District Two; Esterwick Government Complex, northern quadrant.
Rooke Arvelle, 16 years, District Nine Male.
Beckett is going to hate me for approximately all of this.
I said that I would be safe, that I would be careful, that I would be well protected. That his little brother, the real one, would come back.
Issue is, I don't remember being this stupid before.
I don't know where anyone is. I don't even know where I am, if I'm being perfectly honest. The second the explosions went off, the second I was out of the cover of the car, I just took off. That's what Celia told me to do, if things went that badly. But hindsight is 20/20, I guess. What did Celia even expect me to do, if I ended up alone? Wander around in circles, holding onto a scythe, really hoping and praying that someone nice finds me before someone bad does?
Apparently. Even if that's not what she envisioned, it's what I'm doing anyway.
I think I might be further in than anyone else, too. It would be easy to figure out, if anything at all was coming through my earpiece. I think landing outside the car might have jostled something in it, or broken it. Every few minutes I'll hear something but it's nothing discernible. Someone could tell me where I am, or which direction to go to find the nearest people, but it doesn't appear that I'm going to get that lucky.
It appears that I'm so far back that they may not have expected us to make it that far. There's evidence of explosions having been set off, holes leading from the outside walls to the roads just on the other side. Their practice grounds, maybe, for what they were going to do to us at the beginning.
There's a camera up in the far right corner, and I glance up at it. If only someone could tell me if they see me.
It's almost worse, with no one around. I keep expecting someone to pop up and chase me, or just not bother and kill me outright. But there's no one here. I glance out one of the holes and the entrance to the building is further than I expected, with how much I've twisted and turned throughout the building itself. I can still see the smoke, though, and what's left of the fire in it's place.
And I just have that feeling, that someone really is lurking around back here.
Or, you know, I'm still being stupid, and the others have killed them all already.
I open a door to a stairwell, the first one that leads down instead of up. It only goes down for a floor before there's an exit door, but what's beyond that is dark. There's no telling where it goes.
It feels like the reaper all over again. And no matter how terrible of a decision that seemed, at the time, it all worked out in the end, did it not?
The scythe is getting heavy, though. Almost too heavy to carry for much longer.
I creep down the stairs anyway, still resolved to hold onto at least until the bottom, and look through the window. The darkness stretches out for quite a while, only randomly illuminated by lights on the ceiling every ten or fifteen feet. It's a parkade. A rather empty one, considering there's only a few lone cars, but they're scattered every which way. There's a ramp not far away, daylight on the other side. That's where it goes back above ground. But besides that it's not really much, save for the camera by the door. At least someone will know I'm here, hopefully.
I've still got a knife, and a gun that I'm not even sure I fully know how to operate, so I leave the scythe just inside the door, just in case. Give my arms a break for a minute while I edge open the door and look around, because that's all it'll take, and then I'll be back.
If only foolish optimism ever got anyone anywhere.
All of the cars look like they've been here for a while. I can't help but wonder what happened to the people that were still working in this building when all of the Sentinels showed up in the first place. By the looks of the parkade a lot of them left and got out before anything bad could happen, but there's still these few. Who knows if they killed them, or just chased them off on foot.
And who knows if we'll ever really know.
There's the sound very far off of something exploding, and I head for the ramp to get a better look. It didn't sound nearly as big as anything that could have come from the jet, but is an explosion really ever good?
It's almost enough to cover up the less distant sound of a car engine revving to life.
Almost, but not quite.
I freeze, the sunlight mere footsteps away, and look over my shoulder. There's a pair of headlights slicing through the darkness, but whatever car it's coming from is blocked by a combination of the other cars and the pillars supporting the structure. The lights are nearly touching the edge of the door that I came through, though. Much too close for me to try and run back there and get up the stairs. That would be the best option, but it's already been eliminated.
There's nowhere to go but outside.
