Chapter Text
Mira breathed out as she closed the door to her room, looking around at the red walls barely decorated except for a few frames here and there. Sneaking out of the building was fairly easy, but sneaking back in was a completely different game. It was something that she wasn't used to, something that made her feel like a teenager again skipping school for the first time.
Sighing in relief and shaking off the adrenaline that was still rushing through her body, Mira stepped further in her room. The room wasn't a bad place, well... if you look past the mold in the right corner of the ceiling, or the broken chair next to the broken desk, or the wallpaper peeling off, or the mattress that's probably half empty inside and hurts to sleep on. It's not that bad. It's not.
Mira smiled, undoing the knot of her belt and taking off her trench coat. With the trenchcoat off of her shoulders, the woman finally sat down on the bed and stared at the wall, thinking about the last few days.
Three days ago, she'd left the building in the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep and everything was quiet to meet up with Noah. The meetup was purely professional, it consisted of Noah explaining to her a plan he'd made up with Nicholas, and her giving her own ideas to improve the plan. Then, two days ago, they'd put the plan in motion. Everything had gone perfectly but Mira still felt guilty about having betrayed her own boss by working with Bad Omens.
Gnawing on her lip, she tried to think of something else to distract herself from the guilt that was still swallowing her. Her leg was bouncing, restless. Something felt off. Something was about to go wrong.
"Fuck." She whispered as she pressed her palms into her eyes, trying to calm her anxiety but to no avail. A pit was forming in her stomach, making her body ache and her eyes water. "What the fuck is going on?" She whispered in desperation, confused as to why her body was having such an extreme reaction to her guilt.
As she was spiraling inside of her own anxiety, a knock against the door made her freeze. She stared at the door, motionless and on edge, waiting for whoever is standing behind the wood to break it into pieces. But nothing happened, except for a second knock.
Mira swallowed. Standing up, she held onto the wall for support, grabbing a knife on her desk as she walked by. Walking from the bed to the door felt like an eternity. She kept her eyes on the door, never looking away, ready to defend herself in case of an attack. Aware that she would most likely die in case of an attack.
As she reached for the doorknob, she tried not to pay attention to the way her fingers were shaking around it. She unlocked and took one last breath before slowly opening the door.
Standing there was a man that she'd never seen before, or at least had no recollection of his face. The man was wearing all black clothes, just like everyone else in the building, just like herself and probably just like everyone in the Concrete Jungle. This could be a trap, this could be an enemy.
She was about to ask who he was, but the man beat her to it. "Boss wants to see you." He simply said, already turning around to leave. Mira stared at his back as she watched him walk away, she blinked and sighed.
"Okay..." Locking the door behind her, she started to make her way to the man's office.
The few people that she passed by watched her like she was walking to her own execution. This did not help ease her nerves. Walking closer to the office, she tried to ignore the sweat drenching her palms and the way her hands were shaking.
She stopped in front of a dark wooden door, she knocked. There was silence behind the door and she raised her fist to knock again but a voice called from inside and then the sound of the lock shifting made her forget that idea, instead she waited and watched the door slowly open. Revealing the man that she'd seen only once or twice ever since he'd taken her in. The man, so absent physically but present in all of their minds. The man she'd sworn herself to. The mastermind, her boss.
He watched her behind his glasses, a fake smile stretching his lips to reveal perfectly aligned teeth. "Mira." He said, still smiling but there was something else in his voice, something that made the hairs on her arms stand up. "Come in, please." He moved away from the door and gestured with his arm in a grand motion for her to come inside.
Mira complied, discreetly observing the room. Unlike Noah's office, this one was decorated, fancy with expensive weapons put on display on the wall directly behind where the man would sit at his desk.
"Sit down." His voice turned cold, making Mira jump and obey. She heard the click in the door signaling that he'd locked them both inside the room. She swallowed anxiously.
The man made his way back to his chair behind the desk, the sound of his heels clicking against the polished floor, the only noise inside the otherwise empty room. Mira watched him sit down and stare at her. For a minute, they both stared into each other's eyes, Mira feeling like she was making a grave mistake the longer she stared.
"Where did you go?" He asked nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair and placing both arms on the armrests.
Mira's heart skipped a beat at the question. "I don't know what you mean." She replied in the same tone as him. "I've been here." She was digging her own grave.
He wasn't buying it. That much was clear. The man hummed, nodding. "Right... Well, one of my guys said he watched you sneak out..."
Against her own will, Mira's eyes widened. She did not answer. There was no answer to give, she'd been caught. And she was going to pay the price just like everyone else.
