My Worst Enemy

Chapter 11.-

The air was getting thicker by the minute, burning her lungs and making it impossible for her already clogged throat to gasp the amount of oxygen she needed not to feel light headed. The time seemed to have been frozen. Only sign that it was actually running slowly but surely, was the little cringing noise the old punching bag was doing from the chain it was hanging on at the corner. This bag had been the witness of many of her angers, frustrations and fears, taking punch after punch to help her release everything she had bundled up inside. But this time, Andryse felt like not even a thousand punches could free her of the tension paralyzing her from head to toes.

Her teary eyes were burning a hole through the metal of the gun leaned against her friend's head and her own became heavier against her back, reminding her that, if she was fast enough, one bullet would be enough to end all of this masquerade. Only, the bullet would have to go straight into her own father's heart.

Patron attentively looked at his first born, registering every single pulse her body was doing and every little sharp breaths she was fighting to take. He knew that he was being harsh, say heartless with her by menacing to kill someone she so deeply cared about. But these were the rules. If it had been someone else, they wouldn't have lived to tell the tale. Hell, they wouldn't even be standing long enough to know about what they'd done wrong. But God forbid, he loved her. He always had a special soft spot for her but it didn't mean that she could go unpunished.

Of all people, she was the last one he'd ever believed would betray him like that. She had always been so strong and irreproachably conducting the business like he always wanted her to. How could she have done this to him? She had to learn once and for all, the consequences of her actions. He wasn't really sure if he would kill Shelly; maybe wound her to let Andryse know that he wasn't hesitant in killing to get to the American, dead or alive, but he had to put his foot down. It was what kept him alive until now and it was what would keep him alive for a long time to come.

"So." Patron's voice resounded in the deafening silence. "What's it going to be nina? The American…" his hand pressed the gun even harder against Shelly's temple. "Or your best friend?"

Her best friend. For one quick second, both their lives scrolled by before her eyes. They had known each other all their lives. All four of them. Shelly, Ryan, Carol and herself had always been a group very tight. Elisabeth was different, always wanting to follow on her father's footsteps, she had always stayed apart, putting herself in an elevated class. So it was only normal for Andryse to exclude her from her plans to fight against her father, just as it was normal for all the other three, to help her through it all, risking their own lives everyday and forgo any chances of having any kind of normalcy around them like they would, away from all that.

Only Ryan seemed to have it normal, being married, but they all knew that it was just fictive. They were all in danger, now more than ever and it was all her fault. It was all because of her. Because of her weakness for a man she didn't even know anything about apart from his name and all the info stored about him on a computer that she wasn't even sure were true.

The answer was evident and didn't even take a long time for her mind to figure it out. Never in a million years, would she choose a stranger over a friend she'd known all her life and whom she was ready to sacrifice her own life for. But albeit evident, it wasn't simple. For the real choice, wasn't between her best friend's life against the one of one man, but against the dozens she had tried to save for so long now. Taking her father to Colt equaled taking him to the refuge and have the blood of all these people on her hands. But could she really allow for her friend to die?

She closed her eyes, the motion forced one tear to escape and trail down her cheek, while her whole body shivered and tried hard not to fall as the room spun uncontrollably. Time was running out on her, she had to be smart enough to get her friend out of this mess alive or at least come up with a satisfying answer.

"I'll give you Colt." She finally grunted, looking at her father straight in the eyes. "Let Shelly go, then I'll give you Colt."

Patron raised his chin at the same time he removed the gun from Shelly's head and took a step forward. "Where is he?"

Andryse's heart picked up the pace as she cringed, hearing the question. This is where she could win or lose.

"I'll bring him to you." It wasn't the smartest answer but that's all she had. She first thought about saying that he was at the hospital, but she was sure that he had made the tour of the hospitals himself with Jack probably telling him that she had shot Troy. Saying that he was with someone would guarantee the death of said person as well. "I'll go get him and I'll bring him here."

Her father snickered, shaking his head. "You've been lying to me since the beginning, mija. How will I know you're not lying now?"

"Because I would never let you kill my friend over a stranger and you know it." She said with strong emotions making her voice shaky but her father just shrugged placidly.

"You chose him over me."

"No daddy, I did not."

Patron raised his hand impatiently to shut her up and took a deep breath, taking a step back to Shelly. "Where is he Andryse?"

"Give me two hours and I will…" she started with a voice she forced to keep steady but breathed in when her father cut her off, shouting violently.

"I'll give you five fucking seconds." He armed the gun and put it against Shelly's head. "For the last time Andryse. Where. Is. Colt?"

"Andryse."

Andryse held her breath when she heard Shelly's weak voice. Their eyes met and she fought with herself not to run up and hold her friend in her arms. Her cut and swollen lips could barely move as she attempted to speak again, making an evident effort to pull her head up.