I throw myself up the ramp as quickly as I can, not even thinking about another option. Not thinking about what could happen. I hear the car again, and then the harsh rumble of the engine re-firing, the thrum of the tires starting to move against the pavement. It turns into a harsh squeal in a matter of seconds as it speeds up too fast. There's a wishful prayer inside me, hoping that it will backfire, that it'll be too fast for the car to manage.
It's not. Prayer isn't fact, and I already know it.
I'm almost fully up. I'll almost hit the road. I can see it, and how it twists and turns back towards the front of the buildings, but it seems so far away, when I can hear the car moving up behind me, too fast.
Even up until the last second, I expect it to stop. For me to make it to the top just in time to see someone get out of the driver's seat, laughing like they had just pulled off the most elaborate joke they could possibly think of.
I do get to the top.
The second after that, it collides with me.
Everything is reduced to a static mess of colors. It's no longer than a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity; I only managed to turn around a mere hair before the front of the car slams into my side. After that, everything's a blur. Like several snapshots taken in a burst. My head cracks into the hood and then half my body crashes into the windshield. It gives way, beneath me, but I'm already back in the air, and I can't tell what's the car or what's the flat gray pavement of the road, which way's up and which's way down.
It's when I finally land on the ground that the pain hits.
My side hits first, the opposite one, and then my shoulder bounces off the concrete like a rubber ball. Searing, blinding agony travels all the way through my torso and into my chest, and then I can't breathe. My vision is threatening to give way around the edges, but it's like I'm not even conscious to begin with, just sensing pain over and over again, unable to figure out where it's coming from or why it's happening.
There were too many things that could be considered the worst one. The blood dripping off the side of my face, how my left shoulder was incapable of moving the right way, my wrist burning and sending agony rippling back along my arm and into my chest the second I even try to get a hand underneath myself. I end up in a heap along the ground, convinced I'll never be able to move again.
Everything is too quiet, compared too before, save for the never-ending ringing in my ears, and the harsh burst of static as the earpiece tries to connect through once again.
The car door opens. Even with my face half crushed to the ground I see a set of slender legs leave the car, the crunch of boots against the gravel. Everything is burning. All the skin on my arm is ripped open from where I skidded along the ground.
"—Rooke?"
That's my name, I realize distantly. Not coming from whoever's just in front of me. Foggy, directly in my ear. I tilt my head to the side and even that aches, but without my ear pressed to the ground I start to hear things, miraculously.
"Rooke, get up!"
Someone can see me. There's a camera somewhere. I try to look up, towards the side of the building, and all of the brick and mortar blends into one. Someone can see me, understands what's happening, finally. It's the only thing I can think of, even as the legs get closer. A boot comes up, and I wait for the kick that separates my head from my shoulders. Instead it slams into my chest, the soles flattening along my torn and ragged shirt, and the pain re-ignites again. Crushing me. That's what it feels like. My chest is going to collapse under the weight.
"Hey, kiddo," someone says, a woman that could be anyone, with how fogged over my eyes are. "Wanna tell me where all your friends are?"
She leans down, her boot still anchored against my chest, and I feel the knife disappear from my belt, hear the sound of it sliding away across the pavement. She takes the gun next, and keeps that for herself.
"Rooke, we're coming for you right now," someone says, in the earpiece. "Just keep her talking."
"Don't," I choke out, hardly able to focus on that single word.
"Don't worry," she says. "I'll wait until someone shows up looking for you, and then I'll kill you. I won't make you watch."
No. That can't happen. Someone can't come this way, not now. She just ran me down like nothing, god only knows what she'll do to everyone else, and she can't—
I'm beyond hysterical. There's no word for what I am right now. She digs her foot in a little harder and the tears I hadn't even noticed burning my eyes finally slide down. My cheeks start to burn, and when the tears wobble off and hit the ground they're mixed with blood, my blood all over the place and coating my hands and running thin all over the ground underneath.
She takes a step back and I can't even muster enough energy to take another deep breath.
