SIXTEEN

❛ She can't fight a fucking train crash,
you eejit! ❜

ఌ

      BEFORE HE MET NESS, Tangerine had never been in a serious relationship. Sure, he'd had stupid hookups that he immediately regretted the morning after, and he was constantly drooled over by hundreds of type of women. But no one compared to Vanessa, who managed to sweep him right off his feet even while he had a bullet in his leg. At their first date, he thought he had her all figured out to a T.

But, now, as he descends rapidly from the train towards a river with a masked man's arms wrapped around him, he realises he was extremely wrong. He basically knew fuck all about his wife. And after watching her kill two men while bleeding out, which was a performance he thoroughly enjoyed, he realises she is very very far from the pub barmaid he's spent the last few years in love with. Not that he was put off by her real career, if anything it made her a million times for attractive, if that was even possible.

Loud shouts ring through the air from the four men crashing towards the water. A few metres away from Tangerine is his brother, who also has one of the White Death's men clinging onto his body for dear life. While Tangerine's vocal cords are ripping, his mind is also busy cursing at himself for allowing himself to be dragged off the train where his wife is dying, especially a train that is missing most of its parts and cannot be stopped. 

He can only imagine that Vanessa is cursing at him too for leaving her in that shithole.

The river swallows the four men up, and the pairs are separated at the rough impact. They all struggle against the surprise of the water as it fills their mouths and fights against their flailing limbs. Lemon and Tangerine are the first to burst the surface and rush to an area in the water where they can stand.

"You okay there?" Lemon pants, noticing his brother's completely drained expression and the way his jaw is grinding as he thinks.

"What the fuck do you think, Lemon?" Tangerine snaps his head towards his brother, "Am I okay? What kind of fucking question is that?"

"So. . ." Lemon swallows, "Is that a n—"

"Of course I'm not fucking okay!" Tangerines bursts, his voice bellowing loud enough to shake a few birds from their trees, "In case your thick head was damaged by the water, let me remind you. Vanessa, my wife, is in that fucking train!" He jabs his finger up towards the bridge that the train left five minutes ago, "The same fucking train that is basically half a train!"

"Calm down, will you?" Lemon hisses, "You saw the way she fought those geezers back there, didn't you? She'll be okay."

Tangerine's jaw drops and he reaches forward, slapping his hand across the back of his brother's head, "She can't fight a fucking train crash, you eejit!"

"Oh, right, shit, right," Lemon slowly nods, finally understanding his brother's anger and worry, "Well, fuck."

"Well, fuck indeed," Tangerine snaps.

Suddenly, Lemon reaches down into the waist high water, grabbing a SMG and smacking the side a few times before raising it and killing the two other men who were trying to creep up on them. The two men that Tangerine had forgotten in the midst of his worry.

Running a shaking hand through his soaking curls, Tangerine turns on his heel and begins to stride up towards the bank.

Lemon quickly follows after him, throwing the now empty gun into the water behind him carelessly, "You should've thanked me there."

"I'm not thanking you for killing someone, Lemon. We literally do that for a living," Tangerine snips.

"I always thank you, don't I?" Lemon argues, trudging beside his brother up the steal muddy verge.

"Shut up," Tangerine shakes his head, "Just shut up, Lemon, please. Try find some sort of fucking vehicle so we can try go do something about the train that my wife is dying on, okay?"

"Yes, alright," Lemon huffs.

ఌ

     VANESSA'S EYES FLY open when she feels her drained body being dragged along a floor that feels like gravel. She lifts her head, but her vision is too blurred to make out the face of whoever's hands are wrapped around her ankles. But her eyesight isn't too fucked, because she quickly notices the piles and piles of rubble surrounding them. She drops her head to the side, her eyes widening at the sight of a completely destroyed train carriage laying on top of a crushed building.

"What the. . . fuck?" She manages to croak out, causing whoever is drag her to come to a stop as they dash to her head.

"You're alive!" An American accent calls, his tone thrilled, "Oh my god. I was so sure you were dead."

At the familiar sound of his voice, and as her eyes being to focus, Vanessa groans loudly, "I wish I was dead."

She looks up at him, noticing the blood stains on his shirt, causing her hand to fly to the hole in her abdomen as she remembers her own gunshot wound. For a few moments, she hadn't felt a thing, but as soon as her palm comes in contact with the entrance, she grunts in pain.

"Ah, yeah." Ladybug clicks his tongue, "That's still a slight problem."

"Where's Tangerine?" Vanessa breaths out weakly, her eyes snapping back up from her side to his face.

"Haven't seen him since he got dragged out of the train," Ladybug shrugs, wincing slightly at the fast movement before he collapses to sit beside her on a massive squashed plushy, "I'm sure he's fine."

Vanessa clenches her jaw as she slowly pushes herself into a sitting position against a broken train chair, the soft surface feeling slightly nicer than the concrete ground. She raises a bloody hand to her face before running it though her hair, "He better be," She croaks.

"He will be," Ladybug reaches towards her, patting her shoulder and her eyes follow his every movement. He notices the glare and slowly retracts his hand, "Sorry."

"It's fine," She states, "Just don't touch me again."

Ladybug shakes his head with pursed lips, "I— uh, I wasn't planning on it."

Vanessa turns from him and looks out in front of her, which is when her eyes land on an older looking man with grey hair and a blood covered robe wrapped around him. A katana is sliced completely through his chest, only the handle being visible from where she's sat. She narrows her eyes so that she's able to focus on his face, while he raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight.

