The Ides of July // Loki - Book 1 ✓

Chapter 18: Abandoned

THE MOMENT HER FEET hit solid ground, Anna stumbles forward onto her knees. The first thing she notices is how soft the ground is beneath her. The second is the cold.

It's freezing. Once her head stops spinning as much, the bright white glare around her comes into focus as she realizes that she's sitting in a heap of snow. Her bare calves burn from the cold, while her thin black pants are already damp and chilled. She can't see Loki anywhere in the glacial landscape, which causes a thread of panic to stab through her chest.

Leave it to the god of mischief to abandon her in fricking Antarctica.

Groaning, she pushes her frozen limbs upright, but her knees buckle immediately and she nearly faceplants in the white powder. In that moment, she notices a trickle of scarlet on the snow in front of her.

Shit.

The trail of blood leads up to her right bicep, where a bullet ripped through her flesh. Her black shirt sticks to her skin as she gingerly touches the area near the bullet wound. Fire erupts in her veins as the pain hits her. It's a deep burning sensation coupled with an intense throbbing pain twisting through her arm in agony. Without thinking, she rips the remainder of her sleeve away from her arm and wraps a dry section around the wound.

Once it's pulled tight, she wrangles it into a one-handed knot. The burning has been muted, but the steady throb continues to ache as she takes a few unsteady breaths.

"I can't stay here," she mumbles to herself.

Forcing herself onto her feet for a second time, she totters for a moment before regaining a semblance of balance. The snow beneath her feet is the only patch disturbed, everything around her is fresh powder untouched by any life form, which means she's alone here.

Wherever here is, she's not quite sure.

The ground is sloped, leading her to believe that she's on some sort of hill or mountain. It's not steep here, but it's difficult to tell if the ground continues at this incline all around the horizon with the sunlight blazing down on her. The sky is a vivid blue, and the sun is not quite overhead. If she had to guess, wherever she is, it's sometime just past noon.

Could be Antarctica, could be Europe.

Then again, she vaguely remembers something from school about Antarctica being coldest in July, averaging -76 degrees Fahrenheit on "warm" days, which would cause her skin to freeze in 30 seconds. Considering she's not yet frozen, that narrows it down to Europe.

Her instincts tell her to move down the mountain and fast. It's hard to tell how much blood she's lost, especially given the whole "I just teleported" thing, and she certainly won't make it out on the mountain at night. Right now, the glaring sunlight is keeping her alive.

*****
Loki

After a few hours of trudging through snow, Loki is furious. Somehow the Midgardian woman separated from him when he transported her away from the invasion at Stark's tower, meaning not only was he tasked with babysitting a mortal, now he had to find her.

They'd landed somewhere in the Swiss Alps, but he'd yet to find any trace of her in the glistening white landscape. The sun was deeper in the western sky, meaning he had only a few hours left to find her before night falls over the mountains. Given the fact that the temperature was barely above freezing in the afternoon sun, he knew that the temperatures would plunge overnight and greatly decrease her chances of survival.

If she died, it might mean less hassle for him at the moment, but he knew Thor would hold him responsible for the mortal's demise and likely toss him back into his cell in the Asgardian dungeon. Slogging through snow might not be his idea of a diverting afternoon, but it is truly better than the mundane life of a prisoner.

He makes his way up a short overhang in the mountain, giving him a vantage point over a larger swath of land below him. Once he reaches the top, his emerald eyes narrow as they take in everything, barely noticing a hint of tracks in the snow.

That must be her.

Loki hurries off the overhang, moving gracefully as if unhindered by the snow toward the place where the tracks begin. He notices that the snow is flattened - she must've fallen here - before his eyes land on a bright scarlet trail that stains the snow. Blood.

The pool of red reduces into sporadic drops along her tracks that he follows with his pace quickening. Whatever injury she has sustained, the temperature on the mountain will not be conducive to her retaining consciousness for much longer.

Sure enough, a small black speck comes into his sight at the horizon.

He can't tell if it's moving or not, so he hastens toward it. The distance between them shortens rapidly, causing Loki to rush toward the tiny figure huddled in the snow.

Once he reaches her, he slides to his knees beside her and gently turns her toward him. Her face is pale, brown hair matted against her forehead from a feverish sweat and the melting snow, and her eyes are closed.

His hands dance over her body, checking for injuries, before landing on the gunshot wound on her upper arm. It doesn't take him long to see that the bullet tore through the skin and lodged itself in the bone of her arm instead of firing straight through.

Whispering a few words of healing, he spreads his fingers over the wound and allows his magic to seek out the damage and repair the worst of it. The bullet inside her arm prevents him from healing it fully - he'll have to remove it before he can do anything else.

He sighs, wiping his brow with the back of his bloodstained hand, as he conjures a fresh bandage to replace the black fabric she'd tied around her arm. Wrapping it around several times, he secures it with a small knot before glancing back up at the woman's pale face.

She'd lost a significant amount of blood, but he believed her to be in more danger from the cold than anything. In a swift movement, he tugs off his heavy black and green overcoat adorned with leather and armor and drapes it over her before standing and scooping her up in his arms.

Her eyes flutter open, pupils adjusting to the light before her blue eyes focus on his face.

"Hey, jackass," she mutters weakly.

Now playing: "Barton Hollow" by The Civil Wars.