𝚂𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙴𝙽 - 𝙱. 𝙱𝙰𝚁𝙽𝙴𝚂

Chapter 15

(tw: death)

The Gun

Lois woke up to sounds of cars honking and the streets bustling. Slowly, she sat up in Bucky's makeshift bed with him no where in sight. He was gone. A pain shot through her chest.

Lois got up, panicking, almost falling into the fist sized hole beside the mattress she was oblivious to last night. The muscles of her body ached from the serum reviving in her system and the fights she endured yesterday as she ran to get a look at the tiny military clock. It was 13:00 pm. She had slept in like never before. On the counter beside the clock was a note. She opened it.

Be back soon. Wait for me. - B

Bucky's hand writing was surprisingly beautiful. She never pictured a 'rough around the edges' guy like him writing so elegantly. Lois left the note on the counter and saw the brief case gone as well. He was cleaning up after her mess like a true gentleman, or maybe he got tired of listening to her snoring beside him.

Lois picked up a sweater from the ground beside the mattress, put it on, and felt her stomach growl. In the kitchen, Lois looked around at what Bucky had to eat and there wasn't much. Cereal bars, some fruit, left overs, and porridge. She scrunched her nose it. Most of the time she forgot he was from the 40's and while he could survive on that food, Lois could not. She helped herself to an apple, grabbed her apartment key, which she kept at the bottom of her shoe, and walked out of his apartment, leaving the door unlocked. She wouldn't be gone long. The mail room, #17 for clothes and back to Bucky's.

She passed #17, and kept walking down the steps. She never had Mondays off, but it was probably for the best she never return to that hospital.

Lois walked past Mrs. Vulpe's empty watching chair to the mailbox. She wondered where the little landlady was off too on the Monday afternoon as she flicked through her mail. She landed on a piece of folded white paper, with no envelope. She opened and read the short sentence inside.

A fox changes her fur
but not her habits.

The familiar handwriting of the blood red ink sent a shiver ran down her spine. "No," She whispered under her breath. Lois looked back at the empty wooden chair, then dropped her mail and the note on to the floor, before running up the stairs.

Lois could speak a few languages, still she sometimes had a hard time wrapping her head around Romanian. Mrs. Vulpe had taught her a fair amount of useful phases and words and one of them was the word "Vulpe," in her honour. In English, that beautiful word translated to "Fox."

Lois reached #17, and unlocked her door pushing inside the bright room.

"Glad you're finally here to join us, Seventeen."

Torren smiled, and tilted her head. Her hair was knotted. Clothes ripped, blood-smeared, and dirty. The almost empty gun that Lois left in the van the night before was pressed to an unconscious Mrs. Vulpe's temple. Torren's other hand, which was bandaged in bloody white cloth, held her chin up.

Lois looked at Vulpe, then back at Torren.
She grimaced as she closed the door behind her. "What did you do to her?"

"Remember that little trick we made up in 2010? The one where we'd leave each other helpful gifts for emergencies. We called it 'red cat.' It was a habit of yours."