A/N Oh my goodness, guys! Y'all are amazing. I don't even know why I said y'all there, I don't even use the word y'all ever. I don't even know. I am just so happy with you guys right now so yeah. I can't say it enough, you guys are awesome! Wow I'm rambling (that is the word, right?). Not even sure what I'm saying right now. Sorry, I'm being weird. And again (I feel like this is going to be a pattern. *sigh) I'm really sorry for the late update. For a large portion of this time, I was working on a HUGE research paper, and track just started at my school, so….yeah.

Soooooooooo. I guess I should get to the next chapter, ya know, or somethin' like that.

Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own Kickin' it.

Here we go!

"No," Grace said, sweeping up her gun from the floor and again pointing it at Kim. Slowly, Kim walked forward, her hands held above her head. She barely registered the fact that the traps no longer were working. Grace must have turned off the sensors on her way over.

"Stop," Grace insisted, "stop or I'll shoot." Kim could see the tears running down her friends face, sparkling like liquid glass. She could hear the tightness in Grace's throat, and watched as the gun shook violently in her hands. But Kim continued to step closer and closer to both her friend, and Jack. The arrow protruded from his right shoulder, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming again. Even in the dark she could see that he was pale, the blood seeping steadily from his wound. His eyes, tightly shut, his mouth, drawn into a grimace. She watched as he took each measured breath, and dared herself to inch closer.

"I mean it," Grace tried again, her voice barely above a whisper, "I'll do it. I promise you, I'll do it." Kim took another step, almost at Jack's side.

"I know you wouldn't shoot me, Grace." Kim returned her attention to her best friend, the girl she never thought she would see again. But she couldn't trust herself to take another step. Still the tears had not stopped. Still the tears continued to freely flow.

"Please, just let me help him." Kim said gently, never taking her eyes off Grace. A sob escaped Grace's lips as Kim knelt beside Jack, who appeared to be barely conscious. Now that she was so close to him, she could see him trembling. She placed a quiet hand upon his back, trying to reassure him, tell him that she was here, and she wouldn't leave him. Grace slowly slipped her pistol back into its holster.

"They told me you were dead." Grace choked, her voice rising, "This morning, when you were gone, they told me you were dead. I cried for you, Kim. We all did. They're arranging your funeral." And suddenly Kim felt the tears in her own eyes, stinging and hot. For a moment the questions she had tried so hard to push away resurfaced. Was the government trying to erase her? Did they let her leave? Why? Some of the questions Kim could answer, but some of them continued to leave her wondering. After a few seconds, Grace tentatively walked over to where Kim knelt over Jack. She stood there for a moment, and they watched each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then Kim quickly rose to her feet, and the two girls embraced, Grace still shaking with sobs. They pulled apart, and a small smile crept upon Grace's face.

"I've missed you. We've missed you." She said, the grin still plastered upon her face.

"I've been gone for less than a day, Grace. And anyways, I'm not dead." Kim reminded her.

"That doesn't make the pain any less real." Grace responded, the return of her somber expression reminding Kim she was right. If Grace would have been the one outside, and Rudy would have told Kim that her friend had died, she would have felt the same. A quiet moan escaped Jack's lips, also reminding Kim that she wasn't here to catch up with her best friend.

"We have to get the arrow out and stitch up the wound." Grace started, slipping the bag that hung around her shoulder. Grace had spent a large period of her time at the President's estate training to be a nurse, and had taken up the habit of carrying around a portable first aid's kit wherever she went a few months back. Kim usually teased her about it, but at that moment, she was grateful at her friend's preparedness. In an instant, Grace's entire demeanor had changed. Her hands no longer shook. Her eyes no longer watered. She was calm and controlled. Kim watched as her friend searched through the contents of her backpack, pulling out a small piece of leather.

"Have him bite down on this so he won't scream when I get the arrow out." Grace told her, handing Kim the strip of leather. "He might black out from the pain, anyways. At least, in most cases, they do." Kim nodded and pushed herself closer to Jack's head.

"Did you hear that?" She asked him, trying her best to sound reassuring. Jack managed to give a small nod, his eyes still tightly closed. He struggled to lift his other hand to grab the piece of leather, barely raising it from the ground. Giving up, he simply opened his mouth, and Kim pressed the leather inside. He clenched his teeth on the leather and closed his eyes even tighter, as if taking away his sight would take away the pain. Kim stole a glance at Grace, who had pulled out a pair of surgical scissors as well as a needle and thread and a bottle of alcohol to clean out the wound. Kim could tell it was going to be a crude procedure, but she hoped it would be enough to get him up and walking and out of the estate.

"Hold his hand." Grace stated, still preparing her station for the miniature surgery.

"What?" Kim asked, taken aback by Grace's request. "Why?"

"Just do it." Her tone was insistent, almost pleading. "He needs to know you're here."

"Which—which hand?" It seemed like a stupid question, but Kim couldn't really think clearly at that moment. She felt she should know which hand to hold. Maybe it didn't matter at all, maybe she was overreacting. But at that moment, Kim felt as if she was useless compared to Grace, and she wanted to do something. She needed to do something. To help him, because he helped her. To save his life, because he saved hers. Still, it was more than a matter of repaying a debt, deep down she knew that. She couldn't lose him. She had lost too much already, everyone had.