"I'm sorry." Shelly let out in a faint whisper and Andryse saw her father come stand up next to her, looking at Shelly with shiny eyes. "I'm sorry I ratted you out, hun."

"No Shel." Andryse quickly said, taking a step forward. "I understand why you had to do that. I'm the one who's sorry." her voice cut out by her tears burning her throat again and she took the time to swallow them before adding. "But don't worry, I'm going to fix everything."

"I know you will." Shelly answered in another whisper.

Andryse's breath came out as she was getting ready to answer but she caught Shelly's eyes going on the man by her left side and she noticed the gun secured on the man's hips and she shivered, when their eyes met again and she read her intentions. She had always been the more daring member of the gang, the one who always wanted to fight first, talk later, the less impatient one and Andryse silently prayed that she didn't attempt to grab the gun.

"Shel, look at me." She rushed to call her friend out, forcing her to bring her attention back on her. "I'll get you out of here, all right?"

"Please forgive me, hun." Shelly answered, right before she smiled sadly. "Keep your word and take care of them, Andou."

Before Andryse could do anything or even see clearly what was happening, Shelly groaned loudly while pushing the man standing on her right who obviously was distracted and in the same movement, grabbed the gun on the man's hip and fired.

"SHELLY… NOO!"

~.~ ~.~ ~.~ ~.~ ~.~ ~.~ ~.~ ~.~

Troy took a few seconds with the phone in his hand, before realizing that he had no idea what Andryse's phone number was. The number she gave him in the plane flashed before his eyes but he doubted that he could really contact her that way, since the first time he didn't get much of an answer. He was sure that her real number was in there somewhere, but he felt awkward going in Ryan's personal phone whether it'd simply be through his contact list.

Biting on his inner jaw, he stood up from the bed and once again, limped to the door then to the kitchen, not seeing anybody in the living room and remembering how Adeline wanted to get lunch ready. He found her standing in front of a white battered stove, peeling off some potatoes while Ryan was sitting down at the table, sipping on some cold drink. They were quietly talking with a hint of tease in their tones and once more, Troy felt a little unease. It's been a while since he's been in an environment where he could practically touch love in the air. Having to harden his heart to be able to kill whomever and wherever was necessary, somehow made him forget that people still cared for each other on that level.

He scratched his throat tactfully before taking a step forward into the little room made out of cement floor and illuminated only by the rays of the sun coming in through two small windows on each side and decorated with just the necessary cooking equipment. The couple turned around to look at him and he smiled weakly.

"I was wondering if you could give me Andryse's phone number." He asked sheepishly, looking at Ryan.

"Of course." The blond man sprung up his chair and dictated him the numbers that he pressed on the dial pad, one after the other. "Knowing it's me, she might not answer if it's not safe." Ryan warned him, his right hand leaning on the head of the wooden chair he was sitting on earlier. "Just leave her a message and she will call back as soon as she can."

Troy already had the phone against his ear but groaned a thank you anyway before turning around to go back to the bedroom to have some privacy when he heard the ringing of a phone that coincided with the one in his ear but not too far from where he was. He followed the noise and froze for a few seconds, seeing Andryse standing by the front door, blood all over her jeans and white tank top that looked now more red than white. For just those quick seconds, seeing her bloody hands and the emptiness in her big, blood-spotted eyes, he feared that she had been hurt. He didn't even realized when he threw the phone somewhere on a couch and took one big step towards her, completely forgetting about his own pain.

"Andryse." He said her name frantically, taking her hands covered with blood in his. "Are you hurt? What happened?"

She looked so far gone, her eyes lost in some distant dream and he quickly made sure that she didn't have any apparent wounds before running his thumb on the side of her face, talking more quietly not to frighten her anymore than she looked like she was. It was evident that she had been traumatized and he instinctively knew that something terrible had happened.

"Andryse." he said softly, his hands cupping her face, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes, blank and empty turned on him but she seemed not to recognize him. "Hey, talk to me. Why are you all covered in blood?"

He wiped a little red mark on her cheek just as her lips trembled, forcing herself to speak.

"Andryse?" Troy quickly flipped his head around to look at Ryan coming up behind them. "What are you doing here? You know how dangerous it is for you to come here during daytime. Oh my God, what happened to you?" Ryan ran up to them as he spotted the blood all over her body and Troy was forced to take a step back as Ryan took his place, hurriedly checking up on her.

"Shelly." Andryse's weak voice finally came up and Troy saw big tears running down her cheeks.

"Shel..." Ryan's eyes opened wide as he held Andryse by both shoulders and forced her to look at him straight in the eyes. "What happened to my sister Andryse?"

"In the car..." she stuttered with a very weak voice. "She... n-needs… y-your help."