Very slowly, I start to ease myself upright. She doesn't do anything but stand there, pulling the radio out of her belt. I can't make out a single thing she's saying, the radio held up close to her mouth, but she's not trying to stop me. My right wrist is one of the only things that doesn't feel like it's on fire, along with my legs. I just need to get up; if I can get up, she'll follow me. She'll follow me back down, as long as she doesn't know. As long as she thinks I'm leading her back to someone else.
"Yeah, he's trying to get up," she says, a bit louder, and then smiles at me. "Keep an eye out for anyone headed this way."
There's too much blood in my mouth, and it's threatening to choke me. It's all I can taste, all I can practically smell, besides the harsh scent of gasoline and the warm concrete underneath me.
I grapple at the wall with one hand, and rise up as much as I can. Only about halfway, clutching at my ribs with the other, wondering if my chest is threatening to collapse from the inside out. The second I straighten up even further I can't help the cry that finally forces it's way out, tears leaking down my face.
The ramp looks so long from here, so steep.
I keep a hand on the wall and start downward.
There's still someone's voice floating through the earpiece, but I block it out. I hear what sounds almost like an irritated sigh from behind me, as I take my first wobbling steps down the ramp, praying that my insides stay together. My hand is leaving a bloody smear all down the wall, more gravel gathering against my palm the further down I go.
The door's not that far. I can make it. It's doubling across my vision, the now empty parking space taunting me. I should've noticed. I should have seen her sooner, figured that something was up.
But I didn't.
Of course I didn't.
It's like old times, practically stumbling around, all on my own, nothing but the stale air and the threat of something on my heels that's keeping me walking. I nearly crash headlong into the last pillar before the door, bracing my hand against it for a second, trying to fill my lungs before I know I won't have another chance to. She's walking after me leisurely, an afternoon stroll, spinning my gun around in her hands.
I do walk into the door, the momentum just barely enough to push it open, and I slam my foot against it the last little bit, the only part of my body that's still really listening. It opens that last little bit, giving me one last break, and I lean up against the doorframe, fumbling around the corner. I feel my hand close around it, that sleek cool metal one of the only constants left in my life.
"You were the one alone at the end, right?" she asks. She's just behind me. Watching me like I'm stuck in a cage, wondering what I'll do next. "Do you think anyone's actually going to come for you?"
Bringing me back to the Games, like today has been, over and over again. First the reaper and now this, being reminded that everyone had someone those last few days besides me, that it's a miracle I even walked out of there at all.
"No," I manage.
No one's going to come for me.
Not because they don't want to, though. Not because I don't matter, or because they don't care.
Because I told them not to.
"That's sad," she comments. Is that genuine concern in her voice? I'm not going to bet on it. No one can see me, now. The camera's high up in the corner, cast over our heads. No one's going to know what happened here, and I'm not sure I'll be able to tell them.
And maybe that is sad.
Maybe it's the worst thing of all.
I reach around the corner with my other hand, even though my arm and my entire body screams in protest at the action. My hand locks around the handle of the scythe, joining the other one that's already holding on for dear life, because right now it really is the difference. Between what happens to me right here, right now, when no one's watching.
Her eyes don't even widen, when she sees the scythe.
And if it weren't for that flicker, that last little ounce of fear, I'd have believed she knew it was there all along.
But she didn't. And her hands don't come up in time to stop it, when the blade slams into her chest.
My arms tremble viciously, holding onto the weight. I feel the impact, as the curved hook of the blade sinks through the layers of fabric across her torso and then into skin, muscle, splitting through the center of her chest with every single ounce of force I could manage to put behind it.
She stumbles backwards, and my hands go limp, letting the handle go. It cracks into the floor. She wobbles another pace backward, as a spot of blood starts to bloom outward from where the blade is still stuck in, and then she careens backwards and hits the floor. She's gasping - frantic, high-pitched sounds that sound like the beginning of a scream that she can't get out.
I end up on the floor a few seconds after she does.