She snorts, suddenly realising who the shaggy looking man in front of her is, "I'm sorry, what? Is someone having me on? Is he supposed to be the White Death?"

Ladybug's eyelids fall closed at the loud volume of her words, "It is the White Death, yes," He hisses quietly, "And he doesn't like people who make fun of him."

"I couldn't care less at this point," She nods her head down towards her stomach.

"Well, I'd like to stay alive, if that is okay with you," He beams sarcastically down at her before lifting his head to the White Death once more, "About your wife, I had nothing to with that. It's a mistake. I'm not Carver. I only do snatch-and-grab jobs."

Slowly, the White Death limps forward and his gun travels to the side so it's pointed directly at Vanessa.

Her brows furrow, "Why the fuck is he pointing it at me?" She whispers to Ladybug.

"I don't know," He whispers back, eyes never leaving the old man a few metres in front of them.

"I've literally never met this cunt before," She grumbles, "Or done a job for him."

"You murdered my close friend," The White Death bites out in disgust, "Antonio Slate."

Right. Antonio Slate, her old boss. Also the man who tortured her brother because she failed a single mission. Also the man she murdered before having sex with Tangerine for the first time.

"Ah," She clicks her tongue, silence falling over the three, while the old man's eyes burn into her, "I'm not apologising, if that's what your waiting for."

He snarls, like some sort of fucking animal, before the barrel of his gun is directed back at Ladybug once more, causing the blonde American to groan.

"The Carver! I want the Carver! I hired the Carver!" The White Death demands, like a spoilt child.

Ladybug sighs, "No. He had a stomach thing, man. I'm just filling in."

The White Death raises his gun to his forehead, but instead of shooting his brains out, he rests against the barrel with a huff, "You're. . . filling in?"

"For what it's worth, Carver is a dick," Ladybug shrugs, "The most cunning assassin? Mm. Maybe the laziest."

The White Death's finger pulls on the trigger of his revolver, but the gun just clicks, the ammo chamber clearly empty. Ladybug flinches at the motion, shielding his face, while Vanessa just rolls her eyes. There's not point trying to protect her body from bullets when there is one currently inside her.

Pulling his hand from behind his back, the old man reveals another gun. Now, it's the gun that belonged to the young pinky girl.

"Aw, come on!" Ladybug cries, "Just let it go, bro!"

"Do not call me 'bro'!" The White Death roars, clearly having taken offence from the common slang.

Ladybug winces, "Okay?"

The White Death's finger pulls on the trigger once more, but instead of the bullet exiting the barrel facing Ladybug, it blows right back into the old man's face, completely shooting half of his head off before his body slowly drops to the floor.

Vanessa jaw drops in surprise, her eyes wide, "Fucking. . . hell."

The Korean father and son duo trudge over, the older man going to retrieve his katana from where it's buried in the White Death's chest. Ladybug helps Vanessa up from to the door, throwing her arm over his shoulder while his own arm is tucked around her body and he holds her up as they turn to the men.

"Dude, did you see that?" Ladybug gasps, as he speaks to the younger man, but is soon ignored, "What was that?"

Vanessa watches as the older man speaks lowly at the White Death's mangled body before he rises up and begins to stumble away from the crash site, his son at his side. Ladybug joins them after slowly letting go of Vanessa and making sure she can walk fine by herself.

She limps beside Ladybug, grunting her teeth as each step sends pain shooting up her legs and straight to her abdomen, where her both of her hands are clamped over her wound.

"Hey, about this plum," Ladybug begins, and Vanessa rolls her eyes, "Shouldn't the plum give up all resentment? Like—"

A spray of bullets from a SMG into the air cause the group of four extremely injured people to come to a stop as their heads snap to the source of the sound. The young pink girl from earlier stands ahead of them on the road.

"For fucks sake," Vanessa snarls, dropping her chin to her chest with a sigh.

"It's my luck that delivered my father's corpse at my feet!" The girl calls, her arms hanging weakly by her bloody body.

"The narcissism on this chick," Ladybug scoffs, looking at Vanessa, who sighs in agreement, "Untreatable."

The girl straightens up, the SMG now aimed towards the four adults, "Now, I am—"

"Wait, wait!" Ladybug straightens up, his arms in the air in a surrender, "Wait! What is it with this fucked up family?" He mumbles, "You need some suggested reading, if I may. Surviving borderline personality disorder."

"What?"

"I highly recommend it," Ladybug nods.

"Do you ever just fucking shut up?" Vanessa questions, tilting her head at the man, who stares at her while he tries to work out the answer to her question. Maybe he never shuts up.

Ignoring his stupid advice, the girl continues with her victory speech, "Now, I am the White—"

Suddenly, a large van crashes into her body, sending her flying down the road. Everything falls silent, as the van skids to a stop just out of view behind a building.

"Thank. . . fuck," Vanessa mutters.

"What was that?" Ladybug gasps, "Was that— was that Karma?"

"Farewell," The father nods towards the pair with a small smile, before limping away, his son following.

The son turns for a second, throwing an object into Vanessa's chest, and she struggles but manages to catch it, "Tangerine," He hums, before rushing after his struggling father.

Her brows furrow and her eyes slowly drop to the bright orange fruit in her fist, "Tangerine," She repeats, with a faint smile.

. . .

i think next chapter might be a flashback but don't hold me on that

not proof read
but no one is surprised anymore