"Stop," Mathias nearly shouted from the darkness, startling the group to a halt.
"What is it this time?" Lukas asked, irritated. Mathias had already interrupted the group numerous times for even the slightest of noises. Whether he heard glass tinkling or shoes shuffling, he would stop the group's progress. The group understood that he was only looking out for their well-being, but trying too hard could become a danger to them in the end.
"Really," Mathias said in a hushed voice, "there's something wrong."
The group grew quiet and waited for the familiar sound of the infected approaching, their footsteps jilted and slow compared to that of a normal human; but there was no sound of feet shuffling or even glass tinkling. It was completely dead silent in the mall, the only thing that could be heard was their steady breathing.
"Mathias," Lukas said, still irritated, "this is really becoming a nuisance."
Tino wanted to stick up for Mathias, say that his intentions were only good, but Tino understood where Lukas was coming from. If Mathias kept it up, his good intentions would put them all in danger. They needed to be quiet, and they needed to move quickly because darkness was almost upon them. The halls were already almost impossible to navigate with the broken shards of glass littering the floor and the various items from within each shop scattered around in large heaps. Tino had already tripped and fell to his knees a few times.
Only the outlines of certain objects were visible at this point.
"Should we leave, or-" Mathias started, closing in on Tino's ear so he could ask him the question without angering Lukas.
"There's still something we need here, but we can leave right after," Tino said, "I don't want to be stuck in here when it gets dark."
"We also can't move around when it gets dark," Mathias said seriously. "Lukas and I have been hiding away in here for a few days now, and if we find a place with windows that aren't broken – a deli, preferably, so that they can't smell us – then we could hold out for the night and have the light to guide us in the morning."
"I don't know about that," Tino said.
"What do you need here, anyway?" Mathias asked, eyebrows furrowed. He was an incredibly expressive man with a big heart, but he could also easily get on someone's nerves; his enthusiasm would become too much to handle for even the most patient of people.
Tino was one of those people.
"We need more baby formula," Tino said simply, trying his best not to garner any more questions from Mathias. "There's always a chance that the group that was assigned to it won't come back, so it would be better for the ones that have the child to get it, don't you think?"
"I don't really think so," Mathias said. "If there as reliable as what you claim they are, then there's nothing to worry about. Let's just go, I'm eager to get the hell out of this place already. Screw staying the night, if we leave now we'll still have a little bit of light to get us out of here."
"He said he wants to get baby formula, so we're going to get baby formula," Berwald said, finally coming to Tino's defence.
"Jeez, alright," Mathias said, backing away from Tino and Berwald. It was saying something that he was willingly walking over to Lukas's side. Usually he would cringe away in fear of upsetting him.
However, it wasn't as if Lukas getting angry at Mathias wasn't well deserved. Tino knew that Mathias' heart was always in the right place, but just because his heart was in the right place didn't mean that he always did the right thing.
"There it is," Berwald said, he was the first to spot the dairy at the far end of the catwalk.
"Good," Mathias said, "I was afraid that we were going to be stuck in here forever…"
"If you don't like it you can just leave us," Lukas said with a shrug, "it's your life, and it's your choice to make, I'm not going to stop you."
"You're really cruel, you know that, Lu?"
"Shh," Lukas said as he raised his right index finger to his lips, cutting Mathias off completely. The icing on the cake for Mathias's annoyance, really; Lukas was one of the only people in the world capable of annoying Mathias.
Tino was smiling as they approached the dairy. Even though it's lights were dimmed and the inside looked more than destroyed, he could see the unscathed cans of baby formula lying down at the end of the dairy. They had lucked out.
However, just as Tino started walking swiftly toward the closed glass doors, a voice rang through the air, causing all of them, even Peter, to jump out of their skin.
"Stop, right there," the voice proclaimed, growing closer as it did so. It was harsh voice, brutal and weather worn, it was the sign of someone who had been through many hardships in their life.
That couldn't spell anything good for them.
The footsteps approached and all of them stood their ground firmly. If it had just been Peter and Berwald alone, they probably would have chosen flight over fight. But, they had Mathias and Lukas who were both armed, and both trained with guns to help them out if anything went wrong. They really needed the baby formula inside the dairy, so the flight option would only be unlocked if something very bad happened.
That was an all too possible reality.
Mathias and Lukas already had their guns positioned at chest level as the person grew closer to them. As he stepped closer they could all hear his erratic and wild breathing. It was clear that he had been running very fast, and they hoped that he had been running toward them, and not running away from something. Something like one of the infected.