I don't remember my legs giving out, or my hands sliding down the wall to follow the descent of my body. The next thing I know I'm lying on the ground, half-curled in on myself, still crying, the threat of a hysterical sob trying to break free from my chest.
Someone's still saying my name. I don't know who it is. I don't know who it is.
And I can't focus enough to figure out who it is, either. I can't even breathe. That's the worst part. I can't get enough air, and everything is spinning, and I know the handle of the scythe just out of my reach would be covered in my blood, if the utter blackness wasn't disguising it.
I can't figure out who's asking after me, or how to breathe, or how to stop all the blood, the tears, the agony—
I can't.
Vance Derora, 16 years, District Eight Male.
"He's not answering," Dimara says. Not at all calmly.
That would be more helpful, you know, if I hadn't already realized that and begun the process of running the sixty different options of why exactly Rooke's not answering through my head.
The last thing we know is that he made it back inside the parkade and passed just by the last camera that led to the stairwell, the one from Eight following him. And after that, nothing. Some mild, hardly recognizable noises, just on the other side. And then nothing. It's a very giant nothing, all of us waiting for a response that it doesn't look like we're going to get.
Audrel said it was bad. That he was bad. You don't need the gory details to fill in the gaps that she's left unsaid.
"How far are we from there?" I ask. "We're in the courtyard with Fenton still."
"Not far. Probably closer than anyone that's not already occupied."
"Okay, we're going then," Dimara responds.
"Don't have to tell me twice," I agree.
Fenton's leg may not be bleeding any less, but it hasn't gotten worse. He's still insisting that he's fine, and they're keeping pressure on it. It seems to be working. Ivory's been keep watching on the far end of the balcony, while everyone else try to fix it. There's nothing for me to do here, and not for Dimara and Kelsea either. No way we're just going to sit here while something like this is happening.
"Just be careful," Kiero insists. "Stay together."
Easier said than done. Dimara is already headed down the stairs, and Kelsea gives me one last worried, panicked look and chases after her.
"Do my best," is all I can offer. Ivory scowls at that, just before I pass her on the balcony and go after them.
Dimara stays ahead nearly the entire time, but Kelsea slows down, mostly for my benefit. I don't know how Dimara's arm isn't throbbing every time her feet hit the ground, each one of them, even through all the bandages packed over top of it. Walking after my any wound to me was agony Audrel's giving us directions, telling us when to turn and when to move through a doorway or not. She's only half-focused on us; there's other people to worry about, other dangers. I'm not so much listening to her as I'm trusting Dimara to be making the right moves.
Regardless of what Audrel is focused on or not, though, we don't see anyone the whole time we're running there. Save for the random explosions still being triggered closer to the front of the building, everything seems too quiet.
Quiet's not good.
I round the corner after the two of them, and out a window to my right can see a car, half-skidded into the road, still idling.
Dimara throws open the door at the end of the hallway, and stops.
Two seconds later Kelsea runs right into her, almost failing to catch herself against the railing of the stairs. That doesn't really leave me any room to go either, so I cram myself right at the top of the stairs next to them. The looks on their faces alone almost doesn't make me want to know.
But I have to.
There's no choice in the matter.
There's two bodies at the bottom of the stairs. One that's half fallen through the doorway. The scythe is awkwardly twisted into the middle of her chest, the rest of it falling off to the side of her body. And there's Rooke, crumpled in on himself not far from the last step. It hardly even looks like him.
"Oh, oh god, no," Kelsea stammers. "Is he—"
"Nope," Dimara says, unwilling to hear the last part of that sentence, because whether it's true or not nobody really wants to. She shoves herself past me and Kelsea, the rest of the stairs swallowed up in a blur as I move to follow her. Both of us gingerly step over where Rooke's still lying, completely motionless. Up close it's even more alarming, how covered in his own blood he really is. I'm nervous to even kneel down by his head, regardless of if I'm touching him.
But he's breathing. The rise and fall of his chest is very faint, but it's there.
