- Chapter Forty-Two -
"Then I guess we're not that different."

"Allison, help! Luther!"

Primrose had been bleeding for 10 minutes, lay down on the floor with her hands clasped over her knife wound, pushing down onto the slit in her skin and attempting to keep the blood in for as long as she could until someone came to help her. Her powers weren't working, they wouldn't when she was so week.

A cooking incident she could handle, a broken bone she could handle but with the way she was losing blood faster than she could count to ten and breathe, there was no chance in her power working. The added noise of Diego frantically saying her name didn't help either, he'd been yelling for someone for the whole ten minutes which she supposed she appreciated but she was quite literally dying on the floor.

The least she could do was die in peace.

"It's okay, it's okay." He said, his voice strained as he tried to pull himself out of the red tractor but was very unsuccessful. "They'll be here soon just keep pressure on it..."

"No shit." She grunted out, panting shallowly with weak and laboured breaths.

"Help! Vanya, help! Come on!" He yelled out again and Primrose resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his voice, but hope came in the form of footsteps crushing through the snow towards them. "What took you guys so long?"

"Oh my god, Prim." Allison gasped, dropping to her knees into the snow beside Prim as the woman attempted a pain smile but focused on keeping pressure to her wound. "What happened?"

"Lila happened." Diego grunted as Luther, Klaus and Vanya all lifted the tractor off of his foot and freed him for where he lay. Immediately, he scampered over the snow and stopped next to Primrose, putting his hands on hers as another attempt of keeping the blood in. "Hey, hey, hey, don't die on me."

"This is..." She said through weak breaths whilst Allison ripped open the hole in her dress caused by the knife wider so it showed her wound on her abdomen. "Not a movie, Diego."

"Now, seriously?" He asked her, raising his eyebrows but his voice was tinged with obvious worry as his sister inspected the cut on her abdomen. "Allison, can't you rumour something?"

"Uh, uh..." Allison furrowed her eyebrows together, scrambling for something in her mind to help Primrose. "I heard a rumour that...that you stopped bleeding."

Primrose's vision blurred for a second, her body forcing her to take a breath as the blood slowly stopped flowing out of her. She felt the small wave of wellness wash over her almost as soon as her breath had stopped, the only thing aching now was the deep tear in her skin which once she caught her breath properly, she could heal and if worst came to worse, stitch up once all this is over and fight through the pain.

"I just need a second." Prim held up a finger and shifted slightly with a wince, Diego lifted a hand from her wound to help her immediately and she let out a little chuckle at the sudden movement. "Diego, I'm fine...like I said I just need a second."

"Yeah, totally." He scooted away, standing up as Primrose caught her breath; his hands found their place on his hips and he looked around the large farm awkwardly as the rest of the siblings watched him purse his lips and do small movements to occupy himself.

"Team Zero..." She dragged out, taking a breath as she attempted to sit up. Allison helped her with the action, a hand on her back easing her through the pain of her ripped abdomen.

Diego whooped and gave Luther a big high-five at the mention of Team Zero, Primrose looking up at them with an amused smile as Luther widened his eyes in shock at Diego's sudden action as he shouted "Unstoppable!"

"Has anyone seen Five?" Allison asked as she helped Prim to her feet, the other woman using her as support to stand properly.

She lifted a hand to her wound and let it glow but the purple flickered away just as quickly as it had when she had tried without the help of Allison; with a deep breath, she nodded to herself as a way to confirm that she would get through the rest of today with a hole in her stomach and she would stay alive...she hoped.

"I don't know, he's around here somewhere." Luther panted out, shrugging before turning to Diego and pinning with a slightly accusatory gaze. "By the way, your ex-girlfriend can blink like Five."

"Not my ex-girlfriend, we never dated it was just a one time thing and I severely regret-" Diego shook his head slowly.

"Whatever, you still messed up," Allison waved a hand in the air, dismissing his sentence with her other hand around Primrose's waist to support her in her standing up. "Anyway that bitch just rumoured me so I couldn't breathe."

"And destroyed like half the farm with a shock wave." Klaus added, gesturing around to the ruined barns, fences and buildings. "So unoriginal."

"And she stabbed me with my own powers." Primrose offered, glancing down to her knife wound which Allison gestured towards as well with her eyebrows raised at Diego who threw his hands up towards her in frustration since he didn't know how to help.

"If she can do everything we can then she might as well be one of us." Vanya breathed out, the cold air making her breath a fog. The siblings all chuckled in agreement but Primrose just stared at them all, raising her eyebrows as they trailed off into silence in small realisation.

"No, there's no way. It can't be." Luther looked around at them all.

"It's a reasonable conclusion." Allison nodded.

"Eh, but there were only seven of us." Klaus reasoned and then gestured to Primrose. "And Prim has powers too, she got them from an explosion, not from birth. Maybe Lila had something like that happen to her."

"Or maybe we need to consider that there's more of us out there." Vanya said and Primrose squinted in confusion at Diego who seemed to be staring at nothing and stuck in his mind in thought.

"Are we surprised?" Allison asked, seemingly not that shocked from the deduction of where Lila's powers had come from. "Dad never told us the whole truth about anything."

"But she's not our biological sister...right?" Diego checked, a look of disgust on his face whilst his eyes glanced to every one of his siblings and even Primrose who looked around at the others for confirmation too. They all fell silent and stared back at the man for a moment before Luther looked away quickly and began talking again.

"Okay." He said and Diego looked alarmingly towards him as he ignored the question. "So, if she can mirror our powers, that means anything we throw at her, she can match, right?"

"Yeah, but she can mirror only one of our powers at a time." Klaus held up a finger to them, pointing knowingly and Prim raised an eyebrow whilst she continued to lean against Allison for support.

"You sure about that?" Allison asked, sounding a lot less certain than Klaus.