Troy who had stayed behind, watched Ryan rush out the door, immediately followed by his wife. Andryse stayed at the same spot and he felt the urge to hold her in his arms, his guts telling him that the Shelly they were talking about was already dead. He took a step forward and threw his hand around her shoulders, bringing her closer to him and hugged her trembling body against his, thinking at first that she would fight him like she always did, but she just let go against him, her head buried against his naked shoulder.

"It's okay." He whispered tenderly against her head but closed his eyes while his jaw tightened, hearing the loud cry of pain, coming from outside.

As if pulled out of her trance, Andryse snapped her head up to look at Troy. Fear and pain made her eyes a shade darker and her lips trembled again, as if she wanted to say something before taking a shaky step back and rushed out of the door. He followed her as fast as his pain allowed him and stopped immediately, seeing Ryan on his knees in the middle of a big yard filled with grass, tightly hugging a lifeless body in his hands while wailing his pain and sadness away. He immediately recognized one of the girls who always was with Andryse and he felt his pulse run faster when his eyes caught the blood coming out by big flow of the right side of her neck.

His piercing blue eyes shifted on the raven haired girl who was standing a few feet away, her arms crossed around her shaking body and tears strolling down her cheeks. She still looked like her mind was far away and once again, all he wanted to do was just hold her against him and let her know that everything was going to be all right. He took another step forward and came in full view with his surrounding and stopped immediately, surprised. Since he woke up sometime in the morning, he had never tried to come outside and it was the first time that he was finally looking at exactly where he was.

It wasn't so much the way the whole simple architecture was with all the tiny houses lined up in a circle with flat rooftops, with what looked like a church on the right, with a cross on a pointy top and a school on the side; giving him the strong impression of a little village in the middle of a dense forest, but it was the people standing all around. They were children, women of all ages, most men carrying weapons, all standing up and respectfully watching the sad scene and silently, listening to Ryan's loud crying, rocking the body of his dead sister against him.

He first wondered who they all were, and in a flash, he understood. These were the people she was talking about protecting. He always thought she wanted to protect the people immediately surrounding and helping her but he then realized that her protection was expanding on a so much wider angle. He had no idea who they were or why they needed to be protected but he knew who exactly they needed protection from. And she was taking it all on her shoulders.

"You! It's all your fault." Troy frowned when his attention was stolen by Adeline's screeching voice, walking steadily to Andryse, pointing an accusing finger at her. "It's all your fault. She's dead because of you. You killed her."

Andryse lowered her head and Troy could feel her despair by the way her shoulders fell and her chest shook under contained sobs. Adeline talked even louder, her hand swiping the air and looking at everyone surrounding them.

"You're all going to die. We are all going to die because of her just like Shelly did. And for what?" she spat, taking a step closer to Andryse who was keeping her head down and this time pointed at Troy who was until now, unnoticed by everyone. "For him?" she continued with venom filling up her voice.

Troy swallowed as now all eyes were directed at him and he felt the need to try to stand up straight, despite the pain tugging at his left side.

"Why don't you tell them the truth Andryse? Everyone needs to know." Adeline continued, her brown eyes dark with anger and her auburn hair flying all around her redden and teary face. "Tell them the whole story. Tell them how he is the one you betrayed us all for and now, your father is going to kill us all. All because of you!"

Troy felt his heart ache as it fell deep down in his chest when Andryse raised her eyes for a quick second to look straight at him while the crowd was finally breaking its frozen silence and a murmur was slowly rising up. And in that one second their eyes met, he knew that both their lives had forever changed and were indefinably intertwined. But it was all it took for her to crack up under the pressure and he watched her as she furiously pushed the people away to make her way, running into the dense forest.

"Andryse." He immediately shouted after her and started running in the direction she took, conscious of all the eyes turned on him, some curious and others right down hostile but he had to stop when the pain cut his breath and bent his body in two.

But he had to find her. Only one thought was driving him: she needed him right now and he had to get to her. If there was one person who could ever understand her, it was him and he had to find a way to her. He raised his head and took note of the exact spot where she had disappeared to and ran back as fast as he could inside the house. Looking in the bedroom, he found a syringe amongst the medical supplies laid on the table and shot himself with a half dose of morphine, shaking his head when the strong pain killer, that could bring down a horse, immediately made him dizzy and quickly swallowed four aspirins with no water. Stronger, the pain dulled away, he ran back out, and, ignoring his bare feet hitting the grass and the sun burning his bare chest, he made his way through the crowd which immediately spread apart to let him go, and he ran right through where he had watched her disappear.

Once he went through, he stumbled upon a large clearing, with the trees not as dense as it was at the borders, leaving him a clear view of what's around him and he wondered if the density around the camp itself wasn't made on purpose to hide it better. But that didn't make it easier for him. He had no idea where to go and with the trees limiting his field of vision, there were no chances at all to find her without getting lost himself. But luckily for him, the soil wasn't made of a bed of grass and weeds but of a mixture of black dirt, rocks and vegetation. Squatting down, he quickly noticed the marks left by her feet and the fact that she was running, made them even more pronounced and he sprinted, keeping an eye on both the footprints on the ground and on the trees around him not to bump into one of them.