"What do we do?" I ask. Dimara's staring down at him very wide-eyed, holding a hand out but clearly unsure where to put it. You think they show Careers everything; pictures and diagrams, how to make splints and slings like stitching up a broken doll. But this is an actual person, this is Rooke we're talking about, and I think he's ten times worse, possibly excluding what happened to Blair, than anything Dimara's ever had to deal with. Even the scissors weren't this bad. There's shards of glass embedded in the edge of his jaw and down his neck, stretching even to the juncture of his shoulder, broken chunks of it stuck in the palms of his hands. Everything's covered in a slick of blood.
"Talk to him," she instructs. The second she gets up I move myself into her spot, hands fluttering just as uselessly as hers were. I watch her step through the doorway, grabbing and pulling at the handle of the scythe with a rip that definitely didn't need to be as harsh at it is, more of the girl's blood splattering along the floor and all over her boots before she steps into the dimness of the parkade, the scythe still held high.
She's talking to Audrel. Trying to protect us.
I turn back to Rooke and Kelsea is very carefully crouched behind him, reaching over to touch one of the lone spots of his exposed arm that isn't covered by a healthy dose of road rash. It feels like my heart is in my throat. I can barely hear whatever she's saying, murmuring quietly to him, trying to say anything that will make him open his eyes.
I don't even know what I'm supposed to be looking at. Kelsea glances up, something nervous in her eyes, and I nod. Her hands are shaking.
"You're doing good. Don't worry."
It's not a few seconds later that he stirs, very faintly, under her hand. Instantly she retracts it, eyes wide, but leans in a little closer.
"Rooke? It's okay, you're safe, we got you."
Do we really? And is he even safe? Do we have answers, for any of that?
He moves again, though, fingers twitching against the ground, and then his eyes crack open. Hardly more than a sliver, but that sliver is enough to see him look directly at me, eyes blurry and unfocused. His mouth tries to move, form around something that could be my name, but a second later he coughs weakly, blood spattering across the ground just in front of him, and his whole body tenses. He closes his eyes again, agony clearly written across his face, and I very carefully put a hand on his shoulder, praying that I'm not making it worse.
"Take it easy, you're okay," I say, unsure if I even believe myself. "Just don't move."
I don't hear Dimara headed back but she drops herself down by my side a second later, and the scythe hits the ground with a harsh clang. Rooke winces, eyes fluttering back open. I don't think he even knows who to focus on.
"We have to move," Dimara insists. "Medics are hung up out front."
Rooke's hand reaches out, and before it can even get halfway there Dimara grabs onto it. Holds tight.
"Can't," he manages. "Can't walk. Can't breathe."
"No one said you were walking alone," she points out, but she gently reaches for his other hand, the one that's clutching tight to his side, and pulls it free. Her hand rests there for a moment, up against his ribcage, and then she presses her fingers in. He lets out a harsh, half-stifled yell, and Kelsea jumps, more tears beginning to come out of his eyes and pass through the already-existing streaks across his face.
"Did it hit you on this side?" she asks, and he nods, almost frantically. Like he'd do anything to get her hand away.
"Other side good, or is it just as bad?"
"It's— it's okay, I think."
"Now listen to me," she orders. "Actually think about this. Is it getting any harder to breathe, or has it been the same?"
It looks like lying there is causing him an unbearable amount of pain, let alone breathing. He squeezes his eyes shut. Every breath is coming in a ragged, harsh gasp, like he's forcing them out, and every time his whole body trembles.
"It's the same."
"Okay, that's good."
"Is it?"
"Yeah. It means your ribs are broken all along that side but they haven't punctured your lung. Which would be a problem."
"O-Oh."
Yeah. Oh. Thank god she's here right now, or Kelsea and I would probably be managing to make this situation somehow worse. I don't think Rooke would appreciate that, when his day's already gone worse than he probably ever imagined. He lifts his head up a bit, probably as much as he can manage. It almost gives him a clear view of the doorway, and the body lying just beyond it.
