Once Liz and Bex were in their position with Jonas and Grant, Cammie removed the metal grate on the cover of the air vent. "Three… two… one… NOW!" Cammie exclaims through her comms unit, dropping feet-first through the air vent opening, catching about twenty guards by surprise.
The warehouse room had a concrete floor and walls. There were stacks of crates, tires, and barrels all around the room. A large CAT lift truck was off in one corner, unmanned at the moment. Several heavy aluminum garage-style doors lined the walls, which led to other rooms in the warehouse. Bare lightbulbs hung from the ceiling, and metal pillars held up the roof.
Zach jumps through the air vent right behind her, and Cammie spots her friends across the warehouse room. Gunshots ring out, and Zach shoves Cammie behind a pile of crates. Zach peers out from behind the crates and starts firing at the terrorists who come too close to their hiding spot.
The security guards, not having expected an attack on the warehouse, had around ten rounds in their guns. They ran out of ammunition quickly, and the terrorists started grabbing random items for use as weapons.
After taking down a few more terrorists, Cammie ran out of ammunition too. The security guards began to figure that out, and started to move in on their hiding spot. Cammie leaps on top of the pile of crates while Zach runs further into the warehouse room, also out of ammunition. She leaps from the crates towards a terrorist with only an empty gun as a weapon.
Just as the terrorist raises the butt of his gun towards Cammie to whack her with it, she lands a solid roundhouse-kick to his forehead. He falls to the ground just in time for Cammie to spin around and duck to avoid a man wielding a metal chain, which was being swung in the air.
One thing for sure, though, Cammie knew that flexible weapons such as chains or belts were not suitable for such kind of fights. Standing up, she grabs a metal bar propped up against the wall and jabs it at the flying metal chain. The chain hooks onto the metal bar, and Cammie manages to yank the chain away from her attacker.
Her attacker immediately puts up his fists to fight, once the shell-shocked expression had faded from his face. Cammie fakes an uppercut, and the attacker bends nearly in half to block it. But then she takes a quick jab to the terrorist's temple, and he falls unconscious at her feet.
At Gallagher during P&E, Cammie was taught about three major body 'zones' you should target in a fight to get a certain effect. Zone One was the head region, which would affect the person's senses if attacked properly. Zone Two was the neck, torso, and groin area, which would affect the attacker's breathing. And Zone Three, the legs and feet, would affect mobility.
From that day on, Cammie would first attack the senses so her enemy wouldn't be aware of her upcoming attack. Then she would attack their mobility so they couldn't run. From there on, Cammie could attack the zones that would affect their breathing to finish them off. It was a satisfactory fighting style that always followed through with her expectations, if she had time to remember her technique. If not, she'd just follow her instincts.
Cammie spins around at the sound of running feet behind her. "Whoa!" she exclaims, managing to duck just in time as another attacker thrusts a crowbar at her. The crowbar smashes through the crate behind where her head had been, shattering the empty glass vials that were being held in the crate.
Cammie kicks the terrorist's torso and he goes flying backwards, away from the crowbar, which was still stuck in the crate. She pulls it out of the crate and swings the crowbar around right at the moment the terrorist was climbing to his feet. The crowbar smashes into his nose, most likely breaking it since it was gushing blood, and the man writhes on the ground in pain.
Seeing another terrorist crouching behind a pile of crates and fumbling with something in his hands, Cammie starts running towards him. Without him noticing her approach, she lands a solid kick right on his back, sending him sprawling on the ground.
Whatever he was messing with in his hands goes clattering across the smooth concrete floor. Cammie dives for it the same second the terrorist does too. She lands on his back, and the man swings his head back, knocking his head against her forehead. Cammie winces as pain shoots through her head, and accidentally lets the terrorist get out from under her.
Cammie shakes the pain away and trips the guy back on the ground. While he scrambles to his feet, Cammie runs past him, planning on scooping up the vial before he gets to it. But the man tackles her to the ground, knocking the breath out of her because of his heavy weight.