His breathing became so close - so loud - that they could almost see his breath swimming through the chilled mall air. But, despite this, they couldn't quite see him through the darkness. The only thing they could make out was the fact that there was not just one set of footsteps approaching them, but two. He had someone else with him.
"We have just as much of a right to be here as you," Mathias started, shaking the gun in his hand a little to cause it to rattle. He wanted the people approaching them to know that they were armed, and not willing to stand down to them. "We have just as much of a right to be here as you, as well we have just as much of a right to defend ourselves."
"You have just as much right to this place as I do?" The voice questioned, "what fool told you that? Official law may be broken, but my law isn't. This mall belongs to me, and me only."
Tino watched from behind Berwald as Mathias gritted his teeth hard enough to be heard from a number of feet behind him.
The feet were getting closer and closer, to the point where they could make out two silhouettes, one much smaller than the other.
"We'll shoot," Mathias shouted, "don't you dare doubt us!"
The man laughed, "you won't shoot."
The man walked out from the darkness. He was a short yet sturdily built man with blonde hair and cropped bangs, his posture spoke of defiance and outspokenness. The Scandinavian cousins were outspoken enough, but this man was from somewhere else; somewhere with even less tolerance than the Nordic countries. However, it wasn't the gun toting blonde man that was a cause for concern for the group. It was the little girl that stood by his side that caused everyone to reconsider shooting.
Had she not been there, they would have opened fire on the man. There was no doubt about that.
"You won't shoot me because you wouldn't dare shoot a little girl," the man said, as if reading all of their minds. "And if you did shoot her, the rest of my group would hunt you down one by one until you were destroyed. I would be your greatest concern, however."
Lukas put his gun down first, keeping it firmly beside his thighs but not aimed at the man and the young girl. "What do you want with us? We weren't bothering anyone, we're on our way out."
"I'm afraid you were bothering the lot of us," the man said with a snide frown, "you were stealing our resources. That is an unforgivable act in this kind of situation."
"So what will you do about it?" Mathias asked, testing the waters.
"I'll take you all with me, and you will face our leader." He said simply, "kind of like our own little jury trial."
"I don't think so," Mathias said, "and I highly doubt you would force us, considering we have a child of our own with us."
"I'm aware of that," the man said with a shrug. "I can still be forceful without harming a child, which is no problem of mine."
"Then we can be forceful as well," Lukas said, raising the gun back to chest level, positioned directly at the man's head. Lukas was a good shot, he could do it if he wanted.
"Shoot me if you wish, or even my sister, but the others will come for you. The others have already come for the rest of your group, so what point would there be in shooting me down and escaping? Not to mention if you shot me you would leave little Lilly here in danger. But, beside that, you have no one to escape with, and the keys have been taken from your vehicles along with all essential interior parts. We have the young Mediterranean man and the Asian man with us, along with the foul-mouthed Englishmen. The others are being hunted as w-"
"Stop," Tino shouted, raising both of his hands and slinging the gun off of his shoulder, pointing it at the man, "stop, because I'll shoot."
"There he is," the man said as he glanced around Mathias' tensed form, "the one who has the child all the time."
"Tino," Berwald started, reaching out to grab Tino by the shoulder to stop him from leaving his position behind him.
"How do you know so much about us?" Tino asked, "are there cameras?"
"No," the man said, "we have been watching you - and rest of your group - since the first half of the group arrived at the hotel. Were we ever surprised when they brought back another group. It was so interesting watching all of you interact; you had so much doubt in each other… As you all started fighting, we knew we needed to do something to coerce all of you out of there. We gave a little push, and surprisingly it made you stronger, which wasn't exactly what we were looking to do, but no matter."
"Why would you do something like that?" Tino asked, thinking back to that horrible moment when they had been driven out of the hotel and almost slaughtered in the process by the infected. They were lucky they had Gilbert and Ludwig with them, or else they would have been – no doubt – killed by the infected and simultaneously turned into one of them.
"At first it was because we wanted more help here, but we quickly realized that having more people around would be more of a drain on our meager resources. And, as your loud-mouthed German friend with the snowy hair said, 'a few people won't help against a large group of the infected.' So, better to conserve our resources, watch the infected closely, and keep the mall to ourselves."
"That doesn't explain why you would lead us here in the first place. If you wanted to conserve your resources so bad, you could have simply set a large group of the infected outside of the store's entrance. Wouldn't that have been a better idea than sending them after us in the hot…" Tino stopped, finally coming to a realization. The whole point of sending the infected after them in the hotel wasn't to drive them toward the mall, but to kill them off. The man before them was lying to cover up his failure in getting rid of them all, at least, that was how it looked to both Tino and Berwald.
