@sorrowsick // here
Rainer is leaning against the wall of the alley in the dark and she is folded into her dark hood and mask and baggy clothes and her shoulders are hunched and only her eyes show, glinting unnaturally in the radiant street light. She doesn't know how Cross recognized her. It scares her that they did, because there is white-hot pain licking up her side from a graze from a high-caliber bullet. They'd shot at her again when she'd tried stepping out of the dead-end alley, hit the brick by her head and scattered bits into her face and her eyes.
It's about to storm. But she never heard the shots.
She keeps a hand pressed to her side and the other has a little knife, four inches of blackened steel, tucked away nearly behind her. It scares her that Cross recognized her. What is she doing out here? Is she with the shooter? She doesn't want to believe it, but their timing is awfully fucking convenient if that's not the case. They take a step closer, and Rainer's gaze darts to the mouth of the alley where the shot had come from, and then back to Cross. She doesn't brandish the knife. Not yet.
"Stop, just fucking--" she keeps her voice at a low, even hiss. She doesn't know if the shooter has moved on or if they're waiting for her to move again. She doesn't know if Cross has been sent to finish her off or if they're going to be shot too when they fall into the sights of the maybe shooter and she doesn't know if they're real, either. Her vision has been flickering. She's lost a lot of blood in the last five minutes. She can't make herself lift her knife.
She doesn't know if Cross would kill her, if He told her to.
Her gaze turns back to the mouth of the alley, and her knees start to buckle. "Fucking... fuck. Kurwa," a litany of curses fall out of her as she shuffles further back into the alley. The shadows hide even her eyes, now, and from them Cross hears a shaky sigh and a, "don't step out in the light. Shooter."
She has decided they aren't going to kill her. If they do, she'll... she doesn't know. She will deal with that later. If they were going to kill her, they wouldn't have hesitated. But she's fading fast, blood soaked into her jacket and her pants and squelching in her boot with every staggered step she manages.











