The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Twenty-Four

I couldn't breathe. "What?" I demanded, standing up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean... she's dead, Kira," Bruce said softly. His lines face was full of sorrow. "I'm sorry. We found her just then... she was shot while she was unconscious. We've secured the perimeter but whoever did it escaped. We've got agents looking for the assassin right now."

I heard Evie gasp, a sob pulling itself from her mouth. "That can't be true!" she said, joining me. "That's not true!"

I was trembling. I couldn't see properly - a fog of haziness had clouded my vision, working in from the outside, threatening to blind me and surround me in darkness. "No," I breathed, my eyes burning. "No!"

I felt a gentle arm on my shoulder. It was Nat, her green eyes sorrowful. "Kira, honey..." she tried to pull me into a hug but I pushed her away, sprinting past Bruce and the S.H.I.E.L.D agents through the bright hallways. Evie followed me, ignoring Tina's cries as she tried to follow us. Peter and Ben, who were laughing in front of us, saw me and Evie running and began to reach out for us but we pushed them away. Evie and I turned down corners, running like all hell was after us, into the hospital room where we knew Tori had been staying. 

I froze when we reached the door. Evie gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh my god," she breathed, surveying the carnage.

The room was swarming with agents and evidence cones, Do-Not-Cross tape sticking from floor to ceiling. Two of the windows were smashed, blood coating the white-tiled floor. A gun, still smoking, lay on a table with a bright orange evidence cone next to it. Medics rushed around like bees in a hive, people in every corner of the room. Evie and I pushed past them, going up to the thing they were all swarming around: Tori's body.

It was so small. Smaller and thinner then I'd remembered. Her short orange hair was splayed across the hospital bed's pillow like Sleeping Beauty, her face calm and her eyes shut. If not for the three tiny bullet holes in her chest, it would have appeared like she was sleeping. 

A sob ripped itself from Evie's throat. She crumpled onto the ground, clutching Tori's limp, lifeless hand and crying. I stood still, my feet planted on the ground. I looked at Tori's peaceful face, at the wounds in her chest, and the red blood, the same crimson shade as my hair, that soaked the front of her hospital gown. I watched as a medic spread a blanket over her, slipping her into a teenage-girl sized bodybag. I felt Nat reach out for me and pull me into a hug, her embrace warm and comforting. 

I didn't cry, unlike Evie, who was bawling her eyes out onto Tina's shoulder. I didn't know why I didn't cry - I'd cried so much yesterday, when it didn't matter, but now Tori was dead, and I couldn't even shed a tear for her. I felt horrible, like somebody had dropped a stone into my stomach. It hurt, all right - it hurt more than anything I'd ever experienced, the pain so raw and savage, targeted directly at my heart. 

"Why does it hurt?" I asked into Natasha's shoulder. I could hear the other Avengers rushing around nervously.

"I don't know, sweetheart," my mother whispered back. "I don't know."

I pulled away when a massive BANG resounded around the room. Everybody froze and whipped their weapons out to face the source of the noise. If it were Tori's killer, I would destroy them. I'd kill them, I would.

"Evie, what are you doing?" came Ben's scared voice.

I gasped: Evie was levitating, her ruby-red hair floating above her head in a blood-coloured halo, like some angel of death. Her eyes were glowing: pure energy was radiating out of them and surrounding her in a cloud of magic and light. She looked dangerous, so very unlike the small, sweet girl I'd known a few hours ago. Tear tracks stained her face.