"The injured one. We have to make sure he doesn't move as well. If he moves while I stitch him up, it's very possible that he'll tear something, or that it will cause permanent damage." It made sense after Kim thought about it. Killing two birds with one stone. She tentatively laced his fingers with hers. They felt so limp, lifeless, but his heart still beat faintly, the heat still radiating from his body.

"Help me get his shirt off." Grace ordered. "We might have to cut it so it doesn't get caught on the arrow." Despite the situation, Kim felt the heat rise to her cheeks as she worked with Grace to peel Jack's blood and sweat soaked shirt from his chest. Kim evaded her eyes from his bare back.

"It's not like he's naked. Just half—" Grace's words were cut short when her hand flew to her mouth. "Kim look at this." Grace's voice was hollow, unattached, as Kim forced herself to look down. It wasn't his tanned skin that caught her attention. Nor was it the way she could distinguish each toned muscle in his torso, taut with pain, or how deeply the arrow was embedded into Jack's shoulder. No, what caught both Kim and Grace's attention were the scars. The one Kim had spotted earlier, the one from his neck twisted across his back to his hip. But that wasn't the only one. There were dozens of others—burns, lashes, cuts. Sure, they were all healed by now, but that didn't make the shock any less real. Maybe Jack's nightmares were of a different kind, darker than the ones all the other children suffered from as a result of their parent's deaths. But with the shock came a curiosity too.

"Are you ready?" Kim wasn't sure if Grace was asking her, or asking Jack. Neither of them replied. Kim gave Jack's hand a reassuring squeeze. "Alright then. On three. One, two—three."

He couldn't feel anything except for the pain. And the fear. No—her hand was there, too. She was holding his hand. But the pain—the pain was almost too great; it almost washed out everything else. He knew he had to fight it. He couldn't let the pain win. He learned that long ago, don't let the pain win. Don't let the suffering reign victorious. She squeezed his hand, and he tried his hardest not to flinch. He could barely see anything—it was all too blurred. He saw his blood, but it didn't scare him like it should have. He had seen his own blood too many times for it to scare him. He had felt pain too many times to let it win. He heard her talking, both of them talking, but he could barely understand it. Maybe he couldn't understand it. But it calmed him to know they were both there.

"On three. One, two—three" one of them said. And suddenly the pain was worse. And he worried that it would win. Spots clouded his already blurry vision, and he forgot that his eyes weren't even open. Now he couldn't feel her hand. All he felt was the pain, and the fear. His heart beat loudly in his ears, so he couldn't hear his hoarse cries muffled by the piece of leather she gently placed into his mouth. His chest heaved, up, down, up, down—in, out, in, out. Focus on something else, he told himself. It was so hard, so hard, because the hurt was so great that there was nothing else that he could focus on. He clenched his teeth, fighting, fighting so hard against the pain and the suffering. Something told him that it would all be better if he would stop fighting. Something else told him to be strong. He didn't know which voice to listen to. All he knew was that he was growing tired, so tired. He wanted to sleep. He wanted it all to go away.

So he stopped fighting it. He gave in, he gave up. His breathing evened, and for a moment, the pain was so strong, then it was gone—replaced by a darkness, and rest, and peace. But he knew the peace wouldn't last long. For the nightmares would come. And a different kind of pain would return. A worse kind of pain, for it could never go away, and he could never win.

"He's out." Grace told Kim, though she had already noticed it. Before, he held her hand so hard it had turned white and she began to feel pins and needles making their way up from her fingers. Then his went limp. "It'll be easier now. For the both of us. But after I stich him up, you and your other friends need to get out of here."

"Who else is on guard duty?" Kim asked. Grace snickered.

"Joe." Kim couldn't help but laugh as well. Joe was the sweetest boy on the estate. He was round with red cheeks and eyes that always seemed to sparkle with mischief. His pudgy fingers could barely fit on the trigger of a gun. Hardly the fighting type. He couldn't kill a mosquito if his life depended on it. Not to mention he was afraid of almost everything, from masked men to germs.

"Wow." Clearly the officials at the president estate never pay attention to the servants, else they would have never put Joe on as a guard.

"Yeah. I don't think he even knows how to reset the alarm." Grace replied, preparing a length of fabric to tie up Jack's wound with, as well as a sling. Without looking at Kim, she continued, "Are you going to tell me why you all are here?" The question surprised Kim. Even though it was fairly normal, casual even. Grace had the right to wonder. But did Kim have the right to tell her? They were best friends. The day before, Kim would have probably told Grace everything, in fact, the day before, Kim and Grace kept no secrets from each other. Well, aside from running away. Kim didn't tell anyone about that.

"If I tell you, will you promise not to tell anyone?" Grace nodded. So Kim began to recount all of what Jack told her about the robbery, and how he saved her life. But she didn't tell Grace about the necklaces. It wasn't her secret to tell. The robbery wasn't her secret to tell either. Perhaps it was because the lockets seemed to serve as a special bond connecting her and Jack. She didn't want to share that bond with anyone else. Not even Grace.

