by S. K. Lessly
Billy simply nodded once and went about checking his weapon just as Ethan and Jessica did.
Ethan moved to the door and signaled Lionel and me to come up behind him. We obeyed, keeping our heads down and mouths shut.
Once everyone was in place, Ethan looked over his shoulder at everyone before he slowly turned the knob and opened the door. The main lights were out in the hallway. There were smaller lights illuminating the hallway in the same green tint as the room we were in.
I took a deep breath and could feel my body begin to shake. I bit my bottom lip to stop my teeth from chattering. As if feeling the fear at his back, Ethan leaned into me and whispered, “Don’t you lose sight of me, Lexie? Stay close. If we separate, stay put. I will find you.”
I nodded my head in rapid succession.
We followed Ethan through hallways and doorways our heads on a swivel until a gunshot zipped past us. We all ducked, and Ethan returned fire. I heard a body fall and he signaled us to move. We started to move quickly as our position was now known.
We took a dark corner and proceeded slowly toward what looked like a stairway. We came to a corner and Ethan raised a hand to stop us. He peeked around the corner and, figuring the coast was clear, signaled us to move. Just as we rounded the corner, gunshots zipped past us from behind, which stopped our progress again. Jessica and Billy returned fire from behind and we started to jog, Ethan still pushing us forward.
That was when all hell broke loose.
Automatic gunfire suddenly erupted in front of us, hitting the walls above our heads, halting us in what looked like a dead man's spot. We were pinned down, taking fire from both ends. I wanted to scream out, but I couldn’t find my voice even if I wanted to. I was shaking with fear and I felt Lionel doing the same. Through all of the confusion and gunfire, we ended up separating. Lionel pulled me across the hallway to a small alcove that provided us cover yet we could see still see Jessica and Ethan.
We were hunched down, trying to get as small as possible. Ethan and Jessica took a firing position in a doorway. Billy moved in front of us, covering us. It also allowed him to provide backup for Jessica and Ethan.
“We’ve got to get outta here!” Lionel yelled in my ear. He started pulling my arm, but I yanked back.
“Lionel, you want to die?” I snapped, frowning at him. He was crazy if he thought it was a good idea to leave our protection. Plus, we had nothing to protect ourselves, no guns, nothing. These people were here for us. Did he not know that?
I started to tell him that very thing when I noticed how manic his eyes looked. He was just as scared as I was. He was panicking and I shouldn’t blame him. I was beginning to panic too. I took a few calming breaths and placed my hands on both of Lionel’s shoulders.
“Ethan knows what he’s doing. He won’t leave us here to die. We need to stay right where we are. Okay? Just breathe, Lionel. Stay calm.”
Lionel surprisingly did what I told him. He took a few calming breaths before he nodded that he was okay. I gave him a quick nod and turned to see the action.
Billy was returning fire. He would shoot to his left, taking Jessica’s back but from the other side of the hallway. We could see everything, which was adding to our freak out.
The cacophony of gunfire was like thunder booming in a small space. My ears were ringing, my heart pounding. I kept wondering what would happen if Ethan and Jessica ran out of bullets. Just as that thought crossed my mind, Ethan release his empty magazine and grabbed another with quickness and ease and slammed it home.
I still had hope he would get to us until Billy went down next to me. He yelped and dropped the gun.
“Oh, my goodness, Billy! Are you alright?”
Billy scuttled to cover, his hand gripping his shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers.
“Shit, Shit, Shit,” