DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN TOM CLANCY'S THE DIVISION. THAT RIGHT BELONGS TO UBISOFT. EVERYTHING MENTIONED IN THIS STORY IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.
Enjoy!
-Jake

12:00.

Noon. Our captors would be letting us out into the outdoor gym and lunch area, where we would be eating food that was warm when we were served at the door leading outside, then forced to eat it in the near-frozen temperatures. If you wanted your food relatively warm, you ate it quick.

The doors were unlocked from an automatic switch in the control room once the guards were safe. We all slowly shuffled from our cells, down a set of stairs, and to a serving line. Along with the First Wave, JTF and CERA personnel that the LMB captured were also kept at Rikers, so the line was quite long by the time Anna and I got there. We were served half an MRE-meal, ready to eat-each, and followed the others outside. The cold immediately hit us, and no one was allowed to keep anything to keep themselves warm. Only a thin orange jacket, t-shirt and cargo pants kept the cold at bay, and they didn't do a very good job of it.

"So how do you wanna do this?" I whispered to Anna once we had our meals and were standing outside.

Anna slowly walked around the area of the small plaza-like area, me in tow. We walked along the barbed wire siding, under watchtowers filled with armed LMB soldiers, until we reached the unguarded drop off to the water below. "We stage a fight." She finally answered. "We pretend to get into an argument, and I push you off the side."

"What?!" I said, incredulous.

"Yeah, I know. But it's the only way that would work without the guards becoming suspicious."

I took a deep breath, leaning over the edge and looking at the wave tops fifty feet below. I gulped. "Alright. Fine. When do we start?"

"Now." She answered.

It took me less than a second to understand what she meant, but in that time she'd punched me hard in the spine. "Watch it, asshole!" She yelled.

After my initial confusion, I snapped into it. "What, am I not supposed to be here? It's not like I have a choice!" I retorted, and gave a half effort at kicking her shin, not wanting to hurt her. Knowing it was a staged fight, she didn't dodge it, and after my sneaker connected with her leg, she balled her hand into a fist and backhanded me across the face, having to reach up since I was a head taller than her. Still, she landed a pretty good blow, knocking me sideways. At that moment, two things happened that we didn't account for: the guards, and the ice. When Anna hit me, I staggered backward, and the soles of my sneakers lost their traction when I stepped onto a patch of black ice. I slipped towards the edge as the second aspect came into play. Two of the Last Man Battalion guards raised their rifles, and fired.

"Oh shit-ARRGGHH, FUCK!" I screamed as the bullet tore through my right shoulder, blood spurting out of the wound and splashing Anna's face.

The second round hit her at the top of her back, pushing her to the edge and toppling her over after me. Thinking quickly, instead of screaming we both stayed quiet, and for two good reasons. One: the guards would think it was a killing shot, think we were dead, and wouldn't question it if we didn't resurface. And two: we held our breath for the dive.

Despite my efforts, when I hit the water a lot of the air I'd held in my lungs was knocked out in a gush by the drop. I knew Anna would've had it even worse. Thankfully, the water pulled me from the shock of the bullet. We plunged ten feet under the surface and into the darkness of the sea. I had dropped close to the wall, and I grabbed Anna's arm and swam using only one hand I swam to the rock surface.

I could hold my breath for about two minutes with full lungs, so therefore, pessimistically, I could hold my breath for another forty-five seconds before I'd have to surface for air. Keeping my left hand brushing against the wall the entire time, I swam with Anna about sixty yards until my lungs ran dry.

Slowly and carefully, I breached the surface, pulling her with me. She quietly gasped for air, our dark blood stains slowly spreading in the water around us. By now, four guards were at the edge of the wall, two holding back the crowd of onlookers, two peering into the water, trying to spot a body. I breathed in deep, held Anna's hand and dived back down, and swam another forty yards, before surfacing again. The guards gave up, but by now Anna was struggling in the cold water, losing blood and energy.

Realizing that hypothermia would quickly set in, I set a strong pace with Anna to the Coast Guard boat, which sat two hundred and fifty feet away. Two hundred and fifty feet straight, though. To actually get there safely we would have to swim along the wall, then under the dock the boat was tied to. It was closer to five hundred feet.

Still, I kept going, slowly getting colder and colder. By the time we got to the dock, we were shaking uncontrollably, then at the halfway point Anna slowly lost consciousness and I was ready to follow.

"Fuck." I quietly cursed, wrapped an arm around her body, and kept clawing my way through the water, the boat still agonizingly far. The blood from our gunshot wounds hadn't stopped running, and I was close to losing half of my blood supply to the cold waters. My head started spinning, the pain of moving from cracked ribs, a gunshot wound, and the bitter cold was about to kill me.

I pressed on.

By some stroke of luck, the river's current pushed us towards the boat. I reached up and grasped the rope holding it to the dock. I shoved Anna onto the boat's rear deck slowly pulled myself from the water, and onto the metal. By another stroke of pure luck, another lot of snow set in, and the LMB guards wouldn't be able to see the boat leave the docks.

Without stopping for a rest, I dragged Anna toward the boat's enclosed cabin. The thirty foot cruiser's keys were still in the ignition and the dashboard showed plenty of fuel and battery life. I wasn't even religious, but if there was anyone above me, I thanked them. A dive knife sat on a small table in a sheath. I took it, and quietly walked back out into the snow. The wind was howling now, and the guards wouldn't hear the boat's engine.

We might make it out of here, I thought to myself.

I used the dive knife to cut the ropes holding the boat, and it began drifting away in the current. I went back into the cabin and closed the door, struggling to turn the heater on with shaking hands. I got it working, a hot breath from the vents blowing into my face. I quickly plopped myself at the boat's steering wheel, started the heavily muffled motor, and set the GPS for a set of docks under Brooklyn Bridge. The boat had an on board computerized navigation system that plotted and followed routes on its own without guidance, so I set the speed, and left the helm in search of medical supplies.

Thank God the LMB hadn't raided the boat yet. I found a small first aid kit in a cabinet and while sitting in front of one of the heater's vents, threaded stitches around the small hole in Anna's back, and wrapped my arm and shoulder in dressings and gauze. I knew she hadn't passed out from water in her lungs, more likely from the shock of the water and the blood loss. Although, after examining the injury, she hadn't appeared to lose as much blood as me. I stripped out of my sopping wet clothes, and found a few fresh uniforms in the bunks in front and below the helm. I changed, and stripped Anna's jacket off of her and wrapped her in the new uniform. I returned to the comfort of the driver's seat. I checked the GPS, and upon seeing that I had an hour to go at the speed I'd set, I moved Anna down to bunks below. Exhausted and in pain, I wrapped each of us in blankets and fell asleep.