(authors note - hey. I haven't forgotten about this story, nor my other story on here. I promise to finish them. this chapter is a bit funky with the POV, but I will have that ironed out for the next chapter (already started it), which will hopefully be posted before 2019 begins. thank you all for reading this and continuing on with this journey with me. any comments, messages, or favourites always make my day.)
Merrick stopped and watched as the Federation soldier fell to the floor with a thud along with her body sliding down the wall. Looking into the kitchen, Merrick saw Kick with his sniper. He had managed to grab it, make his way out of the second story window and quietly make his way back to the kitchen to deal with the soldier.
"Good kill, Kick." Merrick looked the deceased soldier over, making sure there was no eminent threat. If there were two, there had to be more. He turned his attention over to Lexi who was still unresponsive.
"Come on, Lexi! Don't die on me!" Merrick picked her up from her awkward resting position and laid her down in a wider area of the room. Putting his head to her chest, he couldn't hear her breathing... nor her heart beat. This was bad. Very, very bad.
"She's not breathing... I can't hear her heart beat. Fuck..." Merrick felt around her neck, desperately trying to find a trace of a pulse. He couldn't let her die. Once he couldn't find it, he started to do chest compressions on her. Every second seemed to last an eternity. He pumped on her chest a few times and gave her a breath.
"Merrick, stop... she's-" As Kick was about to tell Merrick to cease his efforts, Lexi took in a labored breath. All three men in the room felt a tinge of relief wash over themselves as Lexi continued to take in more and more laboured breaths.
"What the fuck happened?!" Hesh and Logan kicked in the door, their handguns raised.
"Rorke sent two of his men to deal with Lexi." Neptune, piped in, looking over at Lexi with concern.
"That bastard!" Hesh glanced over at the two dead Federation soldiers.
"Easy, easy." Merrick put a hand on Lexi's shoulder, attempting to keep her calm.
"…th-" Lexi coughed as she tried to speak, taking in another breath.
"Save your strength. We thought you were dead for fucks sake." Kick placed the sniper rife on the table next to the couch.
Lexi continued to breath deeply as she sat up, rubbing her neck. They… almost killed me…
"Here, lets get you on the couch." Merrick helped Lexi off the floor and sat her on the couch. She looked into his eyes – he wanted answers, but there was something more behind his gaze.
"I know," she coughed, taking in a breath to steady herself, "…answers…"
"And I'll get them in a moment. First, you need to catch your breath. I've been chocked out as part of training and I know it hurts."
That's putting it mildly…
Lexi sat in silence, unsure of what to do. Her throat throbbed with each breath she took. For one of the first times in her life, she was genuinely scared. In everything she had encountered, there had been some sort of obvious answer. Right now, she knew that she should not have had the option to reply. Her voice should have been cut short… and yet here she was, surrounded by people who genuinely cared if she had been killed or not.
"…he knew…" she did not know where to begin. There was too much to say.
"He knew what, Lexi?" Merrick pressed her further, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.
"…marco… not safe…" Lexi tried to stand up, but Merrick blocked her. He grabbed a wad of tissue from a nearby box and pressed it against her bleeding temple.
"Marco? Lexi, we need more information than that." Kick piped up.
"Gavin's bf. We can't… stay here." Lexi shook her head, looking off to the distance.
"Lexi, what is STATIC? Blackbird?" Merrick sat down on the couch next to her, keeping pressure on her wound.
"Blackbird was… a calling card," Lexi could feel her breathing slowly starting to return to normal, but her voice was still hoarse, "It was supposed to instil fear."
"Fear of what?"
"Us," Lexi grabbed a tablet off the table and placed her finger over the scanner. Tapping open a document, she handed it over to Merrick, "this was… everything." She slumped her body in the couch trying to think of what to do next. She watched as Merrick placed her own hand in place to hold the bloodied wad of tissue and scrolled through the document, scanning over sections, then scrolling further.
"All these people were killed by the Federation?" Merrick paused his scrolling, glancing at Lexi.
"All of them… were my friends…" She mumbled, closing her eyes. All of those names on the document were people she knew. People she trusted. All of them had met the same fate – death. Everyone on that list knew of the risks of participating in their operation, but none were prepared for when the first death happened. None were prepared for any actual death.
"Lexi, try to keep your eyes open. There must be two dozen people on this list. Some of the names I recognize from reports."
"We were trying to help. That's… all we wanted to do."
"How Lexi?" Kick piped in.
"My friends and I were into coding. Coding ended up turning into hacking," Lexi opened her eyes, "we thought it would be funny to try to hack into some random websites… and we opened a can of worms. We managed to trace the servers and found out these sites were fronts for the Federation. We managed to take them down, but not without them noticing. They sent a warning by killing one of our friends. Once that happened, we got a lot more serious. We began hiding our tracks a lot more. We… got weapons."
