Chapter 20: The Hunt

"How the hell did this happen?" Rocket shouted at the two security guards that had been watching the security monitors at the time when the incident happened. But secretly, Rocket knew the truth. Sinedd had been one of them, he knew their routines, their work schedule and pass codes; he would of known the perfect time to launch an escape. Guilt weighed heavy on his chest as he glimpsed the two figures laying lifeless on the ground with white sheets covering them.

"Don't go torturing yourselves." Brim Simbra spoke, as he and some of his attendants enter the lower decks, everyone stopped what they were doing for a few seconds and looked up to see him enter. Despite what Brim Simbra had just all of the men and women hung their heads in shame; they should have known, he had been one of them. After a few seconds everyone seemed to wake up and began getting back to their jobs. Rocket was the last to take his eyes on the leader of the Flux Society leader, who had began talking to some of the people to see what was the situation and turned to D'jok .

"Has Sonny been called?" Rocket questioned, he knew it was a silly question to ask, since Sonny was one of the top and would have know before himself but Rocket hadn't seen him arrive yet and when Sonny Blackbones was in a room you knew he was there.

"Yeah, he's staying up with Tia and he has Bennet and Corso watching the back and front of the house." D'jok answered, mumbling over the clip board he was examining, letting out a heavy sigh of relief, Rocket got back to his job. At least someone knows what they're doing, Rocket thought to himself, as he turned back to the security guards that had been guarding Sinedd for the past couple of days, continuing to question the two men; trying to figure out if Sinedd had said anything that might lead to any idea of what his plans might of been. It wasn't the fact that Sinedd had escaped under their noses that annoyed him the most (well, it did a little bit) but what he had taken. Somehow, Sinedd –the third most hated guy in the universe- had somehow snuck into the information centre and had stolen some kind of file. Whatever information he had, it was dangerous. As soon as he and D'jok finished their questions and research, both of the young army men got into Rockets car and began their own land search for the most wanted man on Akillian.

Tia couldn't sleep. Haunted thoughts of what could be going on outside this house had Tia tossing and turning in her bed, struggling to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Once she tried to close her eyes but the dark images that appeared behind her eyelids made her swear she would never close her eyes again. It also didn't help that her room was pitch black, not even a glimpse of moonlight. Now I'm just being silly, Tia tried to tell herself but it did nothing to calm her fear. The sound of the floorboards squeaking made Tia nearly fall of her bed in fright. It's ok Tia, just some noisy old floor boards. But the sounds continued to echo through the night. That's it! Tia decided, throwing the covers off her and jumping off the bed. If she was going to get over this, then she was going to have to face it head on. Quietly, Tia crept through her bedroom door and onto the upstairs landing. Sticking her hand out she tried to feel if anyone was hiding in the shadows, as she moved further down the hall she began feeling a little better, knowing that some person wasn't hiding in the shadows. After checking the last shadow, Tia let out a sigh of relief and began heading back to her room for some rest. The sound of what sounded like a door opening instantly caught her sensitive ears attention. Huh? Tia wondered, about to see what it was when someone attacked her from behind. Iron arms wrapped around her neck, crushing her wind pipes and breaking the oxygen to her body. Without her ability to scream for help she had to use whatever method she could think of to escape. But as time went by Tia could feel her body beginning to weaken and she felt her arms feel heavy and full limp by her side. For some strange reason she could still see despite the rest of her body going numb. She felt the figure let go of her and passed her to someone else, even though she couldn't move her head, when Tia had been passed over she was able to see the lower half of the face that had bright moonlight shining on it; revealing a sick smirk. Sinedd! Tia's thoughts bounced up and down when she had realised who it was. But... it can't be true! He's meant to be in prison (he had freaking kidnapped her for goodness sake) Watching him, Tia saw his head suddenly snap to the other side of the hall and usher whoever was holding her into another room. Leaning against the person's chest the person moved in to an empty room and peek out of the gap in the door. The person was still holding Tia up right, so she could see through the gap as well. Sinedd had disappeared out of her view but she saw the door to the main room open and Sonny came out with a small gun in his hands. Defenceless, Tia was forced to watch as Sonny searched the area. She tried forcing her body to move but her body wouldn't respond and her mouth refused to move, making Tia's desperate warnings die inside her head. Watching in horror, Tia saw Sonny walk past when Sinedd suddenly leapt out of nowhere and attacked Sonny in the same way that he had grabbed her. However, unlike Tia, Sonny was trained in self defence and grabbing the back of Sinedd's shirt threw him over his shoulder, Sinedd crashed into the hallway table. Nevertheless, Sinedd wasn't afraid to actually take a person head on and lashed out, kicking Sonny's gun out of his hands and in the stomach at the same time. For what seemed like an eternity, Tia could do nothing but stare as the two men fought against one another, slamming fists into faces and knees into stomachs. It all stopped when Sinedd suddenly pulled a knife out of nowhere and ran at Sonny with it but instead of stabbing his old commander, Sonny stepped out of the way. Sinedd couldn't stop himself as he bashed into the stair railing and fell over it. The jail breaker screamed at the top of his voice in pure terror as he fell, then a loud thunderous crack which was instantly followed by... silence. Tia saw Sonny ran down the stairs after him, at the same time the sound of the front door banging open caught her attention and chaos erupted down stairs. Sinedd sidekick (now probably ex-sidekick) took this as an opportunity to pick Tia up and carry her across the hall way into another room. Since she had no control over her body's movements, Tia head hang limp over the strangers arm, making the whole world turn upside down. Suddenly, the person gently placed her down, letting her head roll to the side and watched as the man went over to the window and grabbed some kind of rope. Seeing what he was doing Tia could feel herself having a panic attack as the man came back over to her and tied the rope around her. Her breathing became more rapid as she seeked for control over her body.