"We have to find Five, for all we know he's already been beaten." Primrose fretted as the siblings nodded their heads in agreement of finding their brother.

The wounded woman whipped her head around for any sign of where Five and Lila were and flashes of blue light coming from the circular bullet holes pierced into the wood of the colossal barn exposed where their fighting ring had been set. She called it out, pointing towards the barn where the flashing had now stopped which only made her fear more.

Luther went first, Diego following by his side with Klaus and Vanya running after them; Allison tried to help Primrose as best as she could and gritting her teeth through the pain, digging her nails into Allison's shoulder, Prim stumbled across the expanse of grass and snow towards the barn with Allison next to her and basically carrying her through some of the steps.

The six of them emerged on the barn where both Lila and Five's voices could be heard clearly.

"She never cared about your parents." Five was talking as they made their way around the barn to reach the entryway. "She was looking for you."

"Why?" Lila whispered hoarsely, voice pained and Prim frowned as she granted herself the view of the barn's interior where Lila and Five were facing one another; Lila standing neutral and Five in some sort of fighting stance.

"Because you're one of us." Diego spoke, walking further into the barn and getting in front of Luther as the other four stayed behind. "The Handler stole you, Lila, just like our asshole father took all of us...not Primrose though."

Lila's eyes flitted to Prim leaning on Allison as the woman gave her a small smile, Lila may have just stabbed her and may have slept with Diego and may have been a traitor and trying to kill Five...but that didn't mean that she didn't deserve sympathy for what she had just found out.

"No, it's not the same thing." Lila denied Diego's claim, backing up slightly as the other siblings went slightly forward again. Primrose allowed Allison to slip out of her hold and instead tried to hold her balance where she stood.

"You're right." Diego nodded, edging closer and Primrose glanced between him and Lila who was continuing to back up. "Because he didn't have our parents murdered. Listen to me Lila, you were born October 1st, 1989, the same day as all of us. Again, apart from Primrose who was born 21st November-"

"Happy birthday for a couple of days ago." Lila breathed out quickly, glancing to Primrose again who smiled awkwardly, she had completely forgotten about her birthday this year.

"Thanks." She said shortly, giving her a nod as the siblings looked between the two and furrowed their eyebrows.

"Anyway, stay back!" Lila shouted, whirling around to face them all with a knife in her hand as they closed in again, Primrose flinched and held her hands up in surrender as the others tried to calm her down...somehow.

Diego was right in front of her and she faced him with a shout. "I trusted you! I got you a job, I even introduced you to my mother, and then you took off on me!"

"Because I needed to save the world!" Diego yelled back and Prim frowned, lowering her hands slowly as she stared at the interaction between the two. "She's using you, Lila. The Handler."

"You're wrong." She snapped at him. "She raised me, she loves me."

"Yeah, you know what?" Luther asked from where he stood and Primrose glanced to him sharply, wondering if what he was going to say would save them or doom them. "Love shouldn't have to hurt this much..."

Lila stared at him for a moment before jerking her head forward and gagging whilst lifting her fingers to stick slightly in her mouth, Primrose sighed slightly as Luther claimed he tried.

"He's right, we have to kill her." Five stated and the wounded woman's eyes went wide as she turned to face the boy who was about to converge on Lila.

"Hey! Five! Five, stop!" Primrose yelled out, hobbling forward with one hand making it's way to the torn skin as it ached. Five turned to her and so did everyone else, even Lila turned to her as she limped to a stop in front of her. "I got it. Hey, Lila?"

Lila widened her eyes slightly as Primrose took a small step forward, she didn't bother taking one back, just eyed the wound and the large rip in her dress that displayed it and the patch of skin around it before she glanced up to meet her eyes once more.

"Truth?" Primrose asked her and the girl said nothing so Prim carried on. "She's dangerous. And you're scared of what she'll do with all that new power. That's why you dragged Diego to the Commission, because I know what it's like to love dangerous people. Difference is..."

She glanced around at all the siblings, met eyes with Klaus who smiled at her like he always did since the night they first became friends. Allison caught her gaze and grinned at her best friend for the past two years, next was Vanya who probably couldn't remember anything about 2019 but still knew they were apart of Team Zero, Luther had been one she hadn't got along with that well but when it came to it she would never leave him to die, Five connected gazes last and glanced away quickly.

They had some kind of bond he didn't want to acknowledge.

Finally, Primrose glanced around to Diego; he was stood behind her and had been staring at the back of her head whilst she tried to speak to Lila. His brown eyes were as beautiful as ever and they sparkled as she looked into them, he fucked up, he knew he did...but nothing could compare to the connection that Primrose provided him.

"They love me back." Primrose turned away from Diego, back towards Lila with a small smile. Lila held the knife up to Prim, commanding her to shut up. "The only thing she loves is power. Now, the minute she can't use you, she will turn on you and I can see in your eyes that deep down I know you know that."

"You don't know me, Primrose." Lila spat, putting the blade of the knife to her chest. "You're just some girl that's easy to get over, someone easy enough to leave for someone else."

"Then I guess we're not that different." Prim murmured quietly, taking the risk to move forward and let the blade of the knife sit on her chest and thanking the gods that Lila hadn't plunged it into her there and then. "Diego screwed us both over, but I know that we can be your family, just like these guys became mine...if you just let us."

Lila took a small, shuddering breath, looking around at everyone Primrose had looked at; completely skipping over Diego which made Prim quirk the tiniest smile as Lila looked back at her, so close to a smile and Prim let her own grow as she and Lila stared into each others eyes just as she had done to the siblings.

Then gunfire rang and Primrose felt a much worse, much more painful rip of her skin as a bullet pierced through her back and tore her apart before she fell to the floor moments after Diego had fallen behind her in the same conditions.

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