The interior lights in the train carriage flicker, dim, and extinguish.
(ultimate part of this challenge is writing in present tense omg)
The interior lights in the train carriage flicker, dim, and extinguish. Oscar holds his his breath, instintively, and then, a second behind, hits the floor, keeping as low as he can. The sound of a scuffle, bodies fighting as quietly as possible but still audible in the pitch-blackness, and Oscar crawls, chest brushing against the floor. He doesn't have a gun. It would have blown his cover, and he's a terrible shot anyway. Everyone says being a technical asset is for softies who don't want to get their hands dirty. Nose to the floor of the train carriage, industrial carpet giving him rope burn, listening to the people who want to kill him wrestling with the one person in charge of keeping him safe, Oscar wants to punch those people in the throat.
His hand collides with the wall, the end of the carriage. The only sounds are heavy breathing, fabric rustling, and the clattering of the train, onwards, onwards, up into the mountains, further from anyone who could help. He gropes along the seats. He doesn't think about who is winning the fight. His mind is full of the senses of the dark. The feel of the carpet, the smell of his own sweat, the pounding of his heart in his ears. His hand lands on a leg. and he bites his lip hard to keep from screaming or yelling or breathing, and keeps reaching up. His hand is wet, and when he holds it to his nose, the warm, iron smell of blood. Dead then.
Their bag is tidily under their seat. His luck to get the tidy and conscientious international criminal. The phone, the laptop, the second phone, all of it there under his fingers in the dark. He could identify memory cards in his sleep. He crawls away, a random direction for lack of a better option. If they killed the target, they know where he was sitting. Maybe they'll lose their bearings.
Silence. None of the grunting and fumbling of men trying to kill each other. Oscar holds his breath again. No panic, because what would be the point. Either he's dead or--
A bright light, right on his face, and he flinches away, hand over his eyes.
"Fucking hell," he swears, blinking, night vision completely fucking gone, but then the torchlight swings away and it's Carlos, silhouetted in the light thrown off the beam. He's bleeding from a scratch over his eye, and there's blood - someone elses - on his hands.
"Took you long enough," Oscar says. Carlos rolls his eyes.
"Next time, I will give you the gun and you can protect me while I collect a bag from a man who cannot even fight back," he says.
"You didn't even use your gun," Oscar says, clutching the bag of devices closer to his chest. There's no way he's allowing Carlos to even look at the devices. He'd brick them in a second.
Noise from the next carriage over, and light moving through the glass door. Carlos pulls his gun from his shoulder holster, and holds it easily, one-handed, over his torch. "Stay down," he says, moving slowly towards the door. Oscar scoots back to get the laptop open, his fingers illuminated by the screen. Carlos would keep him safe while he worked.