"What?" The man asked, oblivious as to why Tino had suddenly stopped talking. But, he soon caught up to Tino's line of thinking and again, tried to cover his tracks; it was all for naught in Tino's eyes.
"I'm not that petty," the man said, "we simply wanted the hotel for ourselves, our plan wasn't really to kill you; just to drive you out. However, if some of you died in the process of the evacuation we didn't really care. You all would have been just another casualty in this war on humans."
"You could have joined us, the rest of the group would have been willing to let you join," Tino said, hoping to calm the situation before it started getting too intense to handle. Now that he understood the man's intent, his goal was to try and make him reconsider. He doubted it would work, but there was nothing wrong with trying to change his mind.
"Again, the resource situation, and firstly, no, you're group wouldn't have." The man said, "you remember me telling you that we kept watch of you guys for weeks? We did, and when I mean watch, we watched to the point of hearing each of your individual chats. We know more about all of you than you guys know about each other, right down to bathroom – and bed – detail. We heard what the first group of survivors said about you, and the only reason they took you in was because of the car crash that you guys got into. They felt bad, and they didn't want to leave you stranded, so they had no choice."
The man laughed at Tino like he was a petty child, "you seem to forget that the original group had the perfect set of contributors to the team, they could have made it with no problem and they could have done so while using a small amount of resources per person. They had a nurse – which they saved by their selves – they had two strong arms that are incredibly quick on their feet and loyal minded, they had an electronics major, they had a girl, and they even had a priest. They didn't need you guys; you had nothing to contribute to the group."
"Shut up," Lukas said. "I don't know what you're talking about but I can tell it's not something good. So shut up, or so help me I'll drive a bullet into your empty skull."
"Fine, I've said what was needed to be said," he shrugged, "so let's make introductions, hum?"
The group gritted their teeth but didn't dare speak out against the man anymore - Tino and Berwald, mostly in fear that he would release too much information on them personally. He could destroy their entire group if he opened his mouth and started blathering things to them. If the rest of the group knew of their doubts, knew of the horrible things Tino had said about the German brothers – Gilbert in particular – they could be out-casted, especially considering the German brothers were essentially running their group.
But if what the blonde man was saying about kidnapping the groups individually was true, then being out-casted may be the least of their problems. Escaping the mall would be their main priority, and from what Tino was seeing, their case for escaping safely wasn't looking very strong.
"Let me start then, because everyone's being antisocial," the man said, finally lowering his gun to ground level. "My name is Vash, and this little girl beside me is Lilly, my little sister. Along with that, I'd like to remind you that if any harm befalls her, twice the amount of harm will befall you."
The little girl at his side remained completely quiet, even having the decency to look at the ground in shame at her older brother's harsh words. It clearly wasn't a world for a little girl to be living in.
"I'd like to start with the other two that I haven't had the pleasure of listening in on yet," his eyebrows furrowed deeply, "we've watched you from the post sneaking around the store, but just two of you weren't much of a concern before. Hell, if you hadn't banded together with these three, we probably wouldn't have even bothered you and let you go on your way without any problems. But, now you're becoming a problem, especially considering you're related to the little blonde with the Englishman's brother attached at the hip. So, names, occupation, rank? Whatever it is you two are involved with, because I like knowing what I'm getting myself into."
"We work at the paper mills in Sweden," Mathias said, eyeing Lukas out of the corner of his eye. We come from different countries respectively, but that's only because our parents and step-parents enjoyed the change in scenery. I am Mathias, and the man beside me is my cousin, Lukas."
"Change in scenery? You're on the Scandinavian Peninsula, everything is the same everywhere. Plaster white faces and plaster white hair, and a touch of incestuous bloodlines, that's all you have. And don't you dare lie to me about the paper mill story; I know you guys were into something other than that. Even though I didn't hear your conversations, I saw the way you worked with guns and understood them; no paper mill worker could pull that off without some kind of formal training."
Mathias tightened his fists, regretting trying to show off his skills to his cousin. If he had known they were being watched, and that they were going to get into this situation, he would have held off. "We were cops," Mathias said, biting the inside of his cheeks.
"That's what I thought," Vash said, before looking in Berwald, Peter and Tino's direction. "Now you two, I know, so no proper introductions are in order. Tino, you're still a young boy, not even accepted into university yet. And Berwald, well, your factory story is actually true."
Vash finally became quiet. He didn't look hostile, exactly, but he didn't look friendly either. There was one thing they all knew, however, and that was the fact that they didn't want to go with him or get him angry.
The little girl standing beside him reached one of her slender arms up and tugged and the hem of his shirt. She looked forlorn, almost absent; there was no light in her aquamarine eyes. Vash leaned in to her beckoning arms so she could whisper into his ear, and whatever she whispered caused Vash's eyebrows to shoot up to his hairline in surprise.
