Her vision was blurry, her heart telling her to go back after him and use those three bullets she had left if she needed to protect him, but her legs were running on their own toward her destination. Elliot. That man was her biggest nightmare, he was the one behind everything. Behind the campus, Meridian, Dawkins. Her son had been in danger because of him, could still be in danger because of him. She reached the room where she was taken, she remembered it clearly. She had seen a couple boxes every here and there and now, from standing outside of the door, she saw them opened. They had something that looked like injections in them. She then saw Elliott and a guard, she needed to shoot the guard in order to talk to him.
She hated this, hated shooting at people. She knew what she was doing, knew that she was taking away lives, but she couldn't help it. It was either her or them. She felt like a monster knowing she was the one responsible for their deaths, it was one of the hardest things she had learnt to deal with when she started being an FBI agent; they had always told her that if someone was about to attack her or they were armed and dangerous she was allowed to shoot. In a leg or a shoulder if she needed to leave them alive, in the chest or the head if they could be too dangerous.
She entered the room, shooting the guards without even thinking. She couldn't risk anything.
"Don't move, put your hands where I can see them, don't scream or I shoot" she pointed the gun toward Elliott.
He was just like she had imagined, acted all brave and powerful when he had his guards around, but now there he was, acting like a scared animal.
"What's this place Elliot? You'd better start talking" she locked the door behind her and got closet to him.
She looked at the monitors in front of her, seeing everyone going around. She hoped to see Cal somewhere but she didn't have enough time to check every screen, she had to make Elliott talk once for all. With a kick she pushed him against his desk, making him understand that he did have to start talking, otherwise she wouldn't have been that gentle. It wasn't a problem for her to kill him, she still had Kai's files, safe on a chain around her neck, and the FBI would have find a way to decrypt them.
What was stopping her from killing him? Nothing. Would she? Definitely not, he needed to go to jail. She turned him around, pointing the gun to his head and reaching for her phone she saw there to call for backups. The police told her they were on their way and she tried to stay calm. Once again she asked Elliot to start talking, that his project was over, everyone would have found out soon and everyone would got arrested. She saw him thinking about it for a few seconds and then he started talking.
She had the feeling it was all too easy so she took his phone, looking for the recent calls and messages. When she saw him texting Dawkins to find her son she gripped even tighter on her gun. He made him call Dawkins, telling him to stop whatever he was planning to do and then hung up. She looked at the monitors in front of her, seeing all the guards dealing with prisoners, but then her eyes caught something. Two people were fighting, she recognized the uniform so they were two guards. One if them had a gun, the other one had a knife in his hands, she could barely see it. Her thoughts connected and she looked closer, completely ignoring what Elliott was saying. It was Cal, and that man might have been Armstrong. She looked how they fought, Cal seemed to be loosing and her heart stopped for a second, she should have gone with him. Suddenly the screens turned black.
"If I'm gonna spill every information I know at least you should be listening" she heard Elliott's voice and she tightened the grip around her gun, pointing it more toward him.
"Put them back on!" She screamed, she needed to know what happened.
"What were you interested in? The guy you were looking at is one of my best guards, the other one doesn't stand a chance against him. If he was loosing he's probably gonna be dead by the end of our conversation" Elliot grinned.
"Shut up!" She punched him in the face, she couldn't keep listening to his bullshit.
Suddenly she felt someone trying to open the door, she needed to check. It was a matter of seconds, she turned around toward the door, heard some glass sliding on the table and saw Elliot trying to inject her with something. Time slowed down and she shot him, she didn't really want to, but it was either drop her gun and trying to stop him or finish it right away, she couldn't let him have the opportunity to catch her gun by dropping it. She saw him falling on the ground and the door being kicked open. A bunch of people came into the room, pointing the gun toward her. They were wearing different clothes, backups had arrived.
"FBI, don't shoot" it came out as a breath as one of the officers pointed a gun on her.
Her head was spinning, her eyes suddenly watery, trying to hold back her tears. She had to find Cal. It couldn't be true, she didn't want to even believe to Elliot's words. Cal was a fighter, she knew it. Cal was the one who held both of them in the water in Moldova, when she couldn't even breathe he was there, keeping her up while the flow was trying to steal her from his arms. He jumped out from the truck where they kept them to punch an armed man with his bare hands; she knew that when they fought on the ring he let her win, he might have been on hangover but he was good, too good not to make it.
"I'm Emily Byrne. Nick Durand and Cal Isaac, they're somewhere in this camp, you need to find them" she said as one of the officers made a call to confirm her identity.
"She's telling the truth. Let her free" another one screamed exiting the door.
"I need to go" she took some steps but a man stopped her.
"We're taking care of everything ma'am. Sit back, you look like you're still in shock, please don't take any irrational move" he said making her sit on one of the chairs.
"I need to find a person" she tried to get up again but they stopped her.
"We're gonna find everyone don't worry. Everything is gonna be fine. What if we go outside once this floor is clear so you can breathe some fresh air?" the man said sweetly.
She knew he was trying his best to not let her panic but it wasn't working. Her mind kept going back to the images she saw in the video, to the words Elliot said. She couldn't help but think that Armstrong had a gun, Cal didn't. It would have taken him a second to shoot him. Silent tears started to roll down her face again and she fisted the material of her clothes with her hands to let her emotions flow.
