Hey, readers! I know, I promised I'd be updating sooner... but I lied. My writing muse hasn't been coming as easily as I thought it would come, so my writing is quite slow again. It's not the school's fault anymore - it's my muse.

Anyway, I have your next chapter here for you guys to read! I hope you enjoy it! I apologise for it not being as long as it should be (or as it could be), but I finally managed to get something what I consider to be quite good for someone on a low muse.

So... enjoy!

Clap… clap… clap…

The sound echoed through the corridors as Walker mockingly clapped Andy and Tony for their efforts, slowly walking towards the two. His feet were just as loud as his hands as he neared the two threateningly, his smile mocking.

"Well, well, well… what do we have here?" he asked rhetorically. He stopped clapping as his face lost all traces of humour. "Have we got a couple of freed prisoners?"

Andy gulped. Surely he didn't remember him… surely…

"Oh wait, hasn't one of them already escaped?" Walker walked towards Andy. "And he has come back to visit? How thoughtful."

Andy cringed. Well, there go any hopeful thoughts…

Tony glared at Walker darkly. "Just let us go, Walker."

Walker chuckled darkly. "Now, now… why would I ever do that to you two?" he snarled. "You're my little prisoners. I would never let you go."

"You have no use for us, Walker," Tony argued. "There's no point in keeping us here. You'll never get what you want."

"And that is where you're wrong, Agent DiNozzo." The villain began to pace around the two males, his hands behind his back. He knew they wouldn't do anything – his guards had working weapons and surrounded them, and had been given the orders to shoot to seriously injure as soon as either of them so much as flinched in his direction. "You see, my mission was not only to retrieve the memory stick from Mr Rider, as you must have worked out already."

Tony's eyebrow rose at this, and he glanced at Andy.

The teen, on the other hand, had a guilty expression on his face. He should have known that this was about Alex. He was in their care – of course this would all be about him. And now he couldn't even find him.

"My mission, boys, was to also make the teen suffer for everything he did to Scorpia – every single thing that he did that destroyed the corporation, he must pay for. And how will we make him pay?" Walker leaned close to Andy's ear as he stopped by him, grinning. "We hurt his friends."

Andy tensed, his breath hitching. He was going to hurt him… "I-I'm not his friend…" he muttered, trying to glare at Walker.

Walker's eyebrows rose. "You… aren't?" he asked in confusion.

"Nope." Andy suddenly turned to kick him in the shin. "I'm like his brother," he snarled.

Tony smirked as the other men began to move forward for the attack. "Dude – you don't mess with a guy's brother!" He held up his fists. "Let's get this party started…"

Alex grunted as he was shifted on the back of the person who was carrying, causing his knees to jerk slightly. "Ow..."

"Sorry," McGee apologised as she continued to carry Alex. "It's just a little uncomfortable for me..."

"That's alright," Alex muttered.

The group, now made up of Alex, Gibbs, McGee and Ziva, had managed to escape from the cells and were trying to head towards the exit. From what Ziva had told them, Tony would most likely be heading in that direction anyway, so they'd be able to come together as a team and stay safe.

At least, that's what they hoped.

"How much further?" McGee groaned.

"Not much," Ziva told him. On her escape through the compound, she'd seen the exit. She'd traced her way back, and so the group were heading in the right direction.

Alex sighed as he rested his chin on McGee's head. "How much further?" he whined childishly, feeling exhausted. He'd barely eaten in days, and the excitement of finally getting out of that place was wearing him out.

"Not much," Ziva told him.

Gibbs walked at the back of the group, keeping an eye out for any ambushes from behind. "And how far do you mean by 'not much'?" he questioned her further.

"We should just have a couple of turns left before we reach the final area before the exit," she explained as she led the way. "It should not be too far… and we would get there quicker if McGee would just hurry up."

McGee grunted. "Well, I'm sorry if I have to carry an injured person on my back. May I also point out that this is an injured person that can't walk?"

Alex blushed. "Jeez, tell that to the whole world, why don't you?" he grumbled sourly.

McGee sighed. "Sorry, Alex…" He shifted Alex on his back once again. "You're so bony…" he groaned.

"Quit whining, Tim," Gibbs grumbled. "We'll get there eventually."

Ziva nodded. "Yes… we are not too far from the exit, actually. Just this one last turn, and then…" she trailed off with wide eyes as she stopped, causing McGee to bump into her.

"And then what?" Alex asked with a frown.

Gibbs frowned as well as he moved to the front beside Ziva and poked his head around the corner, exactly where she was looking. He silently cursed at what he saw.

McGee frowned. "What's wrong?"

"We have… company at the exit…"

"It's not just at the exit," a voice said from behind them.

The four turned to see a group of men holding up guns at them, forcing them to move to where the others were.

"Boss! We've found the others!"

"Shit," Alex muttered under his breath.

Andy grunted as he was shoved against the wall, a gun pointed straight at his head.

