they were rivers of pain streaming down her face, but she let them flow instead of trying to wipe them dry. I admired her vulnerability, but it made me question why she chose to show it to me.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"For what?" I asked.

"For letting you see me weak."

If tears were weakness to her, I wished she could see how wrong that was. I'd hated her for so long, but never once have I thought she was weak. She was strong, and that's what made her so powerful. I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell her it was okay. But I didn't know how.

"Ash..."

She shook her head, reaching into her pocket to pull out the lighter she always carried around. She flicked open the cap, pushed it closed again, and flicked it open once more. She did this over, and over, and over again, just staring at the flame die and igniting each time.

"I should have killed them," she said, her voice breaking, "I should have."

I reached out my hand, closing the cap of the lighter, and wrapping my hand over hers as tightly as I could. She flinched, eyes still trained on the ground.

"You aren't like them," I said quietly, "you're not a killer."

She didn't look at me. "You don't know who I am, Partridge."

"You're right. I only know what you've shown me."

She didn't respond, so I continued.

"And you've shown me that you're a good person, Ash," I said, squeezing her hand, "sure, you've done bad things, but you're not like them. You saved those people's lives on the boat, and you saved that animal—"

"Mister Scratchy," she added for me.

"Mister Scratchy," I chuckled, "he'd be proud of you, I'm sure."

She shook her head. "He's just a cat, Partridge."

"A life you saved."

She nodded her head hesitantly, dropping the lighter into the sand. It almost disappeared through the grains, but the yellow color stuck out against the beige. I knew she was angry. She had every reason to be, and I could see it as her eyes trailed towards the tattoo on her wrist.

"It just hurts," she whispered, pushing away my hand, "every day I have to be reminded that I belong to them, and that they don't care about me unless they need me."

"That tattoo doesn't define you as a person," I said.

"But every time I look at it, I see them."

I didn't know what to say. I was trained in combat, not in therapy. It wasn't that I didn't want to reassure her, but this whole time I had only professed my previous dislike for her, and this time I had to say something comforting. I didn't want to say something wrong.

I debated saying nothing at all, but then I shifted my position on the sand, and felt the shape of the Sharpie I had taken move in my back pocket.

And I had an idea.

"Then let's make it into something different, then," I smiled.

Grabbing the pen, I pulled the cap off with my teeth, titling my head down to scribble ink onto my right wrist. I wasn't sure what I was doing, but it was too late to back out. Ash was already watching me with intrigued eyes.

"There," I nodded, blowing the ink dry with a puff of my breath, "it'll be our thing now."

Ash blinked. "Our thing?"

I held out my arm, displaying the badly drawn image decorating my skin. I tried to make it look like hers—and while my artistry needed some work—it worked. Contrary to hers, I had drawn my triangle upside down, displaying a dagger instead of a flame.

"Yeah, our thing," I nodded, cracking a smile, "we're a team, remember?"

She laughed weakly, "Not a good one."

"Why?"

"Because we hate each other, remember?"

We had made direct eye contact now, staring at each other with matching expressions. Hope, I think. Some glimmer of difference shining out of the dark hole we used to fight in.

"Do we?" I asked.

She paused, lips parting slightly. "What are you saying?"

I wasn't sure.

I wanted to tell her something, but I couldn't even admit it to myself. What did I want to tell her? Was it the way she somehow wrenched her way into my life unexpectedly, but made me feel more alive than I'd felt in years? Was it the way I told myself we hated each other, but never could explain why?

"I'm saying we'd be better off putting aside our hate," I said instead, "if we're going to save London, we have to do it together."

"Together?" She asked.

"Together," I nodded.

"As a team?"

"As a team."

"Very well, then," she said, "what shall we call ourselves?"

I nearly doubted my abilities to answer that question, but then I looked at her once more and I knew the answer. Her eyes were brighter now, the tear-stained eyes fading away, and the glimmer I so often saw returned to her gaze. She didn't look hurt anymore. She looked herself again.

"Phoenix," I said quickly, "that should be our name."

She furrowed her brows. "Phoenix?"

"It's metaphorical," I smiled, "you're an Ash, right?"

She shrugged, pressing her lips together. "Not anymore, I don't think."

"Exactly," I nodded, "and what's known to rise from the ashes?"

There was a brief moment where we shared the feeling of amusement. It may have been 'cheesy' in a sort of way, but that wasn't the point. It was about ensuring that she knew she didn't have to be tied to her pathetic family any more, and instead could be tied to...

...me.

As temporary team-members.

"Phoenixes," she repeated under her breath, "I'll hand it to you, Partridge, you're not as idiotic as I thought."

I grinned. "Thank you."

"Shall we then?"

"Shall we what?"

Standing up from the sand, I watched as she dusted off her trousers, brushing strands of hair out of her face. Looking down at me, she held out her hand, offering to help me onto my feet. I swatted it away, standing up on my own (which I could do, mind you, I didn't need her help).

"Oh, get over it, Partridge," she smirked, winking, "London won't save itself."

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