AN: Sorry for the long wait! It's been pretty busy lately and I struggled with the next bits of the story after the spilling of the weapon crate. And speaking of, if that's the last thing you remember, head back to the last chapter and read it again. I added a bunch of content to it because I realized that my chapters were kind of short. So from here out, chapters will be a bit longer. And again, sorry for the wait! I'll try to be quicker with future updates!
Jenny spun on her heels and ran for the door to the stairwell. She reached the door and just barely pulled it open when Isaac stopped her.
"Wait! Jenny, look!" he said pointing.
Jenny jogged back to Isaac, not bothering to close the door. She followed the direction of his finger and saw what he was looking at. Two shadows running at a flat out sprint.
"It's them," Isaac said.
They watched as the shadows got closer and closer. Soon they heard the sound of engines between the hoots of the siren. They were bringing out the humvees. Jenny kept one eye on the two shadows as she watched to see where the humvees were headed. Suddenly, a humvee shot out from behind the warehouse and headed to the west instead of north towards their apartment and the two desperately fleeing shadows. Another one appeared and turned south.
"I don't think they're the ones that got caught," Isaac said hopefully.
Two more humvees appeared and again headed to the west and the south.
"No, I don't think so," Jenny agreed.
The first southbound humvee turned west when it reached the wall. The other turned west as well after a few blocks. Then, another humvee appeared and Jenny's heart sank when it turned to the north.
"But now they will," she said despairingly.
They watched as the two shadows disappeared into a side alley as the humvees headlights illuminated the street. The mounted spotlight swept back and forth scanning the buildings and alleys as it passed. Jenny watched wearily, waiting to see if Nate and Marian would be spotted. The humvee was nearly to the alley they'd disappeared into. She flinched slightly when the circle of light passed over the alleyway. No shouting. No gunshots. The light swept back around scanning the next alley. She breathed a sigh of relief and heard Isaac do the same.
"There! Look," Jenny said, spotting two shadows appear on the opposite side of the building.
"They went around the other side. Doubled back towards the humvee," Isaac said, both surprised and impressed.
When the humvee turned and headed west, Nate and Marian darted from the side of the building, once again in a full-out sprint back to the apartment. Jenny and Isaac walked to the edge of the roof, watching Nate and Marian as they approached the apartment building. They were no more than a couple hundred feet from the building when a small patrol of soldiers appeared from an alleyway about a block behind. The patrol turned and headed straight for them at a slow jog, flashlights dancing on the buildings and alleys. Nate and Marian never slowed and the soldiers hadn't spotted them just yet. When Jenny could no longer see them over the edge of the roof, she spun around and darted for the still-open stairwell door.
"Come on!" she urged Isaac.
He watched the patrol a moment longer to make sure they hadn't spotted his parents and then turned to follow Jenny. Just before they reached the door, shouts erupted from the street below followed by a short burst of gunshots.
"No!" Isaac cried out, skidding to a halt.
He started to run back to the edge of the roof, but Jenny grabbed his arm.
"Isaac, come on. We can't do anything from up here," she pleaded.
Isaac paused a moment, fighting some internal conflict, but he ultimately turned and followed Jenny once more. They ran down the stairs as fast as they could, often skipping a step or two in a single stride. Their apartment was six floors from the top, roughly halfway up the building. When they reached their floor, they exited the stairwell and made a bee-line for their apartment. Jenny couldn't help but notice how eerily quite it seemed. Their footsteps and panting breaths the loudest sounds, drowning out even the muffled and distant sound of the wailing siren. It wasn't really surprising, though, considering it was very early morning and most people would have been sleeping. Even with the commotion now going on in the zone, those that had awakened would be staying in their homes out of fear. As they approached their apartment, however, a new sound reached their ears. The pounding echo of footsteps on the metal staircase of the fire escape just down the hall from their apartment, muffled slightly by the double doors guarding the stairwell.
Jenny and Isaac skidded to a halt, searching for a place to hide. Their apartment door was too far to reach in time and there wasn't anything in the hallway to hide behind. Suddenly, Nate and Marian burst through the doors.
"Holy shit! Mom! Dad!" Isaac gasped, running to them.
"What the hell are you guys doing out here?!" Nate asked, his eyes wide with either fear or surprise, or maybe both.
"We were up on the roof watch-" Jenny started.
"No, it doesn't matter. We need to leave. Now!" Marian said, cutting her off. "The soldiers saw us come in here. They'll turn the place upside down looking for us."
They started running back in the direction Jenny and Isaac had come from, away from their apartment. Their apartment was on the north end of the building, and the fire escape on that end was practically in tact, except for one or two floors where the door was inaccessible. That was normally a good thing, but not when you needed to escape the building unnoticed. The fire escape on the south end was in far worse shape. The top four or five levels of stairs had completely collapsed. More importantly, the bottom three levels of the stairwell were completely inaccessible from those floors. Luckily, the stairs remained mostly intact.