"You little brat!" the guard snarled, nearly spitting all over the poor boy.

Andy just shrugged, trying to wriggle out of the man's iron grip. "Oh please – he asked for it."

Tony struggled from where he was being restrained. "Don't push your luck, Andy!"

Walker smirked as he walked towards Andy and the guard that was holding him up against the wall. "Yes… listen to the man. You wouldn't want to die, now, would you?" He carefully twirled the gun in his hands, looking rather threatening.

Andy gulped. He didn't want to die yet. He had a life to live. He had to become a marine, and get married, and have a family…

"Boss! We've found the others!"

The others…? Andy tensed. Oh shit…

Walker turned towards the voice. "Bring them to me!" After a little while of waiting, he looked over at the agents that had been forced over, smiling manically. "Perfect! More friends!" He noticed the glare he received from Alex and chuckled. "Why, hello there, old friend!"

"You're no friend," Alex snarled from his position on McGee's back, blatantly ignoring the guns that were raised against him.

"Am I not?" Walker asked with faux-innocence. "Well, that's a shame. See, if we were friends, I may have let you all go free… but I suppose I can't do that now." He sighed. "I suppose I'll also have to make you pay for all the damages you caused—"

"How much?" Andy asked, barely resisting a smirk due to his split lip.

Walker glared at him. "No one likes a smart-mouth."

"No one likes a villain either," Alex pointed out, "yet, here you are. Being all villain-like."

"Shut up," Walker snarled, glaring between the two teens.

Alex and Andy sent each other triumphant grins.

"Look, Walker," Tony started, holding his hands up in surrender so that the men didn't attack him. "How about we all calm down, and have a talk. Then you can let us go without a hitch, and we can all be happy."

Walker glared at Tony in disbelief. "What are you, stupid? I'd never do that!"

"NCIS doesn't deal with terrorists," Gibbs added helpfully.

"Exactly!" Walker exclaimed.

"We shoot them dead instead."

The glare that Walker shot the older man was terrifying. "Frankly, I'd love to see you try, Special Agent Gibbs, but as you can see, you are outnumbered," he signalled to the men all standing around him, "by at least five-to-one."

Ziva looked between all of the men. Walker was right. There were at least five times more men than there were agents, and that included Alex and Andy. Alex was unable to fight, meaning that they had to fight even more men. The possibility of them escaping alive was getting slimmer and slimmer…

Even McGee looked quite hopeless. He, being the least experienced of the agents, wouldn't be able to fight off as many men, and so that would put even more pressure on people such as Ziva and Gibbs.

Alex, despite being a former agent, was in no condition to fight. If he was able to, the group may have had some more hope or even a chance of escaping without a battle. But he was injure. He was out of the fight.

And then there was Andy, the younger and less experienced teen. He could shoot a gun – and pretty accurately, may I add – but he'd never really shot a person dead in his life. Something like that would mentally scar the teen.

They wouldn't be able to get out safely. Not at all.

But they had to.

Tony and Gibbs shared a glance, and that's when everything clicked.

They weren't going down without a fight.

Like hell they would.

"Incoming!" Tony suddenly threw the gun that he'd taken from Andy, aiming it straight for one of the guards' heads and grinning when it collided with a satisfying crack, knocking the guard straight out.

Ziva immediately got what he was doing and swung her fist, crushing a guard's nose and sending him down. She then pulled out his gun and aimed it at a few guards running at her, shooting them all down consecutively. Bang. Bang. Bang.

McGee placed Alex down in a corner, keeping him out of the fight and away from any danger. It would prevent him from having to get up and move his still injured and bleeding knees. The adult then headed straight into the fight, using his fists as much as he could and the occasional gun when he could get his hands on one.

Gibbs had found a gun as soon as he had been able to, and was standing with Andy, both of them fighting to keep each other safe. Whilst Gibbs was shooting at the guards, getting them in the knee or the arm to render them useless in a fight, Andy kept with his warning shots, shooting right by the guards' feet to stop them from getting any closer to him. Occasionally, the teen got someone's foot, which was why there was a high number of guards clutching their feet and yelling in pain in his direction whilst in Gibbs' they had all fallen to the floor.

Alex watched helplessly from the sidelines, wishing he could do something to help. He grit his teeth before making his decision and pulling himself up slowly, using the wall as leverage. Once he got to his feet, he began to move slowly and painfully, heading straight for the nearest man without alerting him to his presence. As soon as he reached him, he began to grapple with him, slowly suffocating him by wrapping his arms around his neck whilst he looked desperately for a pressure point to knock him out.

Andy spotted Alex from where he was shooting at the feet of the men heading for him and noticed the guard coming up behind him. "Alex! Behind you!"

As if on cue, Alex brought up his elbow behind him with force, crushing the nose of the guy and knocking him backwards. At the same time, he managed to find the pressure point of the man he had been grappling, and the two sunk to the floor in a heap.