"So what are you going to do now?" Grace asked. Though she hadn't really given the idea much thought, Kim had a sense of what she had to do before Grace had even asked the question. She wasn't about to let these boy's hard work go to waste.

"I'm going to finish what we started." It was risky, she knew that, but all of the servants had to memorize the monthly security code to the vault before they were selected for guard duty. Thankfully, Kim was supposed to go on guard duty before she ran away, so she already knew the code. She realized how lucky she was, especially since the decoder was still with Rudy. Instead of reminding Kim how dangerous the job was going to be, or trying to convince her not to do it, to get out and never look back, Grace simply nodded.

"How can I help?" It was then that Kim realized why they were best friends. They would do anything for each other without question.

"Can you get Jack and the other three boys out of here? Maybe lend them some of the extra uniforms so they can escape unnoticed?" It was a lot to ask, and a part of Kim told her not to put this weight upon Grace's shoulders. But the other half told her that she could never hold all of it herself, and she needed someone to share the load.

"Okay," Grace replied, rising to her feet, hoisting up an unconscious Jack in the process. "but be careful, okay? I don't want to lose you twice in one day." Kim smiled grimly, and stood up next to Grace. She hoped her smile would conceal the tightness of her throat and the fear in her chest. She took a deep breath, and watched as Grace struggled to open the door to the stairwell with Jack's arm slung around her shoulder. Jerry held open the door, and he met eyes with Kim. When she didn't move to come with Grace, Jerry's mouth stretched in a grim line before he shut the door, and the group was gone.

Because the alarm had been set off, it proved much easier for Kim to get to the vault standing tall in the center of the large cavernous room. When she was younger, the vault always intimidated her. Now she felt it was fragile, that the whole system in fact, was fragile. Fragile enough to be brought down by a group of teenagers. Joe was nowhere to be seen as she made her way to the door of the vault. With the smallest bit of fear remaining, she gently brushed the black granite, cool against her fingertips, until she reached the steel panel lock. She punched in the code on the glowing numbers that appeared once the panel recognized her body heat. She was almost surprised when the door silently swung open.

Unlike what Kim and the boys, and probably the rest of the servants on the estate would have expected, the inside the vault was a single pillar. She tentatively took a step into the vault, and when her weight activated no alarms, took another, and another, until she loomed above the single object set carefully upon the pillar. Though she knew it must be of massive significance, the object, whatever it was, appeared fairly normal. Still, she felt her heart beating violently in her chest as she stared at it, so close that her breath fogged the metal exterior. The object was round—shaped similarly to a pancake, the center slightly thicker than the rest. The silver disk was around the size of her outstretched hand. Kim debated whether it would prove safe to touch the object, as some of the security measures may have still been intact. Of course, she hadn't forgotten that Joe was, in fact, the only guard left, so she allowed her curiosity to overwhelm her caution, and reached out to touch the disc. The cool on her fingertips set of no alarm, so she dared herself to lift the disc from the pillar. A smile crept across her lips as she grasped the silver object, and slipped it into her backpack.

Getting out of the President's Estate wasn't nearly as difficult as getting in—especially since Kim had already done so once before. She slipped into the shadows, and followed the same paths she took just a day ago when she thought she would never enter the Estate again. Perhaps this time she would be running away for good. Kim made sure to exit the same gate they had entered, and to her relief, Rudy was waiting for her, a worried expression drawn tightly on his face. It faded quickly when he noticed her striding towards the exit.

"Did the others get out alright?" She asked when she was close enough for him to hear without shouting.

"They're waiting for you a few blocks out." He replied while he fiddled with the controls to let her out of the estate. "Grace is alright, too." Rudy added, answering the unspoken question before it had a chance to leave Kim's mouth. The gates silently swung open again, allowing Kim to step out into the outside world.

"Thank you, Rudy." She said warmly, before turning away from him, and the estate, and Grace, and towards a new world, and she hoped, a new life. She didn't dare look back.

The president sat like a statue behind his mahogany desk when a sharp rap on the door interrupted his thoughts, his hopes for a relaxing unwind after the holiday ball disappearing.

"Enter," he called, gingerly setting down his reading book and removing his glasses. He looked up to the Head of Defense standing at attention. The man's normally slicked black hair was disheveled, his piercing blue eyes dull. He stood at attention, though his hands shook, and sweat dripped down his large forehead.

"What is it,George?" the President asked, the frustration leaking into his words.

"Well, sir," he began nervously, "It appears that the Vault has been robbed." The President attempted to keep his calm.

"I assume you have caught the culprit."

"No sir, we haven't."

"Do you know who the culprit is?" the President tried again, reaching for the handgun that he kept under his desk.

"No sir." A gunshot was heard, and George fell, dead before he even hit the floor.

"Wrong answer."

A/N Yay! Another chapter finished! I hope you guys like it. It certainly took me long enough to write (which again, I apologize). Hopefully I'll be able to write a bit more since Spring Break is starting (finger crossed.)

As always, read and review. And if anyone has suggestions for the future (a shout out to TheSoccerLife). Until next time!