Title: Higher Stakes
Chapter title: Point of No Return
Summary: A breach in the IMF sets Brandt up against a past enemy. It is a dangerous game, and the price of losing may not only cost Brandt his life, but it could mean the end for the entire IMF.
Note: There isn't much to say on this second-to-last chapter, other than thank you to TroublesomeRedhead, Missy92, casus17, shila1378, 64, Margaret (Guest), Strawberrywaltz, Sinkme, Acrylate (Guest) and Sabsi13 for reviewing. Thank you to blue peanut m and m, Blitz182, Strawberrywaltz, Shava Seaview and Herendil for following and thank you to shila1378 for putting it on your favorite list. I hope I didn't forget anyone, otherwise, let me know!
Your support is and will always be greatly appreciated! :D
Disclaimer: Do not own anything.
"The beauty of the past is that it is the past. The beauty of the now is to know it. The beauty of the future is to see where one is going."
Location: Peru.
The distant sound of gunfire and yelling tore Brandt out of his slumber-like state. He hadn't really been sleeping, the heat in the room along with his pounding head and aching body, prevented such thing from happening, but he didn't have the energy to even keep his eyes open. So he was stuck in a limbo; a line between sleep and awareness.
The noises continued on outside his door; still distant but seeming to get closer and closer. But the two guards inside his room weren't reacting on them so Brandt figured they were inside of his head. Maybe it was the sound of a past from long ago that decided to haunt him now and torture his soul until he cracked. Maybe he hoped so badly for an extraction to come and get him and Williams like the one six years ago, that he was imagining them coming for him again. Or maybe it was the incredibly warm temperatures inside of his cramped prison that pressed down on his brain. Hadn't the room grown smaller during the time he had been here?
Great. Just great. Now I'm also insane.
The sweat was pouring down his forehead and landing in his eyes. The water made his clothes stick to his clammy skin uncomfortably and Brandt could literally kill for a simple drop of water. His mouth was as dry as a desert and the few drops of water he had received hours ago hadn't helped much and he had long ago sweat it out. It might have kept him from dying of dehydration but it didn't keep him from the feeling of drying out completely. Never again would he undermine the power of water. If he made it out alive, which was becoming more and more unlikely, he vowed he would drink nothing but water for the rest of his life.
The shouting and shooting became more and more frequent and louder. Even the two guards deflected from their original positions and started talking to each other in hushed voices, their tongues speaking a rapid form for Spanish, so Brandt didn't have a chance to figure out what was happening. Though his interest had been peaked, since he had gotten conformation that it wasn't his mind playing tricks on him, Brandt simply couldn't focus on the two men's behavior and analyze the situation like he would normally do. It was too much of a strain for his tired and tortured mind.
Instead his eyes suddenly fell in the puddle of blood on the floor, sticking to the legs of the chair he was bound to. He wondered if all of that came from just one person. It seemed so strange that that amount of blood would belong to one living person. It did have a funny color though. Rusty with a tint of red. His eyes found patterns forming in the crimson liquid and he started following them. It lulled him into a trance that he found oddly comfortable. He felt safe and content; almost happy.
Maybe dying wasn't so bad after all.
He was distracted from his pattern-finding in the blood when the big metal door's hinges suddenly squeaked as it opened and a single shot was fired.
One of the guards crumpled to the floor, dead from a bullet between the eyes. The second guard instantly aimed his rifle and moved to the barrel out of the door opening. He disappeared from sight as he was yanked out. A sound of something connecting with something hard along with a grunt and a groan, and everything went quiet.
A shadow appeared in the doorway, shielding the light that came from the hallway. Brandt squinted with his eyes as he tried to see the person who had just taken out two of his guards. When they finally focused he saw to his surprise it was Ethan Hunt.
That's it: I am losing my mind …
Ethan had smiled and remained positive almost the entire time since they had left Julio's house. Mainly because the base was so protected and especially the hallway he was just in. That many armed men could only mean Brandt was still alive. Either that or Jolan Kumaskoff's head office was just around the corner, though Ethan highly doubted it. From what he had read from Kumaskoff's file, he would step out and join the fight or flee to leave his men to die instead of him. Since none of those two things had happened yet, Ethan was hoping he was right about Brandt. And he was.
But when he entered the room he immediately lost his smile. Though he had found his missing team member it didn't settle the pit in his stomach. If anything, it grew larger. The agent before him didn't look like the man he knew. His shirt was torn up and stained with blood. The skin underneath was a mess of purple bruising and long cuts, some of which were still bleeding. A large red bruise in the shape of hand had formed on his throat. He was sweating furiously, soaking what was left of his clothes and flattening his normally messy hair. What wasn't covered in blood or marks was pale and glistering with sweat. One eye was almost swollen shut while the other stared tiredly and went in and out of focus. A small puddle of blood has collected beneath the chair Brandt was tied to. Dried blood drops ran down the legs and the agent's body.
They had arrived in the brink of time, Ethan knew. "I found him!" he yelled out the door to Jane and Benji who had been taking down some of the other guards further down the hall. He ran inside and fell to his knees next to his fallen agent took a hold of his chin and forced Brandt to look at him. "Brandt?" Ethan tried.
Brandt's head lulled back and forth, like he couldn't even support it himself. His eyes looked at him sluggishly. "Hey! Focus!" he commanded, raising his voice slightly. Brandt blinked a single time and frowned back at Ethan, questioning. He seemed to become lucid at Ethan's barking.
"Ethan?" his voice was barely above a whisper. It was strained and weak.
"Yeah, it's me. Listen, we are going to get you out of here, alright?" Ethan soothed.
"We?" he sounded so disbelieving and broken.