After one minute or two, he noticed that the marks on the ground became less visible until they disappeared, and he guessed that she had just stopped running. He stopped and stayed still, trying to catch any sounds that may indicate her position. A river steadily flowing nearby, a few birds flying low and crowing in the branches, a peaceful silence, only disturbed by the dead leaves and twigs being dragged by different animals and insects running around and just a few seconds were enough for him to hear her loud, suffocating sobs coming from his left. A few steps in that direction and his heart wrenched again seeing her in such an awful state.

Sitting down on the ground, her bloody clothes still hanging on her body, she was crying and sniffling, her head leaned on a tree while her arms were hugging her lifeless comfort. He took a step forward, telling himself that his arms would be so much better for her. But as soon as his feet cracked a dry stick on the floor, she raised her head and their eyes met again and they stayed connected for what seemed an eternity before either one of them made a move.

But it was her who reacted first as she sprung up her feet and walked furiously towards him. "Go away." She ordered with a voice strangled by her tears.

He could clearly see all of her body quivering just as much as her chest was pulling up and down and her face was disfigured by all the intense emotions she was going through while her feet were hitting the ground with force. But right now, she looked pissed and angry and he understood that being mad at him, was so much easier for her to handle than sadness and he braced himself, bending all of his muscles to be ready, knowing that he would let her dump everything on him.

"Did you hear me?" she shouted even louder, now very close to him, her hands turned into menacing fists. "I said go to hell. Leave me the fuck alone."

"I'm not going anywhere without you Andryse." He said with a voice that came out husky, surprising himself that it bore so much emotion.

"I don't want you here." She spat furiously at him. "Nobody wants you here. This all your fucking fault. If you had gone back to the States like I told you, none of this would have happened. It's all your fucking fault."

She stood right before him, her face ravaged by her tears and her body almost falling to the ground, probably weak after all the shock she received and he pulled out his arms to catch her but a strong jab on his right jaw, made his head turn away and he screeched his teeth under the pain.

"Don't fucking touch me."

"I'm sorry." He whispered gravely, letting his hands fall back down.

But a punch right in the stomach made him take a step backwards and he just raised his left hand as a shield for his wound not be hit but stood his ground, knowing that more would follow.

"You're sorry?" she gritted her teeth and hit him again, but this time, he was prepared and stayed solid. "You don't get to be sorry because it's too late." She punched him even harder but he instinctively swerved his head away when her fist tried to hit his chin. "It's too fucking late. She's dead." Her voice broke down and her fury got even stronger as a rain of punches fell onto his stomach and chest.

Driven by her anger and pain, some were hard and others not so much but he didn't flinch, his body used to be treated much harder through his training and real fights with men. He just kept his wound protected and his head away to avoid his jaws or nose to be broken, fully accepting to be her human punching bag, just so she could get rid of it all and feel better. Her shouts were becoming lower and interspersed by her shrieks and he could feel her body getting weaker and weaker by the minute.

"I fucking hate you." Out of breath, she hit him with both fists at the same time and he knew she had reached her limits as she stayed leaned against him, her head down with her hair covering every part of her face. "I should have killed you when I had the chance. I hate you."

"You can take it all on me." He whispered tenderly again, trying to hold back from removing her hair from her face to wipe her tears away. "I can take it. Give me more if it'll set you free."

"I hate you. I hate you. I hate you." She clamored as a song on repeat going back to hitting him until she lost her voice completely and crumbled right onto the floor.

But he was fast to scoop her up and he brought her back against him with his right hand, holding her tightly against him while she wailed against his chest. He fell on his knees, his arm still holding her strongly and soothingly rocked their bodies. He closed his eyes when she cradled against him, her head nuzzled against his neck and he felt her warm tears run down his chest. He threw his other hand around her to hold her even stronger, ignoring the pain that was coming back slowly from his body being rigid for so long and his blood warming up. But he didn't care. She needed him to stay strong for her and nothing else was more important to him at the moment.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading this story, although I would greatly appreciate it if I got a little more feedback from you guys. Rate, reviews... I hate to do this but I have to admit that it really encourages me to update knowing that you guys like it and even have opinion/questions about what's going on in the story. It is my first story here so you will understand how it is important for me to know what you guys think and feel regarding this whole thing.

Also, I don't know if many of you have read my one-shot "My trip to Florida." If I get many ratings of reviews asking to turn it into a full story, I just might do that knowing a lot of you will read it, therefore worth updating. And thank you to Ana Maria and Kara for their nice words. So, if you want to read more, go on and rate and leave me a review to let me know. Otherwise, it will stay as a one-shot.

Again thank you for reading.