"Totaled her, dude," I inform him, and he drops his head back to the ground with a very harsh thunk. Kelsea brushes a hand through his hair, stained with blood, and glass comes tinkering down onto the floor behind him.
"T-Think she totaled me."
"That's not funny," Dimara gets out. Personally, if Rooke's willing to joke about it, then I'll take that over him screaming. I don't figure it's going to last long, though. Dimara moves to his other side and shoves me a bit closer. We have to get him up, get a person who probably shouldn't even be walking, to his feet and moving all the way back to the front of the building.
You can see the blood trail, from here out into the parkade. There's physical evidence of how much it took him to get this far.
But at least now he's not alone. At least this time he'll have us to lean on and hold onto, and he won't have to worry about anything, because we'll be there. There's a reason Dimara went out into the parkade before she did anything else.
This was always about protecting each other, as long as we could.
We already failed once. I don't think any of us have any desire to fail again.
"You ready?" Dimara asks. Rooke takes a deep breath, one that shakes his entire chest, and I force myself to do the same. This is going to take a lot of work. And patience. And the ability to deal with renewed screaming, the second we really begin to move him.
"No," Rooke says, but squeezes her hand, feebly. Kelsea nods.
"Ready as I'll ever be," I say.
I'm not ready.
But if there's anything I think we've all learned, through all of this, it's that the world hasn't ever cared when we've been ready or not.
Blair Carnell, 18 years, District Two Male.
"You guys got him?" I hear Rory ask.
"Give us five minutes," Dimara pleads. "I'll give you an update when we're not stuck on the floor."
"Is he okay, though?"
No answer to that. I'd like to think that if Rooke was dead they wouldn't be reacting this way, that they would be telling us more than the bare minimum. Or maybe they're just not trying to worry us, in the middle of all this.
"He's okay," Seren insists, and squeezes my arm. "They have him. Just trust that."
I do trust that, unfortunately for me. That still doesn't mean I want to know. It would be nice to have some sort of actual confirmation, before I went tromping off to probably get myself beat to death. But hey, better me than Rooke, I guess.
Okay, so maybe going to look for Seren wasn't the greatest idea. I knew Seren would stick with Luca, and I knew exactly who Luca would be going after when he got the opportunity. I also know that Luca could kick my ass into next week, if he really felt strongly about it, and the guy we're looking for is supposedly worse. A hell of a lot more brutal.
There's three of us, and even Luca doesn't look confident about our odds.
It's really reassuring.
I never expected Luca to tell me anything about the guy, except for the bare minimum. It's hard to ask that of Seren, who never met the guy in the first place, but I'm sure she's heard stories. Probably a lot of stories, considering just how much time she spent in the woods with a group of people who lived around him constantly. At this point she's probably hoping to shield me from the worst of the details, or she's just hoping we'll never run into the fucker, so we won't have to find out.
If we don't run into him, then who's left? The bomber? Carnelia? The replacement, for god's sake?
It's almost more tempting, to run into their so-called leader. Maybe if that happens, what little is left will fall apart.
Because we need it to, and fast. Rooke was just the first of the nine of us that could possibly go down. Frankly, let's not let it get to that point, where we have to scrape more than one person off the floor just to keep them up.
We're just walking blind. At this point I'm expecting it to happen. I have a feeling this guy, wherever he may be, has already seen us at some point, when we haven't been looking the right way. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one following us, but even checking over my shoulder every few seconds produces nothing. No flicker out of the corner of my eye, no shadow where there shouldn't be.
The Eight was lying in wait for Rooke. For anyone, really, he just happened to be the first person that stumbled on her. Watching and waiting for him to put himself in a vulnerable position, so that she could strike.
"Okay," Dimara says, true to herself, a few minutes later. "I think we're good."
"She dead?"
"Sure is."
"Would it be fucked up to say that makes me a little proud?"