"Let my daughter go or I swear I'll put a bullet in your brain!" Some hissed loudly, the man looked at whoever had just caught him. Tia could feel the darkness over coming her as her heart began to fail for all of the sudden pressure that was being forced into it. Invisible heavy weights dragged her eyelids down, closing the world around her, the last thing she remembered seeing was the man drawing his own gun and hearing both people fire a shot.

Rocket was driving like mad towards Sonny's place. They had just been informed by Mei that cameras had just spotted Sinedd and some other person making their way to Sonny's home and they were armed. They had wanted to call anyone that was watching the house but Mei told them she had already tried but someone had cut the phone frequency around that area. Spinning around the corner, Rocket put his car into over drive and zoomed down the street. Poor D'jok was doing well to remain calm in a crazy man's car and sent out orders to other men that were already looking in this area but weren't in the dead frequency range to keep a look out for Sinedd and the other person. Please, Please be alright! Rocket begged, circling another corner. He knew that Tia was protected by Sonny but he couldn't help but feel worried. Something wasn't right, who was the man that was with Sinedd and what were they planning to do? Slamming his foot on the brake, Rocket and D'jok stopped right in front of the house and jumped out of the car. D'jok ran over to the car which had Corso sitting inside to see what he knew while Rocket could nothing but pace in front of the gate. Right now he wanted to get inside the house and cling on to the woman that he loved with all his might but couldn't since he had no reason to enter the house and couldn't without reason or warrant. He knew she must be mad at him for not calling her like he had promised but he didn't care about that, he would never rest until she was in his arms. Stomping his foot impatiently, Rocket watched D'jok talk to Corso about what was going on until a loud scream inside the house broke the silence of the night. He didn't care if it was imagination or not he jumped over the gate -quickly followed by D'jok and Corso- reaching the door he thrusted his boot against the white door and kicked it open. The scene that lay before him was shocking. Sonny was leaning over Sinedd, checking his pulse. Looking up, Sonny caught Rockets eyes and shook his head. He could hear Corso calling for an ambulance behind him.

"What happened?" D'jok questioned his father, stepping beside Rocket. Sonny stared at Sinedd for a few more moments before standing up and looking at the two younger men, who would follow him to the death if he asked it.

