The gun went off, but there was no pain, no point of entry, no bullet. There was a thud from behind her and she turned as fast as the water would allow. Ink stood behind her, a gun in his hand, the guard dead at his feet with a bullet hole in the back of his head. Ink's eyes were closed as he let his own gun clatter to the ground. Quinn had no idea what to say. He had just killed someone for her.
Ink's eyes opened and he looked anywhere but at the ground. He seemed to look past Quinn to where Mark was suspended in the water.
"What-" he started.
"He's dead." Her voice was barely a whisper as her dry throat fought to create some noise.
"No." The one word was filled with sust denial that Quinn was almost tempted to believe him. He walked around the tank to the head of it and reached in, grabbing Mark under the arms. He pulled and gritted his teeth. "What on Earth?" he muttered. "Help me." Quinn went underwater and pulled Mark's legs up as she surfaced. Together they were able to manuver him out of the tank and onto the ground with a thud. Ink breathed heavily as he stood, wiping his burnt and scared hands on his uniform. Somewhere in Quinn's mind she told herself to ask him what had happened, but the depressed part of her took over as she sunk to her knees next to the lifeless body on the ground.
"What happened?" Ink asked.
"How should I know," Quinn snapped. "He's just... dead." Her voice caught and the tears that had been absent for a few minutes restarted. She rested her arms on his bare chest and burried her head in her arms. Nothing else around her mattered except for this dead body beneath her, this dead body of the only person she would ever cry for or cry over. This dead person was the only thing that mattered to her, the only thing that kept her at the mansion, the only thing that had kept her grounded for the past four months. She didn't know what she was going to do now that he was gone.
Beyond her tiny world of nothing she heard something shift. At first she thought that it was Ink moving, but then a gasp wracked the body below her and she bolted into a sitting position. Mark's eyes were wide open as he coughed repeatedly. Ink, who had been kneeling near his head, helped him to sit up. Mark coughed up some water and clutched at his chest. Quinn could only stare in awe at the miricle before her. The tears still came, but their reason had switched now: she wasn't sad anymore, but the happiest she had been in forever.
She threw herself at the boy in front of her, hugging him so tightly that it was possible he couldn't breathe. He felt more firm than usual, like his skin itself had been hardened, but she didn't care even as her arms bruised. It took a moment but Mark was soon hugging her back, crushing her to his chest. Neither spoke, and Ink took a step back to give them some room.
"I thought you were dead," Quinn sobbed.
"I thought I was too," Mark replied. "I was... I was dead but I came back."
Quinn laughed at the abserdity of it all but she didn't care; her best friend was alive and they were going to get out of this warehouse of horrors.