"Yeah," Ethan sadly smiled at him. "We are all here. Just stay with me alright. Can you do that?"
Brandt nodded. He blinked and rested his head on his chest when the room started to spin. Benji and Jane had entered the room, and just like Ethan, they had stopped to take it all in.
"Ethan, we have to go," Jane stated when she found her voice again. She eyed Brandt and was instantly filled with sadness and anger. It hurt inside her to see their fellow agent in that state. It made her blood boil and suddenly she hoped they wouldn't run into Kumaskoff on the way out. She didn't know she would do to the Russian if they did. She also knew the two others felt the same way.
"Grab a hold on him, I'll lead the way," Ethan ordered and backed up for the other two agents. Jane and Benji cut the ropes holding Brandt, and each took a hold of Brandt's arms and swung them over their shoulders. "Let's go," Ethan said and exited the room, followed by Benji and Jane. Both agents stumbled slightly when they realized they were supporting all of Brandt's weight. Brandt himself was barely able to keep his eyes open for much longer. His feet stumbled clumsily on the ground and he would have tripped had it not been for the support. His head hung lazily on his chest.
Ethan was in the lead with his gun raised, ready to pull the trigger at anyone who would try and stop them. His eyes darting back and forth, fast and alert.
Brandt did his best to pay attention to the action going on around him, but the blood that rushed in his ears and his pounding head made it painful to focus on anything for more than two seconds. Instead his eyes trailed the dead bodies they came across and scanned every face the best he could. Single gunshots rang out from time to time and another body appeared in his line of sight when they started moving again. He didn't register most of the faces until a certain one caught his eye. The features were slack, the mouth open and the eyes were lifeless and empty, staring into nothingness. A bullet hole was on his forehead, a single line of blood trailing out lazily to mix with his messy black hair.
The face belonged to Johnson.
Brandt didn't know why he was in shock. Maybe it was the blood loss, he couldn't tell. But somehow he found himself shaken when he saw the dead man's face. And though he was out of sight now, the face still lingered in front of his vision. He reminded himself that the man was a criminal who worked for a drug lord and that said man had tortured and cut him. He had hurt him and Brandt should feel glad that the man was gone forever from the world.
He was torn from his thoughts when all of the sudden they stopped short and the muffled sound of talking reached his ears.
The hallway split in two and while all three IMF-agents had studied the maps they had, none of them knew which hall lead to where. If they took the wrong one, they could end up going further inside the compound. Ethan looked both ways, trying to find any sign that told them one of the halls were the right one. He found none.
"Which way now?" Jane asked, adjusting her grip on Brandt's arm.
"I don't know," Ethan sighed. It sounded helpless in his ears. "I …"
"There should be another door down the hall to the left …" Brandt's raspy voice interrupted. All eyes fell on him. "Looks like a replica of the base in Russia six years ago." His eyes locked on Ethan's and it was the most lucid look the older agent had seen in Brandt since they entered the compound.
Ethan just nodded. "Then let's move."
Hunt smashed his fist into the other man's head and he fell onto the ground, unconscious. He turned breathlessly to Jane and Benji, who were helping Brandt from the ground and supporting his figure again. They had had to let him go when seven guards entered from different places and they had been too many for Ethan to take out.
"They just keep coming. We can't make it out alive if we continue doing this," Benji mused when he once again had placed Brandt's arm around his neck.
"I know," Ethan said. He took a deep breath and looked around. The hall had split again. "We have to split up. Jane and Benji; you take the left. I'll take Brandt and we'll assemble at the exit."
"Ethan …" Jane argued. They shouldn't split up, Brandt was, unfortunately, too much of a strain for one person, especially if they encountered more guards. It wasn't a good idea.
"You know it's the only way to make it out alive. I'll be fine," Ethan's voice was confident and assuring as it always was. He knew it was going to be difficult, but it could be done. He took Brandt from the two agent's arms and draped his arm over his neck to get a strong hold. "I'll see you at the exit," he promised.
"Be careful," Jane warned before she turned to the left and started to walk. Benji was still standing there, looking at Ethan. He opened his mouth to speak but Ethan interrupted.
"Go. Take care of her," he said, smiling at the Brit.
"You take care of him," the tech answered and nodded towards Brandt.
"I'll see you at the exit," Ethan smirked and turned to walk down the right hall.
If had been half an hour Ethan had walked when he spotted a large door. There was a window on top and he could faintly see the sunshine from outside. He smiled relieved. Brandt was a relatively small man, but he still weighed a lot and the weight had started to pull at Ethan's shoulders uncomfortably. But the main reason he was relieved was because the sight of that door could mean the end of their mission. All they needed was to get Brandt back to safety and into the United States. And the last part of fairly easy. He had felt how Brandt had gone more and more heavy, as he become more and more lifeless. It had come to a point where he could no longer support himself at all and Ethan had been forced to carry him fire-man style with a hold on Brandt's right arm and leg. He didn't know what effect it had on his injuries; if it made them worse. But their main concern was getting out alive and that was the best way to do so.
But before Ethan could take another step towards the door to freedom, the sound of a gun's safety being clicked off stopped him in his tracks. He still had a grip on his own gun, but if he turned around and fired it meant letting go of Brandt. And Ethan wasn't sure his body could handle the strain of being tossed onto the ground right now. So instead he turned very slowly so the person holding the gun, wouldn't fire. He turned to the smirking face of Jolan Kumaskoff. He had the gun barrel aimed straight at Ethan's heart.
So, at first this chapter was a LOT longer, but then I thought I would leave you with one final little cliff-hanger! So now I will leave you with that and prepare yourselves for the last chapter! :D