"Probably," Dimara huffs. I really don't envy her right now. "But he can't hear you - I took his earpiece out. It's just distracting him."
"Well, tell him I'm proud, then."
There's grumbling then, a muttered no. Well, at least I know they're up and walking, Rooke in tow. At least I know that he's somehow alive after he killed someone he probably shouldn't have been able to kill on his own. That does serve to make it worse, though. Rooke was one person, all on his own, when he killed her. And Luca's really that worried about three of us, versus one guy?
"Let you know when we find Two," I tell her. "Or, you know, you'll have to come and pick me up off the floor too."
"I only have two arms," she insists. "Don't get your ass kicked."
Easier said than done. I've already gotten my ass kicked during all of this more than I would've liked. And my head is still ringing faintly, too. Curse the ground for being as hard as it is.
It's still better than being hit by a car.
"Alright, stop talking," Luca instructs. "We don't have that much more to look through. He'll be around here somewhere."
Not exactly the motivational, confidence-building speech I was hoping for, but I guess I'll have to take it. The bomber's probably back in the main building, where the jet landed, but we're closer to the back of the complex by now. Judging by Meritt ditching Kane he's probably off looking for his sister, and I have no doubt that she's looking for him too. I don't really want to be around for that.
Someone will deal with the bomber. Rory and Ronan are looking, and now that someone's found Rooke I'm sure Celia is too. Nadir and Tanis aren't that far off, if they need help.
So this one's on us. On me.
It's no big deal.
And as long as I keep telling myself that, hopefully it will be.
Rory Mirevale, 17 years, District Four Male.
It seems like someone's always going running for Rooke.
There's a little part of me this time that's grateful it isn't me. I'm not sure I'd know or want to deal with how bad off he is, judging by what Dimara's said. And to think that he killed someone, before they found him. If he was alright, safe and sound, I think he'd be reacting about how I did. The only reason he's not is because the pain is the first, and probably only thing, at the front of his mind.
I don't think Celia's that far away. I also know, without words, that she really does feel terrible this. We took our eyes off him for two seconds, Rooke practically disappeared, and look what happened to him.
It shouldn't have happened in the first place.
It's hard to think about that and really be focusing at the same time. Ronan's pretty dead-set on finding the bomber, after what we saw outside. After what she did to all of the people we once knew.
I never thought find the bomber would be something I had in my vocabulary.
"Any update?" Ronan asks.
"On Sabille?" Audrel replies. "Last I saw her she was coming in through an exit door from the roof. Wherever she is now she's keeping well hidden. Away from the cameras, anyway."
Sabille. Right. It's easy to forget that all of these people have names. A lot of these people were probably like me, before the Sentinels took them. Really heavily opposed to this whole murder thing, as long as we're not in any danger. Just hoping for a normal life, for themselves and for their families. They got that all ripped away from them. But I have to distance that between what I know, and that's that they've already killed too many people.
There are charges everywhere. Demolitions set up down every hall. Tanis said it, but now I've seen it with my own two eyes.
We're not far from where the building last shook, either.
She's close. We can tell.
"Hold on," Ronan says, and then practically hits me in the chest to stop me. "Think I saw something."
I freeze behind him, just beyond the corner. He's peering around it, looking towards a main staircase that stretches beyond my range of vision. The room's huge, the staircase taking up nearly half of it, and it must be leading to the second floor and balcony beyond. There's a charge on the far door, leading into another room, and one at the edge of the stairs.
"She's luring us in," I murmur.
"I know. So let her lure us."
So, Ronan said he wanted to watch over us, make sure we were okay. I didn't think that meant practically pulling me behind him into something like this. It makes me feel better that he's here, but what good is that really going to do, in the thick of things? I'm going to be terrified no matter what.
Rooke killed one of them, I remind myself.
It can't be that bad.