Cammie throws an elbow backwards, and makes contact with the area of his cheekbone right under his eye socket. "You bitch!" the man groans, holding his face, but not moving from on top of her. Cammie only grunts as she reaches for the vial of some sort of green mist laying in the corner barely a foot away.
The terrorist grabs her arms away from the vial and scoots towards the vial, still on top of her. Now the majority of his weight was pressing on her torso, making it extremely hard to breathe deeply due to the fact her ribcage couldn't expand underneath him.
"No!" Cammie shouts as the man grabs the vial. He climbs off her, and Cammie starts gasping for air back in her lungs. Big mistake.
The terrorist throws the vial on the ground, and the glass shatters, causing the green mist-like substance in the vial to escape. The man runs away, but it was too late for Cammie to get out of there, because she wasn't even on her feet yet. The reaction from the gas was immediate; her eyes began to water and her vision became blurry.
Cammie's chest tightened and she let out a frantic shriek. What kind of gas was this? Poison? If it was, she needed to get out of there. Fast. But her limbs grew heavy and suddenly she was overcome by a coughing fit that barely allowed her to get another breath of air in.
But every time Cammie took another breath, more of that gas entered her lungs, causing her to begin coughing all over again. The mysterious gas created a burning sensation in her nose, throat, and her eyes; everywhere the gas was gaining access to her body.
Then her stomach began rolling as Cammie was overpowered by a strong wave of nausea. She wanted desperately to puke to rid herself of that nauseous feeling, but she was coughing too hard to focus on anything else. Not to ignore the fact that if she puked, she'd need to breathe again and along with the coughing, there just wasn't enough room for it all in her esophagus.
Cammie hoped desperately someone would see her behind the stack of crates where the terrorist she attacked had been hiding. Right after that thought passed through her head, though, Zach appeared by her side. "Cammie!" he exclaims, scooping her up in his arms.
"As a secret agent, I keep it cool, but I failed.
Thumbs up for finishing the mission,
Love is a luxury for people like us.
Cold-blooded plus zero emotions,
That's the rule."
- Hallelujah by Big Bang
Zach sprints to the other side of the warehouse, where one of the large metal garage doors had been opened a few minutes earlier by the Miami police. The MPD had cleared out the other rooms of the warehouse, moving all the handcuffed and/or unconscious terrorists into a room being guarded by Bex and Jonas.
He sets Cammie on top of a crate, with her legs dangling off the sides of the crate. "Liz!" Zach calls her over to where Cammie was, and Liz comes rushing over. "Do you know what's wrong with Cam?"
Liz takes a deep sniff of the air around Cammie, where a faint scent seems to be wafting off her. "Whoa… She smells like chlorine. What happened?" Liz asks Zach, but Cammie answers instead.
"I saw one of the terrorist guys messing with some type of vial full of green-ish gas," Cammie answers with a hoarse throat, "I attacked him, yet he still got the vial. He broke it open and the next thing I know, I'm coughing like I'm about to pop out a lung."
After all that talking that has irritated her raw throat, Cammie goes into another coughing fit. Zach gently rubs her back and Liz replies, "If it's a green gas, it must have been chlorine gas, sortof like the poisonous gas used in World War I, except much less potent. In World War I, usually phosgene and chlorine were mixed in a chemical weapon called White Star, which smelled like a mix of pineapple and pepper. But since Cammie only smells like chlorine, I believe there was no phosgene in that mixture."
"…That's good, right?" Zach asks.
"Yes, plain chlorine is better than chlorine with phosgene. Chlorine gas can cause lung damage, though, since the cilia in the lungs will begin to rupture with contact to the gas. If left untreated, the ruptured cilia will rot in the lungs and white blood cells will rush in to clear away the phlegm, but are overwhelmed by all the excess rotten tissue. That's the same thing as pneumonia."
"Gee, thanks, Bookworm, that's a lovely picture you just painted in my head. But what'll help?" Cammie rasps.
"Just take some saline nebulizer pills, which should stop the cilia from rupturing. I can run over to the closest hospital and get some," Liz offers.
"That'd be great, Liz," Cammie says. "And… could I get some water?"