"When I took you in all these years ago," he started, "I knew I could trust you. It was like... fate, in a way. You seemed so lost, so confused and yet, I could trust you with my life. And that's rare." He moved in his chair, now leaning on the desk, still staring at her. "You've betrayed me."
The words stung. They felt like someone had run a sword through her own body, she could barely breathe. "I'm sorry." She whispered instinctively. But as soon as the words left her mouth, he slammed a fist on the desk. She jumped, panicked.
"Sorry doesn't cut it. Traitors get punished, you should know that." She did, he'd made her punish a traitor before. Traitors lose a limb in this house. "I know where you went. I might not know the exact location, but I know you went with these damned Bad Omens."
His anger was clear in the way his voice deepened, Mira felt her body tense, ready to run away despite the door being locked. There was no way out, she was trapped. And yet still, a part of her was convinced that she could escape and run away. Like a coward, a part of her was desperate to flee.
"Tell me, Mira," he whispered, his voice like honey as he leaned closer to her across the desk, "what happens to traitors?"
Mira swallowed, her breaths were short, she didn't want to say the words, she didn't want them to turn into reality. Her reality.
"Tell me." The honey in his voice was gone, it had dripped away, sticking to the floors of the room, trapping her. Thorns, his words were twisted in thorns, they stung, made her bleed.
"Traitors get- Traitors lose a limb." She managed to stutter out, her voice shaking and barely audible. The man hummed in agreement.
"Yes... And why's that?" The smug look on his face made her feel like he was enjoying it. He was enjoying her panic, her fear, he was enjoying his power over her.
Tears welled in her eyes as she responded. "Because they need to remember what they've done."
"Exactly." He whispered, still smiling and talking to her like she was a child. Mira hated this. "You're a traitor, Mira." His hand came up to caress her cheek, Mira wanted to recoil and back away from his touch. But she couldn't, frozen in fear she couldn't move. "And it's sad, it really is." There was a mournful look on his face, it was hard to tell whether it was fake or not. "But you need to remember what you've done. It's the rule." He pressed a button under the desk, a button that Mira didn't know.
"I make the rules." His tone was cold again. "You're not supposed to break them." The sound of the lock shifting in the door resonated in the room like a detonation. Mira did not turn around but she could hear someone walk in.
She kept her eyes on the desk while her boss watched the person approach them. Then on the desk, she watched her katana be put down. Mira looked up at the man, panicked and confused with her eyes wide open. The other guy left the room.
"I've always loved you and your way of standing out from the rest. A katana. Such a bold weapon amongst our guns and knives. Is it sharp?" He asked, slicing the pulp of his thumb to test the sharpness of the weapon. A drop of blood slid out of the cut. "Oh, really sharp. Perfect."
Mira felt like crying as she watched him manhandle her katana, testing its weight in his hands.
"I didn't think it would be this light." He said, his eyes shining in awe behind his glasses. "Put your arm on the desk." He said nonchalantly again. Mira did not move. "Come on, Mira, don't make me get restraints."
Still, Mira didn't move. So he pressed the button under his desk again. And once again, the door unlocked and suddenly there were four hands holding her arm down. Mira screamed and tried to break free, but the men were much stronger than her and her arm was barely moving under their grip.
"That's such an awkward angle." The man observed, trying to find a good spot to swing the blade. He lifted the katana, Mira screamed again, begging him to stop and uncaring for the fact that she'd resorted to begging.
"Please!" She yelled, tears sliding down her face.
"This might take more than one swing." He said before bringing the blade down on the first half of her forearm.
Mira's scream deafened her own ears, she closed her eyes against the pain that was exploding through her arm. She did not want to open them again, did not want to see the state of her forearm. Before she could catch her breath, she felt the pain come again, this time worse than the first. She screamed again, opening her eyes on instinct and gagging at the sight before her.
The first thing she noticed was the blood. There was blood all over the desk and the men's hands, all over her own hand. Her forearm exposed the meat under her skin, bright red and pink. She gagged again.
The boss exhaled, probably full of adrenaline. "Okay, we're getting to the bone now. I don't know if this will cut through bone but we'll see. How are you doing Mira?" His voice was smug and if she wasn't in so much pain and barely conscious, she would spit in his face.
Mira did not answer him, mostly because she'd barely heard him. The blade came down again. She screamed again.
In total, it took around five swings before the blade started to cut through the bone, and it took another six more before the blade fully separated Mira's forearm in half. By the time the last swing came, Mira was barely conscious, her head lolling from side to side and her face drenched in tears. Her voice had left her from screaming too much and her left arm, what remained of it was shaking.
"Do you get it now?" The man asked. A hand grabbed her cheeks, forcing her to open her eyes in surprise. They immediately fell on the table and she felt bile rise up in her throat. There was her hand on the table. Her hand. "Look at me." She did, painfully slow, her eyes focused on his face covered in her blood.
"I'll kill you." She whispered shakily. "I'll watch you bleed out."
He laughed, bold and arrogant, "Well hopefully you won't have to use both hands."
Mira's face twisted in a mix of anger and agony. Whether it was from shock or blood loss she didn't know, but her arm was starting to go numb.
"I don't want to see you ever again." He spat. "If I see you in this building or near this building, trust me I'll take more than a hand." He walked to the door of his office. "You can take your fucking katana with you, good luck sucking the Omens dicks." And he was gone, leaving Mira to bleed out on his desk.
Mira was very much aware that she was leaving a trail of blood in her wake but she didn’t care. Everyone in the building probably knew of what had just happened already.
Stumbling on her own feet, she made her way to the exit door. She’d messily strapped her katana to her back and the weapon kept hitting the walls as she walked on unsteady feet. The blood loss was making her dizzy and she couldn’t see much through her blurry vision.
Once out of the building, she let her body fall to the ground against the wall and fumbled through her coat pocket to find her phone. Once she had the device in her hand, she scrolled through her contacts to find Noah’s. The only phone number that she’d never found the strength to delete.
Pressing the call button, she held the phone against her ear with a shaking hand and waited for Noah to pick up, busying herself with the task of keeping her eyes open, that was becoming harder and harder as the minutes passed by.
“Who is this?” Noah’s monotone voice made her jump. She blinked and took a shaking breath.
“Me.” Mira said weakly, if she’d been more conscious she would have told him directly who she was, but blood was becoming rare inside her body and she had more pressing matters than this.
There was silence for a few seconds, Noah was probably figuring out who he was talking to, then, “Mira?” The woman nodded before remembering that he couldn’t see her.
“Are you hurt?” The man asked, probably having noticed how weak her voice was and how labored her breaths were.
“Yeah.” She slurred out, her eyes closing despite her fight to keep them open.
“-are you? Mira!” The woman jumped again at the loud voice in her ear. Looking around through a blurry and fading vision, she noticed that her body had slumped against the wall, making her look like she was laying on the wet ground of the street.
“What…” She slurred again, not having the strength of making her sound clear anymore. There was a deep exhale in the phone.
“You weren’t answering me. Where are you? I told Jolly to go in the car, do you need help? How bad is your wound?”
“No.” Mira simply said, ignoring his other questions to focus on the first one. “You- You can’t come here, he’ll kill you. He’ll kill us, he said it. He told me that if he saw me again he’ll kill me. I’m not scared I want you all to be safe, I don’t want him to kill us, I-”
“Mira, calm down.” Noah’s voice was soft, a softness she’d never heard before coming from him. “We’ll hide the car, don’t worry about us. Can you walk? At all?”
Mira took note of the way her body was shaking and how cold and weak she felt. “Don’t know.” She muttered. “I can try.”
Noah sighed from the other side of the line, anxious. “Okay, tell me where you are and we'll come get you. I need you to keep your eyes open and I need you to keep answering me, okay? I'm not gonna hang up, I'm gonna stay with you the whole time and I need you to stay with me, alright?”
Mira frowned and swallowed, she blinked slowly and nodded, “Okay.” She managed to whisper before giving him her location.
Noah's grip was shaking on his phone, he was trying to get Mira to answer him but it wasn't working anymore. If she was bleeding out, then they needed to be a lot faster. He glanced at Jolly to his left, the man's grip on the steering wheel was as white as Noah's on his phone. “Can you drive faster?” Noah asked the other, staring back at the road and listening for any noise coming out of his phone.
Jolly groaned in annoyance, “I'm going as fast as I can without killing us.” He said not moving his eyes away from the barely visible road in the night.
Noah sighed and rolled his eyes. “Mira?” He redirected his attention to her, hoping she would answer him this time. “Can you answer me?” Only a low pained moan answered him. But at least it was something. “Stay with me, we’re almost there.”
“Did she tell you how bad she’s hurt?” Jolly asked, spinning the steering wheel to turn left, still not looking away from the road.
Noah shook his head, “No.” He answered, moving the phone away from his ear as he did before bringing it back against it and asking Mira. His eyebrows scrunched up as he listened to her. “She said it’s her hand?” Noah repeats, confused.
