Blood Warning

(First person)

Carmen POV

I am not a tool. Or a weapon. I'm simply just here in this life, just another person attempting to fix all of the wrong. But when the wrong tries to and actually thinks that it can control me, I get angry, and scared, and confused. Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually cut out to be a super thief. I mess up, everyone does. But whenever I do I start to doubt myself more.

It doesn't help that I'm constantly putting the lives' of my friends on the line right next to my own. I'm fine with being in danger myself, but when it's Zack and Ivy...

I've tried to keep them away from certain missions. It doesn't always work, but when it does I try to see it as a victory. If they're out of the way, they can't get hurt.

Right?

That's why it terrifies me so much, to know that they're here, near the VILE compound that I've been trapped in for who knows how long. If something were to happen to them because they were saving me, then, well...

Anger and adrenaline were dulling Carmen's pain and making her blood boil, and she knocked down VILE operatives one after the other. Many of them weren't actual trained thieves, just guards and servants that knew a little about fighting. She even found by nailing one of those men in the face that she could in fact use her left arm, if only temporarily. She quickly realized, however, that she wasn't the only one fighting against the many people in pale green. There was a flash of familiar metal and a glimpse of bright orange hair, and then...

Shadowsan, closely followed by Ivy and Zack.

Carmen found herself grinning with tears in her eyes, even as fear for them spiraled in her gut. She let herself gaze at them for just a second before clocking an operative over the head with the butt of the knife and shooting another with a crackle rod, bone crunching in a satisfying way when she kicked yet another to the ground.

Her smile quickly faded as mist in the sunlight when Brunt towered over her.

I hate you.

The thought was so sudden and so filled with hate that Carmen could do nothing but give a primal snarl and charge the VILE instructor, crackle rod and knife both held in ready position.

The thief found herself cursing violently as she leapt at Brunt, and the words surprised even her. She had tried to avoid swearing whenever she could, because it had only served in bringing a more negative aspect to her already tumultuous life style. Now, however, Carmen found the action almost strangely comforting.

"Guys, run to the forest!" She yelled, dodging yet another one of Brunt's large fists. Not waiting to see if her friends obeyed or not, Carmen discarded the dagger and grabbed a second crackle rod from a fallen operative, intending to stab both into the cloth of Coach Brunt's track suit.

She moved too slowly.

"Oh, no, you don't," Brunt growled as she backhanded Carmen across the stomach, sending her crumbling to the ground.

Carmen screamed as fire erupted along the wounds on her abdomen, fresh blood warming her shirt and skin. A cough forced its way up her throat, and it rattled her body as Brunt grabbed her shoulders and hefted her into the air.

"You've done enough damage for one visit, Lambkins. I'll just have to make sure you can't do that ever again." She lowered Carmen's face down to hers, green eyes glinting with malice. "Did you ever wonder why you were suddenly so much better at fighting just now, Sandiego?"

She could only cough and swallow the blood in her mouth.

Brunt's voice lowered even further into something soft and dark and terrifying. "We didn't just take your memories," she whispered. "We gave you new ones. You'll never know what to trust anymore. Not your friends, not the world around you, not yourself."

Carmen gritted her teeth as she tried to register what Brunt was saying, but the pain and the anger were both too much. So instead she just lifted the crackle rod she'd managed to hold onto and turned its dial to the highest setting.

The deadliest setting, the lethal setting.

The one that killed.

What else could she do? Let Brunt hunt her and hurt her over and over again? Play along as they attacked the very foundation of her life? Fall into their plans? Be a pawn, a tool?

No.

She could only pull the trigger.