"Lexi, did your father know about any of this?" Hesh placed his weapon in his holster.
"Kinda. He just thought I was doing a degree in computer programming. STATIC was our group name. Officially, there were seven of us. Unofficially, dozens – the one's who were too afraid to be directly named and called upon. Whenever we managed to hack into a website or taunt them, we'd leave 'Blackbird' – it was the name we gave to all events tied to fighting the Federation.
"Lexi," Merrick tossed the tablet next to him, "you don't even have cadet training, let alone any sort of military combat training. Those soldiers your group killed could have easily ended up killing you. Do you even realize what your group started?"
"I almost died, so yes." Lexi let out a nervous chuckle, avoiding Merrick's eyes.
"I heard what he said – Rorke sent them. You managed to create a personal vendetta for him. He has a personal vendetta against the Ghosts and we've all seen what he's attempted to do. We have proper support to deal with him, you don't. Your friends are dead, your father is dead, and now you must stop. Come with us. Let us get you somewhere safe. You can give all your intel to us and we can take it from here."
"Merrick," Lexi looked back into his eyes, "I really didn't want this to happen. We just had a dream. We didn't want to be rescued – we wanted to do the rescuing."
"I know, I know. What you wanted to do, and what you ended up doing are two completely different things… I overheard what you said in your father's room. For now, we need to leave and get to a safe location. When those two don't report back, Rorke will know and he will send more people."
"I'll go gather my things." Lexi stood up, tossing the wad of tissue on the glass table, rubbing her throat as she walked up the stairs. As she walked down the hall, she caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror and stopped. Her neck was bruised and red from the soldier's grip and blood dripped down the side of her head. From all her physical encounters with the Federation, they had never got close enough to cause any significant damage. Even when she had killed those two soldiers, she made sure they were as far from her as possible when she pulled the trigger. What had she accomplished during all of this? Looking into her eyes, they were filled with such fatigue that she barely recognized herself. For the first time in a long time, she felt relieved. Almost dying had forced her to stop and revaluate the entire situation through more experienced eyes. As that thought passed through her mind, she realized how sad it was that she needed to almost die to realize how dire the situation was. She knew Merrick would help her if she had asked, but she did not want to complicate matters for him. He had not even known of her existence until recently, so why should he help her? She knew Ajax had meant something deeply to the team, but did not think that should have had any effect on her.
"Lexi?" She snapped out of her contemplation, jerking her head back to see Hesh.
"Yeah?" She continued to walk down the hall, stopping in front of her father's door.
"We're leaving in ten. Gather just the essentials." She nodded, glancing at Hesh as he walked past her and into the room he was staying in.
"Yeah…" She walked into her father's old office, looking around. She grabbed a bag off the bed and placed his mask, medals, and a photo album inside. Looking around, she hoped no Federation members would come by and trash the place. If they did, at least she had what mattered – the memories. The desk could get torched, the bed could get ripped to shreds, but as long as she held his mask, she still held onto his memory.
After one last glance, she walked over to her own room and placed her hand on the scanner. It chimed, and the lock clicked, allowing her to turn the handle. Once she entered, she grabbed a bag next to her bed. Before she left, she grabbed her watch off the table and put it on her wrist. Next to it was a hard drive. She grabbed it and stuffed it in her bag. If the Ghosts wanted information, this was all the information they would need. It was a strange feeling for her. When she shut the door behind her, she normally knew when she would be back and wouldn't have to worry about leaving things behind. This time, it could be weeks until she came back home. Gavin and Derek wouldn't be too happy about this situation, but they, along with everyone else, had no other option. As she walked down the stairs, she glanced towards the corner of the room. The light emanating from the lap began to become spotted in her field of view.
"Merrick," she mumbled as she placed her weight on the bannister, "I'm… I'm not feeling so hot…"
"Easy, easy," Merrick rushed over, grabbing her arm, and helped her the rest of the way down, "you're still bleeding and probably have a concussion. Just keep talking to me and try to keep your eyes open. Give me your bags." She complied, handing them off to him. Lexi leaned into Merrick as he led her outside. She saw Derek and Gavin visibly upset as she stepped towards the vehicles.
"What did you do?!" Gavin yelled out, tears streaming down his face as he loaded the vehicle with his stuff.
"Killed your boyfriend… sorry…" She let out a pained laugh, trying to focus on walking in a straight line. Merrick looked between the two siblings – even when the situation was dire, she was still trying to test her brother's patience. Since there were too many people to fit in one vehicle alone, Derek and Gavin had decided to go in the Jeep the Ghosts brought, along with Hesh, Logan, while Merrick, Neptune, and Kick decided to go in Lexis truck. Merrick pulled down the tailgate and hoisted Lexi in. She propped herself again the cab and took a deep breath.