Jolly scoffed. “You mean to tell me we had to speed on these roads just for a hand wound ?” The man finally looked away from the road for a second to glare at Noah, who stared at him helpless and just as confused as he was. “She put a sword through you two weeks ago but oh no she got a booboo on her hand we must rescue Mira! ”
It was Noah’s turn to glare now,surprised by Jolly’s sudden and extreme reaction. “First of all it was a katana. And second of all, I’m sorry but I don’t think it’s just a ‘booboo’. From the way she’s talking to me I don’t think a small cut on her hand will result in fucking blood loss.” Noah defended Mira, surprising himself with his own protectiveness over her. “And about my wound, I’ll have you know it’s healing just fine.” Noah added before looking away from Jolly.
This whole situation had turned into something ridiculous and if he wasn’t so worried about what he was going to find once they get to Mira, Noah would definitely laugh at how stupid they sound. But alas, Mira was not giving any sign of life from the other side of the line anymore and Jolly’s sudden outburst was not helping him calm down.
“Oh I know that wound is not fucking healed.” Jolly spat out, still not letting go of the conversation. “Just yesterday you couldn’t even bend down to tie your own fucking shoes. Don’t think I didn’t see that. Don’t think we don’t see how stiff you look anytime you move.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Okay, well I’m sorry if a wound like that doesn’t magically heal itself in two days…” He looked at their surroundings, finally putting an end to their conversation to focus on what they were supposed to be doing. “Hide the car there.” Noah pointed at two large bushes that would be big enough to cover the car. “I’m gonna get her, you stay in the car and wait.”
“I am not letting you go alone with her.” Jolly protested, already opening his own car door.
“Yes, you are. Jolly please, this isn’t the time to argue again. You wait in the car because I don’t trust this area and I don’t want someone to steal our fucking car. So you wait here, you stay patient and then I come back with her and we fucking leave. Do you get this?”
Jolly stared at him, making a point to glare at Noah before nodding. He seemed to finally understand the gravity of the situation. Once Noah was sure that his friend wasn’t going to follow him, he opened the door and left the car.
Staying in the shadows, Noah tried to find Mira’s silhouette in the darkness of the night. Pulling out a light here would be too dangerous, he wasn’t dumb, he knew where they were. He knew who Mira was working for. He knew that her boss wouldn’t hesitate to take Noah’s head as a trophy, wouldn’t even be surprised if the guy dreamed of that.
Finally, he noticed a dark form slumped against the wall of the building and rushed to it. The smell of blood was strong as he approached, this detail only made his worry grow. Noah carefully walked closer, trying to make out the features on the person’s face to make sure it was who he was looking for. Squinting, Noah noticed the hair and immediately knelt down. “Mira?” He whispered, shaking her shoulder to get a reaction out of her. But there was no reaction, no sign of life.
“Fuck…” The man whispered, hands in his hair. He called her name again, patting her cheeks until her eyes fluttered open. “Mira? Can you hear me? Please, I need you to answer.”
Mira groaned, blinking the blurriness out of her vision, she seemed to recognize the man in front of her. “Noah…?” The woman whispered weakly, trying to stand up by pushing her shaking arms against the floor before falling back down with a wail of pain. If the night hadn’t been so dark, Noah would have noticed the way she cradled her left arm. Noah would have noticed the lack of a left hand. But as it was, the night was too dark and Noah was too focused on trying to get her to answer him.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Noah answered with relief in his voice, she might be suffering from blood loss but it didn’t seem like she’d entered the stage of delirium yet. “Jolly is waiting for us in the car, I need you to stand up and walk with me for that.”
Mira grumbled something before her head fell backward and hit the wall. Noah instinctively placed his hand behind her head to cushion the impact. “Don’ thin’ I w’lk…” Mira slurred out the barely comprehensible words before throwing herself at Noah for seemingly no reason at all. The man almost fell backward at the weight of her body against his, unprepared. She was clinging to him with the remaining strength she had, Noah could feel how her body was shaking and how she didn’t seem like she could hold herself in this position any longer.
“Okay, uhm…” Noah looked around as if someone would magically appear to help them. His worried eyes fell back on Mira’s collapsed form in his arms, she was losing strength, fast. Her right hand, which had been grabbing his jacket with a tight fist before, was shaking and slowly sliding down from his back without the woman even noticing. Her head lolled around her shoulder as if the bones had liquefied inside, she was close to losing consciousness and still, Noah had no idea of the location of the wound that was causing this. “I think I’m gonna have to carry you.” Noah said, awkwardly moving her arms away from behind his back and while doing so, his hand touched something wet on her left arm.