Vash stood back up and regarded Tino with an unsettling look.
"What?" Tino asked, unconsciously backing away from the man's penetrating stare.
"She asked me if you were holding a real baby," Vash said with a shrug.
"And?" Mathias asked as the air around them became increasingly heavy. There was something wrong with the way Vash was addressing the situation. He was planning something, and it wasn't anything good.
"She said to me that she misses her baby doll, and that she would like to have a real baby to play with," Vash said with an all too serious and considering look on his face.
"Children always think like that," Tino said, feeling his stomach stir uncomfortably under Vash and his younger sister's gaze. He unconsciously held Peter closer to his chest, shielding him from both Lily and Vash's wandering eyes. There was something wrong with the girl in particular, something completely off about her expression, or lack thereof.
"Look at you," Vash said with a snide grin, "you're young, you've been run out of your home, and you know nothing about taking care of a child. Let's also mention the fact that you don't have the supplies to take care of one. The child would be better off with us."
"We've been run out of our home, our safe home, because of something you admitted to doing. We would have been perfectly fine if you'd stayed away. And as for the supplies, what are you talking about? Those supplies we don't have are right behind you. Peter wouldn't be better off with you, he belongs with us. His brother is part of our group, and trust me, he wouldn't respond well to being taken away from his big brother."
"Peter, so that's the little one's name," Vash said with a smile.
The name falling from the other man's lips left a bitter taste in Tino's mouth and a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. The idea that Peter could be in imminent danger and he could do nothing about it terrified him even more than the thought of he himself being put in danger. He wouldn't let anyone else touch Peter, it was hard enough letting Berwald or Arthur touch him.
"You don't see what's wrong with him?" Vash asked the group, regarding them with a shocked expression. "He's attached, possessive, what he has for this baby is extremely unhealthy, and he knows it."
"That doesn't mean you could do any better," Mathias said. "If he's possessive, so what? That means he'd do anything to protect the child. In my eyes, that's a good thing."
Vash laughed, "I've taken care of my little sister just fine, now haven't I, Lilly?"
The little girl nodded her head and smiled up at her brother, but still, her eyes were blank and vacant. The smile was out of place on her cold and normally expressionless face.
Something was wrong.
Tino grabbed Berwald's shirt sleeve and yanked, "we need to go." Tino was being urgent. Something bad was about to happen, and Tino believed they could go on without the formula. There was another group working on it, and if they hadn't run into the same problems as them then they were fine.
Berwald nodded his head and raised his gun to chest level so quickly Tino almost fell backwards. He had expected Berwald to react, but he hadn't expected him to open fire without a second thought.
Berwald shot at Vash and Lily, but successfully avoided shooting them – he hadn't wanted to do that in the first place. Berwald had done exactly what he wanted; he took them by surprise and caused them to duck for cover behind the walls of the dairy. It would give them the time they needed to run away and hide.
"Let's go," Tino shouted at Lukas and Mathias who were still stunned, staring at the bullet holes Berwald has created in the floor and the walls.
Both men complied without another word and followed close behind Tino and Berwald. Mathias turned around and shot at the wall Vash and Lily were hiding behind for good measure. He didn't want them following them.
It was true that Vash knew where the security cameras were, and he could easily follow them, but that would require Vash to go back to wherever the cameras were to find out where they were hiding. If they went fast enough, they could avoid being caught altogether.
When they finally made it to the first floor of the mall, night had completely fallen. Corridors were painted black, floors were dim and grimy, and their steps became more and more cautious as they tried to avoid making unnecessary noise.
"We're almost there," Berwald said to Tino reassuringly, keeping his hand firmly on his shoulder so he wouldn't lose him in the dark. Tino had become silent, more silent than he normally was around him, and Berwald knew that he wouldn't be talking any time soon. Vash's words had upset him, which was made clear by the way the colour had drained from his already pale face.
Just in front of them were the shattered glass entrance doors to the mall, standing just as they had when they had last seen them.
"Oh man, I thought I was never going to see these again," Mathias said with a sigh. "So where's your group?"
"They should be outside in the cars," Tino said quietly, thinking back to what Vash had said about stealing the keys and the car parts.
He tried not to dwell on it, thinking that everyone would at least be able to hide inside the cars as they waited for the rest of the group. The only thing Tino was truly worried about was Heracles, Kiku and Arthur. Vash had said they were holding them captive, and that they were already hunting for the rest of the survivors.
Tino hoped - prayed - that Vash was saying that just to make them worry.