"How long will this be…?" She asked, watching as Merrick closed the hatch as Kick climbed in the back with her.
"If Merrick's driving, about twenty minutes," Kick pulled out a cloth and held it against her temple, "when he wants to get somewhere, we get there fast." Lexi heard Merrick start the truck and took the cloth from Kick.
"Thanks," she watched Kick give a slight nod as he pulled out a large gun from the bag he carried, "didn't think you knew how to use one of those."
"Let's hope you don't get to see that today."
"If I do, try to shoot around me, not through me."
The tires of the truck crunched the gravel beneath them as it pulled away from the house. Lexi kept her eyes fixed on the house as it became smaller and smaller along the horizon. Once it had disappeared from her field of view, she looked at the houses as they passed by. For all the years she had lived in the neighbourhood, she had never taken the time to know her neighbours. If her father had decided to have a home in this area, they must have been decent people. After the last few houses went by, they become replaced by trees as the group left the town limits. Ajax had taken her and her brothers camping a few times in the woods close to town. Bigger animals generally did not come this close to town in fear of being killed. The worse you would have to deal with would be an angry squirrel in the middle of the night wanting to get leftovers.
"How did he die?" Lexi looked back over to Kick, watching his eyes scan over the area.
"A hero. A damn fine soldier."
"But how? Please… I need to know."
"He… was fatally stabbed. Keegan made sure he didn't die alone."
"That's something I hope to never experience," Lexi looked off into the forest, "dying with no one around."
Lexi and Kick jerked to the side in the back of the truck as the vehicle suddenly swerved to the right. In front of the trucks, two vehicles blocked their path. Lexi could not see any identifiers on the trucks before her, but with the guns pointed towards them it could only mean one thing – the Federation. Before she could move, Kick had pushed her flat to the bed of the truck. She could feel Merrick accelerating the truck as gunfire was exchanged. Each time she heard a bullet hit the exterior of her truck, she tried to push herself as close to the floor as possible. As soon as she felt the truck hit grass instead of pavement, she raised her head up, attempting to survey the situation. When she could not see anything, she sat up, trying to gauge how far the Federation soldiers were. She could see they were slowly gaining on them. Kick released a few bullets, missing their tires.
"Guess I jinxed you." Lexi shouted as Kick fired off a few more rounds, hitting the driver of the closer vehicle in the shoulder.
"And I haven't shot you. Impressed?"
Lexi and Kick slammed into the back of the truck as an ATV with two Federation soldiers came out of the woods, hitting the side of the truck. It had been too late for Merrick to avoid them. As her back connected to the tailgate, the latch released, causing the back to come down.
"KICK!" She yelled out as she was thrown from the truck, trying to grab onto Kick. Her reach was too short, and she missed, hitting the ground with a thud, knocking the air out of her lungs. Lexi laid on her stomach for a moment before she propped herself up on her quivering arms, trying to disregard the pain flowing through her back. Merrick had continued to drive, seemingly unaware she was thrown from the vehicle, but the men on the ATV had stopped and drove back towards Lexi. She locked eyes with Kick – they both knew him firing would be too risky from the distance and angle. Fruitless as it was, tried to stand up, but her arms gave out from under her. When she tried once again, the ATV stopped beside her, and the passenger grabbed her arm, pulling her up and towards him. At first, she resisted, trying to bide a few seconds to give Merrick a chance to turn around. With her vision blurring, her back shooting with pain, and her body off balance, her entire body gave into his pulling.
"Get your dirty hands off me." She yelled as he put his second arm around her, hoisting her onto the ATV, facing towards Merrick who had turned around while her brothers in the other vehicle continued on, leading one of the Federation trucks away. Lexi tried to struggle against the mans grasp, but as she did, he only held on tighter, placing an arm around her neck, keeping her in place. All she could do was keep her eyes on Merrick, hoping he had something planned. If they got too far into the woods, the truck would not be able to navigate through the dense foliage like the ATV could. She gritted her teeth, trying to keep the pressure from his arm off her neck.
"Take a good look and remember how they failed you, girl." The man behind her remarked in a Portuguese accent, snickering. She could feel his grip tighten as the driver continued into the forest. As the forest increased in density, her hope of escape dwindled. The gash on her forehead spattered blood against the grass as the ATV hit larger bumps. Lexi felt herself increasingly unable to keep her eyes open. Her body could no longer keep up with her mind nor spirit, and she found herself slumping into the soldier's arms as her vision spotted, and turned to black.