Ronan takes a step out into the open. Doesn't even raise the gun. Looks around casually. Maybe he's trying to fool her into thinking we don't know what's going on, that we're naive and foolish and unaware that we're about to die. He gestures at me, and I move quickly to follow. It's better that we're together. She can't possibly kill both of us at the same time.
"Rory?" Nadir says in my ear, and I don't respond. I'm practically holding my breath. I don't want to make any more noise than I really need to.
He's nearly under the stairs, now. At least there we'll have some cover, but we really won't be able to see above us, either. She's got to be watching us, eyes like a hawk, wondering where we're going. If we leave this room, she probably follows us. Shoots us in the back the second we think we're home free. But we're not going to leave, and hopefully she doesn't know that.
I pause under the stairs next to him, while he looks up, waiting to hear something. And maybe we won't.
I think that's something we're used to by now, though.
But this isn't the usual times. We both hear the beeping, rhythmic, not nearly loud enough to match what it's attached to, and the amount of damage it can only do. I want nothing more than to run, to at least see what's going on, but Ronan holds me there.
Tanis says my name again, and my heart is thundering so loud I almost don't hear it. I force myself to keep quiet.
The pillar fifteen feet in front of us explodes in a shower of rock and marble. It's under the stairs, coupled with several other pillars. The balcony won't give way with only one of them gone, but clearly she's got her plans. And I hadn't even seen that charge there. How many others could there be? And how long is it going to take before she finally sets something off close enough to do some damage?
The dust settles, the last few bits of rock coming to a halt on the ground in front of us, and something in the air shifts, behind us.
Changes.
Neither of us turn in time.
The crack of the gunshot nearly makes me dive forward, but I don't get the chance. Ronan slams into me regardless with a hoarse, pained yell, and then hits the ground on top of me. I can't even see what's happening.
He rolls off of me not a second after, the ability to breathe returned to me once again, but it still doesn't help me figure out what's happening. There's blood on the floor, but it's not coming from me. There's a figure at the bottom of the stairs. Sabille. There's the gun, where the bullet came from, and Ronan's moving away from me, blood dripping down his back before he turns around to look at me—"
"Move!"
I do, just before she fires off another shot. Not aiming for Ronan, who's already injured. Aiming for me. The bullet cracks into the marble a foot away from my head, but she's getting closer. She won't miss forever.
Too close. Ronan doesn't get more than halfway to his feet before he must decide that that's as far as he's getting, and he grabs her before she can get the next shot off. The gun jerks to an awkward angle between them, both of them wrestling for control of it, pointing in any direction that's not certain death.
I don't know who ends up with the gun, but somewhere along the way, something else comes free. Ronan's hand lets go of her a moment to fling something away, and something comes skidding along the ground only a few feet away from me. Black, hardly even the size of the palm of my hand, riddled with buttons that all look the exact same, but I know what it is.
The remote detonator.
Both of them slam to the ground. The gun goes off again, but there's no yell telling me that it hit anyone. I scramble for the remote, moving backwards. She doesn't have it now. I can't risk shooting, or I could hit Ronan. Ronan, who's already hit and bleeding, who won't hold her off forever, and then it's just going to be me, me and her, but I have this.
Ronan gets free, for the briefest of seconds, before she's back on him. But in that second he looks directly at me.
"Do it!"
I look down at the remote. I have no idea what any of it does, what could happen.
But I know what's going to happen if I don't.
My finger hovers over the first of the buttons, before I press down against it.
And it's not one regular, even beeping that starts up.
It's dozens.
Sabille stops fighting, her knee against Ronan's chest as she lifts her head up, looking right at me. Her eyes go wide as she looks around, seeing something that I hadn't, until this moment. The charges laid out all across the room, flat up against the pillars. Some tucked into the corners, where the second floor joins the wall of the first. And they're all flashing, all red. The whole room is filled with the same noise.
She flings herself away from him, but I know she won't get away.
I know she won't get away, because I won't either.
The beeping stops.
The entire second floor collapses into a thousand pieces, directly overhead.
Yikes, eh?
Until next time.