"I thought I heard a noise and went to check when Sinedd attacked me, he came at me with the knife but I stepped out of the way and he fell down the stairs breaking his neck."Sonny explained, leaning against the wall like he hadn't slept for over twenty four hours. Rocket couldn't help but wince at the thought of Sinedd breaking his neck. Shaking himself free of the random thoughts, Rocket also learnt against something to steady himself, feeling all the anger that had fuelled him through the night leave his body. He watched as D'jok made his way over to his father and placed a firm but comforting hand on his old man's shoulder. I should be feeling good but I'm not, something still fills wrong, Rocket continued to think silently to himself as he thought to himself before realising their big mistake.

"The other man where is he?" Rocket cried out in panic, all the other men looked at him with strange looks, except D'jok whose panicked expression told him he knew. Before anyone had a chance to explain two shoots were heard upstairs. All at once, everyone ignored the dead man on the floor and raced up the stairs and separated to check every room.

"Mum?" D'jok cried out as he entered the spare bedroom, quickly followed by first Sonny and then everyone else. Mary was crouching with a gun in one hand and trying to stop the bleeding on her leg with the other one.

"Someone...help...Tia." The brave mother muttered, as she collapsed onto the floor. No! Rockets head screamed when he saw Tia on the floor and it looked like she wasn't breathing. His suspicions were correct when he kneeled down next to her and placed his ear on his chest; no heart beat. Shit! Rocket swore as he began immediately to perform CPR. Placing her into a first aid position, he gathered all the air he could and breathed his life into her, before he began pounding her chest to get the blood moving. Just as he was about to try his fourth attempt breathing oxygen into her again, her eyes suddenly opened and she took in a large breath before coughing it up again, flinging her arms around the place like a wild animal, as if she was trying to fight someone off.

"Tia! It's me." Rocket pleaded for her to listen as he held her hands firmly in his. She stared at him a moment, completely in shock. Gently, she somehow managed to free one of her hands from Rocket and placed it carefully on his face like she was trying to make sure he was real. Smiling back he placed his hand over hers and rubbed it lightly for comfort. "It's me Tia, really." Before any more could be said they were both distracted by the loud grunt, turning around, Rocket saw Sonny lifting up his wife and taking her out of the room -to properly go and use the medical box- D'jok had already disappeared out of the room and some time or another Bennet had joined them during all the chaos and was helping Corso carry a limp body out of the room. Feeling something grip on to his shirt Rocket turned back to Tia, whose large beautiful eyes had gone a bit bigger and were watching the three men carry the dead body out of the room. Placing his arms around Tia he pulled her closer to his body until he could smell the rosemary shampoo that lingerie in her hair.

After everything that had just happened, Tia still couldn't sleep. It wasn't because she was still afraid; it was quite the opposite in fact. She couldn't take her eyes off the gold ones that stared down at her lovingly and the feeling of the playful movement he was doing with her hair. Dame Simbai had come over early to fix the wound on Mary's leg (which thankfully had just been a flesh wound) after the medics had come around to take the two dead bodies away everyone was about to fill like they were about to fall asleep on their legs, so Mary –despite her injured leg- somehow managed to prepare sleeping arrangements for everything. Apart from D'jok who was sleeping in the nursery with Little Rosie (who had somehow slept through the whole thing) and Rocket, who was sharing her bed, everyone else was sleeping on the sofas in the living room. They could have been put in the spare bed room but no one wanted to sleep in the place where everything had just happened.

"What are you thinking about?" Rocket questioned concerned, rolling her eye Tia refused to answer and began caressing his cheek instead. Taking it as a hint about what she had been thinking about Rocket made no more questions as he continued to play with her hair. Suddenly bored, Tia pushed Rocket over and was now sitting on top of him. With a wicked smile she leaned in and kissed him passionately on the lips. It didn't take Rocket long to realise what his wicked little minx was up to and grabbed her bum. The only time they parted from kissing was when they needed help taking each other's shirts off.