"Did they see you well enough to recognize you?" Jenny asked as they ran.
"I don't know, but we're not taking that chance," Nate replied.
"But won't it draw suspicion if they find our apartment empty?" Jenny pressed.
"Definitely," Marian said. "But at least we can lie our way out of that one. We just tell 'em we were staying by a friend."
"I know a few people who'd vouch for us," Nate said.
They reached the southern fire escape and bolted down a couple flights of stairs, cringing at the noise. They slowed their descent and began taking more cautious, quieter steps so as not to draw the attention of the soldiers. Nate paused at the fourth floor, one of the few that was accessible, and peered through the dusty window of the doorway.
"Doesn't appear to be any signs of the soldiers," he said in a panted whisper. "I don't think they've gotten this far up yet. It was a pretty small group and they can't spread out that fast."
"Rest assured they've called in backup, though," Marian said, slightly bent over leaning her hands on her knees.
"Yep," Nate agreed. "That's why we need to keep moving."
They rested for just a minute and then continued their descent at a much more controlled pace. The finally reached the bottom of what was left of the stairs. The first level of stairs had collapsed. It was about a ten foot drop and all four of them dropped down, landing with ease. They could hear muffled shouts and commands from the soldiers out in the main part of the building. Nate walked to one corner where a large piece of platform lay flat on the ground with pieces of the staircase laying on top and around it so as to not look too conspicuous. He knelt down and lifted it up revealing a hole in the floor.
"All right, come on," he whispered urging the other three over.
He held it up just enough for Jenny, Isaac, and Marian to crawl through. Then Isaac took over from below, holding it so Nate could come through. The two of them gently set the platform back down. Nate clicked his flashlight on. They were now in a narrow, dirt-walled tunnel that led to the basement of a neighboring barber shop. Why the shop had a basement, they didn't know or care. All they knew was that it made an excellent hideout since the entire shop above was collapsed. The only two ways in or out were tunnels they'd dug themselves.
Nate flipped a switch as he entered the basement through the knocked out wall. He'd managed to somehow rig a few small lights into the power grid of the zone. It wasn't much, but it eliminated the need for a noisy generator that would draw way too much unwanted attention. The basement wasn't very big. The walls were built out of plain old unpainted cinder blocks. Various pipes and ducts hung from the ceiling. They'd entered near a corner of the room, with the rusty, partially-collapsed metal staircase rising to their left. A workbench sat along the wall to their right and various plastic shelves lined the back wall. The shelves held enough food and clean water to last the four of them about two days. They used to have almost two weeks worth stockpiled, but with rations being so scarce lately, they didn't feel right hoarding that much food so they gave most of it away. A couple shelves also held various small boxes of ammo, a few pistols and various weapon parts as well as a few other miscellaneous items. A broken down, raggedy couch sat along the fourth wall.
"Alright, guys, grab your stuff," Nate said as he walked around the staircase to the tunnel opening underneath it in the corner, next to the couch.
Jenny was already walking over to the shelves where her and Isaac's backpacks were kept. Hers was a smaller dark green bag with a lot of smaller pockets. She carried the majority of her supplies, which usually wasn't much since she preferred to travel light, in the large pouch, but she was also very particular about organizing things and kept various smaller items separated in the smaller pouches.
Isaac came up beside her and grabbed his pack off the shelf. It was larger than Jenny's and had only two compartments, the main one and a small one on the front. It was a dirty, but gaudy, red and blue pattern with what appeared to be spiderwebs printed on it. The word "Spiderman" was barely visible. Neither of them really knew who or what a "Spiderman" was.
"Why do you have to wear that awful thing?" Jenny asked, shooting a disgusted glance at his pack.
"You're just jealous," he replied, smirking.
"Of that?!" she said, jabbing a thumb at his pack and shaking her head. "Uggh! No, it's ugly. And have you ever heard of camouflage?"
In truth, the backpack didn't stand out any more than hers did since it was so dirty and worn.
"Come on, guys. Hurry it up," Marian said forcefully.
They grabbed a couple 9mm pistols and quickly looked them over, testing the actions. They each grabbed a magazine and slammed it into their pistols and stuffed them into the back of their pants. They were each going to grab a spare magazine, but there was only one left. Isaac picked it up, but tossed it at Jenny.
"Here. You take it," he said. "You need it more than I do."
She caught the magazine and stuck it in the front pocket of her jeans.
"Oh whatever," she replied, flashing a smile of thanks.
"You might be able to shoot hoops, but at least I can shoot something that counts," he said with a smirk.
Jenny just rolled her eyes as they turned and headed towards the tunnel entrance where Marian was waiting for them. She wasn't a bad shot with a gun, but Isaac was better by far.
"Come on. You're father's up ahead scouting the exit," she said.
Jenny would be lying if she said she didn't feel a tingle of warmth whenever Nate or Marian would include her in a statement like that, implying that she was just as much their daughter as Isaac was their son. But that was always followed by a slight pang of guilt. She always felt like it betrayed her real family.
