The Familiar Face

Eugene froze in place. Every single thought seized away from his head, no imagery of his life nor any plan of escape. Only one image remained, the pitch dark gun barrel, which could have lightened up at any moment and take Eugene's own light away forever. He was terrified, yet he could not move. The only thing he could feel was his hand being squeezed tightly by the lady he tried to save.

One of the gunners made a step towards the pair. He did not say anything, just held his weapon and burned with his gaze not Eugene, but the lady. The man could not see the expression on her, but he felt the heat coming out of her skinny hand. The heat was burning him, meaning it could be fear. Fury, perhaps? He could not know or even think about it, since something peculiar happened shortly after the man in a suit made his steps.

"Run!", screamed the lady and quite unlady like. It was a rough voice, more like one you would hear from a Marchande, but surely not from someone with such a small frame. Her voice, though, was magically able to snap Eugene back to reality. He finally averted his gaze from the gunners, his body felt lighter than a feather and the mind was focused on a single task, to run.

They moved with the woman roughly at the same time. Three men, on the other hand, did not shoot at them, but just screamed, "Wait!" and "Put that thing down!". They were quite disorganised due to the unexpected outcome of the situations, thus men began chasing the two only after Eugene with the lady escaped from the back alley and ended up on a street near the tramway.

Unluckily, there were not yet any trams for escape nor people to ask for help nearby, which forced them to run further. They were heading towards the Seine river, making Eugene's walk towards the hospital even more pointless. At first, the two ran at a similar pace, the woman, even though slightly, but was still faster than the man, but not for long. Her steps slowed down, and so did Eugene's. However, as soon as he heard a threat coming from those men, who were relentlessly chasing them, he snorted and on the move took the woman under his arm.

Afterwards, his Eugene's running speed increased drastically, he thanked all gods from various religions for this woman not having a significant weight. The one the agility snatched, on the other hand, was quite unhappy with her position. She was silent at first, still being shocked from this move, but after a while she murmured, "How barbaric, I would have shot you immediately."

At that moment, Eugene considered dropping her as a dead weight, but the man resisted this sudden urge.

Soon, the chasers ran out of breath and the two were able to hide behind a monument. As ill luck would have it, there were more people now, since the rain died out a little, but it still was going.

They occupied the bench nearby, both wet to the skin and gasping for air, especially Eugene. The parasol of that woman was lost half the way through, but he still could not see her face due to how messy her hair got. The man even felt bad a little, but this feeling was swiftly replaced with resentment when instead of words of praise, he heard quite the opposite.

"What an unspeakable act! How foolish one should be to treat a lady like that? If not for modern social norms, you would be executed immediately!"

Eugene's jaw dropped, and anger swayed him, "What the hell does that even mean? Would you prefer to be taken by those suspicious men!? You could be already dead, if not worse!"

The woman did not even face him, she glanced over all the surroundings, but skipped his sight entirely, which made Eugene even more irritated.

Aside from some onlookers who looked at the two in confusion, and a few pigeons who scavenged for moist crumbs or seeds, left behind by people, hurrying from the rain, she did not notice anyone suspicious and made a sigh of relief. Then, she brushed her blonde hair back and finally revealed her face to the man.

Once again, Eugene froze in shock. He immediately recognized her elegant face and shrewd gaze with deep green eyes. She was the one who humiliated him once at "Monso Rooster". In fact, it happened just a couple of days ago. The one Eugene presumably saved from danger was the daughter of the la Avise family, whose name he still was not aware of.

Her sight was looking not into his eyes, but rather his very soul. The immense pressure nearly made Eugene turn away, but the lady did it first while saying, "I did not ask to be saved, Eugene. I was doing fine on my own."

Afterwards, she stood up and ultimately wished to depart, but failed to do so. After a single step, her already short frame became even smaller, she crouched in pain. At first, Eugene crossed his arms and looked at her with contempt, but after she tried to stand up once again and failed, the man became quite concerned.

"Better sit on a bench."

"And why should I?"

"For god's sake, stop being so stubborn for at least a second, and sit on a bench. You are clearly injured!"

Eugene supported her like a toddler upon its first steps towards mother. She obediently moved back to the bench, but puffed up with indignation. At this instance, Eugene stopped caring about her peskiness, as he was brother of the doctor, his foremost priority in this situation was the analysis of the severity of the injury.

First, he paid attention to her footwear and his eyes immediately widened. All this time, la Avise was wearing high heels! It was no wonder she had injured her leg, and even though such run in heels could end up with quite severe injury, he was happy, yet slightly sad, that the source of the problem lied in her feet and not somewhere above. Onwards, Eugene stripped off her right shoe and hit the bulls eye. Her right foot was swollen and a bit red, but no serious injury was present.

"I apologize in advance, but if the pain is too intense, then just ask me to stop, alright?" he asked while lifting his head. Surprisingly, no sense of embarrassment was present in her serious gaze. She carefully listened to him, as if the woman visited an actual doctor, and then nodded, giving him permission to bend her feet.

And so Eugene did, slowly but steadily, until she squealed in pain which scared the man a little, and he let off her leg. For a few seconds, both of them sat in silence. La Avise on the bench and Eugene on the ground. After a few seconds, though, the lady spoke, "And what is the verdict?"

"Oh, seemingly, you have sprained your foot. But I would not say that the injury is severe. At least you are able to stand…"

"Well, I would not exactly say that's a relief, but thank you nevertheless. Apples from the same tree are quite similar, huh?" she murmured and put her shoe back on. Then she was about to stand, but quickly changed her mind and remained sitting.

"Even though it is not severe, you will not get far with this injury… you know what?" asked Eugene, turned around and squatted, "I will treat your wound, my brother is a doctor, so there are lots of medical stuff to help you with."

"Are you inviting me to your home?"

Eugene hummed for a second and then shook his head, "Not exactly, I am always welcomed there, but this is not my house. And this is not such situation! You are the one who has to get away from those thugs anyway. So think faster whether you want me to leave you here or not."

La Avise did not think too long, she only sighed, "How troublesome." and got on Eugene's back. And so he gave her a piggyback ride all the way to Christopher's and Vera's home. And while they were on their way, the woman remained silent, which was a blessing, but the man could not ignore his life being threatened, and so he asked, "Who were those people? Why were you so sure that they would not shoot us?"

"It would be too dangerous to shoot for them as well. In the end, everyone has their loved ones and if a single hair had fallen from my head, they would pay an unfathomable price."

From her statement, shivers went down Eugene's spine, and he murmured, "And what the hell does it suppose to mean?"

"Who knows," she brushed off the question and unexpectedly switched the topic, "More importantly, it is more appropriate to address a lady by her name. I bet Arnold should have pushed some manners into your head."

Now, Eugene narrowed his brows, "Ugh, whatever, Susanna."

"...That was quite a miss."

"Maria."

"Also wrong."

This time Eugene remained silent, but she insisted, "Is this all your puny brain rush was capable of? I am quite disappointed."

"Someone is really asking to be dropped off!" exclaimed Eugene and eased his grip on her. She gasped and squeezed tighter to his body. Of course, Eugene was ready to catch her if she would not hold on to him, but his demonstration was enough for her to remain hush for the rest of the road.