Noah pulled his hand back and looked at his fingers, in the darkness they looked just as dark as the night. This wasn’t water. Water wouldn’t look dark on his fingers. Quickly, he grabbed, as gently as he could despite his urgency, Mira’s arms and felt around her left arm. It felt significantly shorter than a normal arm.
“My hand…” The words she’d stuttered out over the phone echoed in his head and without thinking, Noah pulled out his phone to shine its flashlight on Mira’s left arm.
Now, Noah wasn’t someone to be grossed out by blood and gore, it was part of his job after all. But the sight he was met when the light flashed on Mira’s arm was enough to make bile rise up in his throat. The cause of her blood loss was clear as day now, despite it being night. The stump that used to be the rest of her arm was but a mess of meat and bone, there was blood gushing out at a steady pace and it was a wonder how she was still conscious. The wound was dirty, full of grime from having touched the floor and the wall of the building, and Noah was sure that she was going to develop an infection, if it hadn’t started already. The cut was messy, it was clear that the weapon used had been swung several times, the forearm was cut in the middle of the bones, the skin around it was nothing but mush, destroyed beyond repair. Mira’s arm was shaking in Noah’s gentle grip and when he looked up, she was also looking at her arm, what was left of it, with rising terror. With her lip trembling and her eyes glistening, Noah was prepared for her to scream, but she didn’t. Only a single tear rolled down her cheek.
Noah gulped, looking down one last time at the shredded arm before cupping her face with bloody hands to force her gaze on his own, “I’m gonna carry you to the car, okay?” Mira nodded, it seemed like the sight of her arm had brought back her clarity. Biting his lip, Noah debated saying something else, but ultimately decided against it. Turning off his flashlight, he gathered Mira in his arms and carefully lifted her off the dirty and wet ground.
Noah wasn’t one for physical contact, even less so for carrying someone, but it was clear that Mira wouldn’t be able to stand up with the amount of blood she’d lost. And even if she could stand up, he feared it would take too long to get her to walk from the side of the building to their car, he feared this would ultimately kill her.
Disappearing into the darkness of the night and relying on his memory alone to find his way back to the car and Jolly, Noah kept two fingers on the side of Mira’s neck, always checking her pulse and making sure she was still reacting to him.
Luckily for the both of them, the way back was quicker than before and soon enough, Noah watched as Jolly got out of the car to help him.
“Is she still alive?” It seemed like his anger had dissipated while he waited inside the car, now there was only concern in Jolly’s voice. Noah couldn’t see his face clearly in the dark but he could guess his eyebrows were knit tightly together.
“Barely.” Noah said as Jolly opened the door to place Mira on the backseats. “Call Ruff.” Noah ordered at the same time as he maneuvered the woman in his arms onto the backseats. Grabbing a random piece of cloth from the floor of the car, he tied it around the stump, hoping this would help with the bleeding. His medical knowledge, unlike Nicholas, was very limited. “Tell him to get Jesse here too, we might need him more than Nick.”
Jesse was an old friend of the group, they'd met him back when Noah was still fixated on his idea of making a band, playing live music. Obviously, this never happened but still, Noah always stayed close with Jesse, which was good because weirdly enough, the man was really good at stitching them up and had far more medical knowledge than Nicholas. In addition to that, and despite not living a life of crime, Jesse handled gore a lot better than Nicholas did, but Noah would never admit this to his best friend.
Jolly nodded, having already pulled out his phone to call Nicholas even before Noah told him to. While he talked with Nick, Noah gently placed a makeshift pillow under Mira’s head, she was unconscious now and he was terrified that she wouldn’t wake up ever again. The pillow was more so to reassure himself than to make her stay in the car comfortable. Jolly tapped his shoulder, making the man turn around, “Nick’s asking what kinda wound we’re gonna deal with.”
Noah’s face fell as the image of Mira’s arm flashed in front of him, he swallowed and cleared his throat. “They took her hand.” He said, trying to keep the anger and the disgust away from his voice. He watched Jolly’s face fall too, watched him repeat the words to his best friend.
When Jolly ended the call with Nick, they did not waste any more seconds and immediately started the car, making their way back to the Bad Omens base.
Unlike before, the road home was silent, the car filled with anxiety and dread. Every few minute, Noah would look behind to check if Mira was still breathing, and everytime he did so, her body grew colder and colder. But she was still breathing, and for that Noah was grateful, he didn’t think he could bear to lose her again after so much of his time spent searching for her.