Ziva kicked the knee of one of the men she was fighting, smirking when she heard a loud snap and the man crumpled to the floor in pain. Without hesitation she moved onto the next, crushing his nose with the heel of her palm before knocking him to the floor. Somewhere during her battle she found herself back to back with Tony, the two fighting like an experienced, synchronised pair. Which they were.

Andy and Gibbs stayed back to back, fighting together as father and son. Both of them used guns, theirs being the only gunshots ringing out throughout the whole room for the agents.

Fwoosh.

Andy ducked as a bullet flew at his head, narrowly missing his ear. "Dammit!" he growled before shooting at the man's knee, knocking him down. He didn't want to shoot to kill, but just getting their knees didn't stop them from attacking him again. And getting their feet didn't make it any better either.

Gibbs spared a glance at Andy. "You alright?" he asked worriedly. He didn't want anything to happen to his boy.

Andy nodded. "Yeah… I'm good." He smiled weakly. "Just a near-death experience – nothing to worry about."

Gibbs chuckled as he began shooting again, shaking his head at the boy. "Only you, Andy… only you…"

McGee, luckily, was looking towards Andy when a man began to advance on the teen. "Andy – look out!" He turned back to focus on his enemy so that he didn't get killed.

Andy turned and spotted the guy, raising it and aiming it at the man's knee.

Click.

He frowned.

Click, click.

"I'm out of ammo!" he called out as he hurled his gun at the man racing towards him, catching him straight in the forehead and knocking him out.

It seemed as if Alex was the only one to hear his cry, because it was the blonde that suddenly found himself scrambling on the floor for a gun – despite his severely injured knees. The adrenaline was really pumping through his blood, masking every injury that he'd gained.

Andy was forced to resign to hand-to-hand combat, taking on any remaining guards one by one. It was difficult, but whatever little training that Ziva had given him was definitely coming in handy.

Tony's eyes widened when he spotted another man advancing on Andy from behind, holding up a gun and getting ready to shoot. "Andy! Look out!"

The brunette teen turned just in time to avoid the bullet hitting his head, but the piece of metal still met its target. He cried out as it was embedded in his shoulder.

The guard grinned triumphantly, moving forward to finish his kill, when he was stopped abruptly by a hole in his forehead.

Andy turned to see Gibbs standing behind him, lowering the arm holding the gun as his icy blue eyes glared down at the dead body. "Thanks, dad."

"No problem."

Walker growled from where he stood, watching the fight go on. He didn't like losing – he hated to lose. It was a common trait of those trained by Scorpia. If they lost, they would get revenge.

But Walker was tired of getting revenge.

He needed it now.

He grabbed a gun from one of his men's holsters, not caring that he'd left the man without anything to defend himself, and suddenly began to charge at Andy from the other side of the room. He barged through all of the men, aiming for the one thing that Alex Rider definitely cared about in that room.

"Andy!" Alex yelled when he spotted Walker running towards him. He wasn't going to let his friend die… not this one… not this time…

Andy looked over his shoulder to see Walker racing towards him. He had no guards to fight, but he was weapon-less, and the man he had to go up against had a gun. "I need ammo!" he called out, looking around to see if he could find a loose gun anywhere. But none of the guards around him had guns.

So useful… the teen thought sourly.

Ziva ran and slid across the floor in Walker's path, tripping the man up and causing his gun to slide across the floor towards the blonde teen. She kicked Walker as she passed him, causing him to cry out in pain and clutch his shin in agony.

McGee and Tony raced towards Alex as the teen started his painful race to the gun, fighting off any guards that would get in his way.

"Alex!" Andy called out as he turned to run. Walker was beginning to rise again, and this time the man looked like he would kill Andy no matter what it took.

Alex finally managed to grab the gun from the floor and he tossed it towards Andy, hoping that he would catch the gun get the shot off before Walker got to him. "Don't miss!" he yelled.

Andy swivelled and caught the gun in mid turn, holding it up and pointing it at Walker just as the man decided to charge at him furiously. His finger pressed on the trigger…

Bang.

…

Walker crumpled to the floor, a hole in his chest.

…

Exactly where his heart was.

…

Everything froze – it was as if the world had stopped. Every person in that room turned to stare at the now dead man on the floor, some glancing up at the teen who seemed to be stuck pointing the gun in his hand in the direction the villain had been coming from. Walker's men looked frightened, each of them stepping away from Andy or putting their guns on the ground to show their surrender.

Then the gun in Andy's hands dropped, and the brunette paled considerably, starting to shake. What he'd just done… he'd never done before in his life.

"A-Andy?" Tony asked warily, stepping closer to the teen.

But he was lost for words. He couldn't say anything. His throat was dry, closed up – it refused to form words.

And that's when Alex collapsed.

Oops... another cliffhanger.

Haha...

Review!