Mathias and Lukas were far ahead of Tino and Berwald, but they were shouting back nonetheless. There was no sign of the infected anywhere, and they were almost home-free. There was no point in keeping their voices lowered.
At least, that was what they thought.
"Where did you guys get the great big black vans?" Lukas asked from outside of the mall.
Tino and Berwald both looked at each other in fright, but before they could even open their mouths and tell Lukas and Mathias to get away, shots were fired. Mathias was the only one screaming, but it was enough to cause Berwald and Tino to go into a panic. Whoever was driving those black vans, and whoever had shot, stopped in enough time to realize that Lukas and Mathias were not – in fact – part of the infected, even though they looked very much like they were.
"Get down," a voice shouted, "and the rest of you, come out of there!"
Tino and Berwald slowly advanced to the shattered glass, closing their eyes to the glare coming from the vans parked out front. The light was ultraviolet, almost blinding them when they stepped out directly in front of the panels. Whoever these people were, they were prepared to fight the infected with everything they had.
The voice shouted another order at them, "turn."
Mathias was still lying on the ground with both of his hands pressed to his gut, and Lukas was by his side trying to calm him down. The people yelling at them didn't seem to be interested in Lukas or Mathias.
"I said turn!"
Berwald and Tino turned around, giving the men who they couldn't see through the light their backs. There was no point in arguing with them or trying to defy them, it would only get them shot like Mathias.
"He has a baby," Tino could hear from behind him.
There were more inaudible words coming from the people behind them, their heavy accents making it almost impossible to discern what they were saying to each other.
"The little blonde one," one man shouted, "come forward."
Tino's heart stopped dead in his chest. It was definitely him they were talking to, and it was definitely Peter that had interested them so much. He couldn't move his feet, and he didn't think Berwald would allow him to leave even if he wanted to. However, his legs started moving before he could stop himself.
Berwald's hand shot out and grabbed his shoulder, trying to push him back into the mall so he could run away, but before Berwald could do anything the men beside the vans shot him without a second's hesitation.
The wound wasn't fatal, Tino could see that just by the blood leaking down Berwald's arm and the bullet hole in his shoulder, but that didn't make him any less upset. These people were animals, they didn't care that they were living, uninfected human beings. They wanted something from them, something that wasn't clear yet. But, what was clear was that they wouldn't hesitate to kill them if they defied their orders. So Tino turned, facing the lights head on once again, and began walking toward the men.
As he grew closer, he could finally start making them out through the light.
"Tino, stop," Mathias shouted, voice still working despite the bullet lodged in his stomach. Even though he was lying down, bleeding to death on the pavement, he still had someone else's safety on his mind.
Tino didn't stop though, or rather; he couldn't stop even if he wanted to.
Each step he took echoed through the air despite the sound of the van's engines roaring into the night. Every breath he took rustled the leaves on the trees. Every beat of his heart was strong enough to crack each individual rib in his chest.
He couldn't stop himself.
Tino came to a stop in front of the two men that had been shooting at them. What he didn't expect was to see two women standing beside them, equally as armed as they were.
Tino couldn't make out the people in the car, but there were more.
"It is a baby," one of the women said. She had long blonde hair that touched her hips, and straight and stern features to go along with it. She was dressed up in traditional military uniform just like the men, but it had lost all semblance of what it had been. They were all spattered with blood and covered in mud – these people had clearly been through much.
"It's cute," the other blonde woman said, her hair short and her body top-heavy. "Do you think this could be the one, Brother?"
"I don't know," the man said, "but let's not take a chance by letting them get away."
The blonde women with the long blonde hair regarded Tino with a cold expression, icy enough to cut through him like butter. "Hand him over to us," she said calmly, "if you listen, we won't kill you or your friends."
Tino's heart bumped up into his throat. He mumbled something out to her, it was an answer, but it was so quiet he wasn't even sure of what he had said to her.
"What did you just say?" She asked, her hackles rising and her eyes smouldering.
"I said never," Tino screamed up at her, his eyes indignant and his stance firm. "You'll have to kill me first."
A/N: I'm almost done high school, how exciting is that? I won't have to suffer through group projects or deal with my horrible classmates any longer!
Tino, Berwald, Mathias and Lukas got to meet up with two new sets of somewhat villainy/non-villainy villains. (You're probably saying that doesn't make sense, but trust me, in a few chapters it WILL make sense to you guys).
Sorry about the slow updates, but my days have just been getting busier and busier. Don't worry though, as soon as I grab my diploma in three weeks I'll be ready to write more! Once summer hits I'll be updating every week – maybe more.
As always thank you guys so much for your support!