"Where are we going, anyway?" Isaac asked.
"To visit a friend," Marian replied, smiling as she turned to walk down the tunnel.
They'd left their hideout and made their way through the city, dodging patrols the entire way. They'd made it out just before several humvees surrounded their apartment building. If they'd have waited a moment longer, they'd have been caught emerging from their tunnel. They watched from a distance as soldiers stormed into the building, but they didn't waste any time after that. Jenny felt bad for those still in the building. She knew they'd be taken for questioning and likely beaten and tortured. Or worse.
The sirens no longer wailed, so the only sounds in the zone were the hum of engines or the occasional shouts and stomps of foot patrols. They made their way to the northwest corner of the zone where they had a tunnel that led outside the wall. Travel outside of the wall was actually easier than usual since the focus of the military's attention was inside the wall. They were still searching for Nate and Marian and didn't realize that they'd already escaped the zone. Or at least that's what Jenny thought.
"There it is. Just up ahead," Nate said as he rounded the corner of a large building. He pointed towards an old abandoned police station.
He broke into a slow jog. Marian, Isaac, and Jenny broke into a jog behind him. Their footsteps echoed in the relative silence outside the walls. They could still faintly hear the engines and occasional shouts, but they were muffled and distant.
"Who are we meeting and why are we meeting them outside the walls?" Isaac asked.
"It's not safe in there right now," Marian said, ignoring the first half of the question.
"Come on, hurry up," Nate said opening the large double doors of the station.
They quickly ducked inside. The station was very dark with only small slivers of moonlight coming in through the small cracks of the boarded up windows.
"Mark?" Nate called quietly. "Lana?"
"Nate? That you?" a male voice said from somewhere in the shadows.
A figure emerged from behind what appeared to be a counter. The man walked over to Nate. The man, presumably Mark, was an inch or so taller than Nate and a lot bigger built. He wore all black, including a black hoodie. The hood was pulled up so it was difficult to see his face clearly, but Jenny could make out a broad nose, thick mustache and a well-trimmed beard. His bushy eyebrows shadowed his eyes further, making it impossible to see them.
"Where's Lana?" Marian asked, a worried look on her face.
It was difficult to see in the darkness, but there was no mistaking the look of grief that gripped the man's scruffy features.
"She...she was...captured," Mark stammered, dropping his gaze to the floor.
"Oh no," Marian gasped, putting her hand over her mouth.
"Shit, I'm sorry, Mark," Nate said, laying a hand on Mark's shoulder.
Mark gave a quick sniff and lifted his head, once again looking at Nate.
"Doesn't matter now. What's done is done," he said quickly, brushing Nate's hand away and assuming a stony expression. He turned to look at Isaac and Jenny, apparently noticing them for the first time.
"Who're they?" he asked, nodding slightly at them, his eyes narrowing as he looked directly at Jenny.
"This is Isaac and Jenny," Nate responded, pointing at each of them in turn.
"Your kids?" Mark asked, sounding a little surprised.
"Yep."
"Why bring them out here?"
"Not safe in the zone right now. You know as well as I do what would happen to them if the military got a hold of them while we were gone," Nate explained.
Jenny did, too. They'd have noticed Nate and Marian's absence and suspected them of being involved with the break-in on the warehouse, which would in turn bring suspicion onto Isaac and Jenny. Jenny shuddered at the thought, her mind conjuring images of the brutal interrogation the military would administer. Maybe Isaac was right. Maybe the military here was just starting to show their true colors. She wasn't convinced. After all, it wasn't until after the Fireflies started causing trouble next door that the military got riled up.
"Right. Let's go downstairs, shall we?" Mark said, shrugging his shoulders.
Mark led them through the eerie police station and down a set of stairs. They walked down a long unlit corridor using their flashlights. Finally, they opened a set of double doors and stepped into a large room.
"Wait here," Mark said as he walked over to a distant corner of the room.
They waited in silence for a moment, watching Mark's flashlight dance around as he fidgeted with something. Jenny heard the sound of Mark yanking on the pull cord of what she assumed was a generator. The motor turned over, sputtered, but failed to start. Mark muttered under his breath and gave another yank on the cord. This time the generator took off with a relatively quiet buzz. Mark stood up and reached his hand out to the wall, flicking a switch. Suddenly, a number of small fluorescent fixtures hummed to life, illuminating the room.
They were standing in what appeared to have once been the armory of the police station. All of the police gear was long gone, of course.
Mark walked back over to the group and that's when Jenny noticed the shiny, silver pendant.
"Firefly!" she spat under her breath.
Mark apparently heard because he quickly tucked the pendant into his shirt and turned his gaze on Jenny.
"I am. What's it to ya?" he said defensively. He narrowed his eyes once more and stared strangely at Jenny.
"I'm sorry, do I know you?" she asked him, getting uncomfortable in his scrutinizing glare.
"No, but I think I know you," he replied.