"There are too many dead bodies, we need to check for DNA to make a list of every single person implied with this" a guard popped up from outside the door and it only let her feel worse.
If Cal was alive he would have searched for her, he would have find the room she was in. That was what he had told her. She felt her heart break, was it possible that he really wouldn't have make it? What if some agent thought he was one of Meridian and shot him? He was still wearing that damn uniform. She needed to find him herself. She got up and her head spun again. How was she supposed to find him like this?
"Ma'am please! Take a sit and listen to us. We're not gonna let you go out in your conditions!" at the point she felt like the agent was desperate.
Her tears kept flowing, increasing with every gunshot she heard. She knew they would have definitely saved Nick if he was in danger, but knowing Cal was out there wearing a different uniform than his own broke her. He was innocent, she was sure about it now. She just hoped she got the opportunity to tell him in person, saying she was sorry for screaming at him, for almost shooting him... it was never her intention, she actually hoped he would have just left the car and not tried her because she would have never been able to shoot him. She still had a lot of things to tell him, now more than ever she was regretting not have woken him up for telling him her feelings. She had whispered that "I love you" that morning on the train not wanting him to hear it, but now it was everything she wanted. She loved him, so much, like she had never loved anyone in a long time.
"Step away!" the scream of a guard distracted her from her thoughts.
She looked up through her watery eyes, seeing a man at the door wearing the Meridian uniform and his hands in the air. Swiping away the tears she tried to focus on the man in front of her and their eyes locked.
"You're a fucking idiot!" she screamed as she suddenly got up running toward him.
She threw herself in his arms, hugging him tight, breathing him in. She kept punching him softly on his chest as she felt one of his arms wrap around her. She felt one of the cops trying to unwrap her from his embrace but she hold onto him. She broke down in his arms, finally knowing he was alive.
"He's my partner. He's my partner" she desperately cried on his shoulder.
"Cal Isaac, FBI. I was undercover in here" he answered with his right hand still in the air.
He would have raised his left one too but there was no way he was going to unwrap Emily for his embrace. She looked desperate, crying on his chest like she had never done before. He had wrapped herself around him so tight that he wouldn't have left her even if they had told him to.
"He's telling the truth" she sobbed.
"He is. Sir we're gonna bring you two out as soon as everything is safe, what are you doing here?" one of the cops asked.
"I was looking for her, she's my partner, I couldn't leave her alone more than it was needed" Cal explained, finally wrapping both his arms around Emily, who managed to take some deep breaths.
"Fine, we tried to calm her down but it looked like nothing was working, I think she was asking for you" he pointed out.
"I'll take care of her, thanks" Cal answered and the man nodded.
He started to walk slowly toward the chair, he wanted her to sit and relax.
"Em come on sit on the chair" he tried to let her go but once again she hold onto him tight, shaking her head on his chest.
"Ok no sitting there, what about sitting on the floor?" he softly asked her and she nodded.
"Ok ok let's sit there" he sat on the floor, bringing her with him, letting her lay her head on the crook of his neck.
"I thought I lost you" she breathed out on his neck.
"I'm ok, I'm alive" he reassured her, stroking her arm softly.
"I saw you fighting with him, Elliot turned off the screens before I could see what was happening and he told me he was one of his best men. You wouldn't have stood a chance against him" she took a deep breath, she needed to calm down.
"He is dead, I didn't want to kill him, but it was either him or me" he explained, rocking her lightly.
She opened her eyes at the statement, was Armstrong really gone? She could feel exactly how he was feeling. She understood him. She had been through the same with Laurie. She so wanted kill her but she knew she was better than her, then the time came and it was either her or herself. She saved herself. She couldn't say that she didn't regret it, she used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming and hoping that everything would have been just a big nightmare. She didn't want to be a monster, she wanted to be more; but she didn't have any chance, everyone was after her, Laurie was trying to kill her, and she had to do it. She couldn't understand how Cal could've felt knowing he had to kill an innocent guy to save his friend, luckily she had never been in that position.
Her vision was still blurry by her tears but she wanted to look at him. She had only seen him when he got into the room, then she totally got lost in his embrace, not wanting to let him go. She tired to focus her eyes on him and she immediately saw the blood stains on his clothes.
"Cal" she breathed, softly touching his chest.
"I'm ok, it's not my blood" he reassured her, running a hand softly on her arm again.
She nodded. Her brain was still trying to process everything that happened in the past hours. She didn't really know how much time had passed since Cal saved her, could have been half an hour, could have been half a day. She couldn't really tell. Soon she heard a bunch of people entering the front door, then everything happened quickly, too fast for her. They made her stand up and divided her from Cal, bringing them both to the hospital to check any kind of bruises of wounds they had, run some blood tests to see if they had gotten infected with any kind of virus and luckily everything turned out clear. Nick was brought to the hospital too, but he had to stay there a few days more duet his conditions. Both Cal and Emily had to spent the night quarantined in the hospital just in case; she really wanted to see him, talk to him, keep herself distracted from that whole situation... but she couldn't. They had put them in two different rooms and she didn't even know where he was, he might have been either on a different floor or in the room next to hers.