"Here," Zach replies, handing her his half-full water bottle that one of the police officers brought in. He watches as Cammie finishes it off, gasping for air as she finishes.
"Oh, Cammie, before I go, I just want to say that you'll be fine," Liz continues. "Your eyes will stop watering in a few minutes, and your throat won't be as swollen either. You'll be perfectly normal and won't show any signs of sickness for a few days. That is, if you don't take the pills. But I'll get the pills and you'll be perfectly healthy to fight or whatever."
"Alright. Uh… thanks, Liz," Cammie replies with a weary grin. Liz nods and runs off, dragging Jonas with her as an escort to the hospital. Cammie turns back to Zach, who had a hand on her knee. By sitting on the crate, she was at Zach's eye level, and he was looking at her with concern in his eyes.
"You sure you're fine? You don't need any more water or anything?" Zach asks.
"I'm fine, just like Liz said I would be. But what about you?" Cammie asks, fingering Zach's ripped black tee. One section of fabric on his sleeve was damp with blood… or sweat. Cammie couldn't tell, since it was black. "Is that your blood?"
"Some of it, yeah," Zach answers. Cammie sighs and gives him a look. "What?"
"You should get that looked at," Cammie replies, cocking her head towards a paramedic, who had just arrived. By then, all the terrorists were captured and set in a room to be guarded while the Miami police officers and CIA operatives were checked for injuries.
"They're only scratches."
Cammie doesn't push the issue any further, because she knows Zach was just too stubborn. Not to mention that he didn't seem like he was very likely to be leaving her side any soon.
"What about the nuclear weapon?" Cammie suddenly asks, "Did they find it?" She hadn't seen anything that resembled a nuclear weapon.
"No, it's not in the main room like we thought. But the SWAT team is coming in soon to give the whole warehouse another look-through, to be sure we hadn't missed it," Zach answers. Cammie nods, and they watch the paramedic look over a policeman's bullet wound for a few minutes.
"You sure you're fine, Gallagher girl?"
"YES, Zach, for the last time."
"Fine, fine, just checking," he replies.
Cammie pauses. "Well, I guess I am a bit tired…," she trails off.
Zach nods, lifts her off the crate, and sets her back on the ground, even though she was totally capable of just hopping off. "I'll tell them we're going. We're done here, anyway. Joe will be here with reinforcements to take in the terrorists, any wounded government agents will be brought to the hospital, and the SWAT team will want this place empty for when they get here," Zach explains.
He leads Cammie over to where Bex and Grant have taken over guarding the trapped terrorists. "Grant, we'll be heading out to our hotel room. Be sure to tell whoever needs to know that we're leaving," Zach orders.
They walk out of the warehouse and nearly run into Liz, who was running through the empty lot around the warehouse. "I got the saline nebulizer pills!" she exclaims, handing them to Cammie. "Jonas and I basically sped over to the hospital and we were first in line, being CIA agents, you know how that is."
"Thanks, Liz. Zach and I are on the way back to our hotel room at the Four Seasons, not the crappy hotel room across the street," Cammie informs her friend.
"Sure, I'll see you tomorrow. Jonas and I will probably be leaving here soon too, we just have to check out."
"Kay, bye," Cammie says. She and Zach cross the street to Zach's motorcycle, but instead of climbing on, he waits for Jonas and Liz to get inside the warehouse.
"Damn, I thought we'd never be alone," Zach growls in a husky voice, taking Cammie's face in his hands. He leans in and kisses Cammie and she was, once again, blown away at how amazingly Zach could kiss. Did they teach the Art of Kissing at Blackthorne Academy or something?
When Zach finally pulls away, he apologizes, "Sorry, but I've been wanting to do that all night."
"Don't be sorry," Cammie replies, pulling him towards her for another kiss.
(Author's Note: My whole face is sunburned. OW. God. I'll probably be updating pretty frequently, since I'm not going to dare getting even more sunburned by going outside for long periods of time… Oh, and the whole next chapter is just Zammie. So look forward to that (: Review!)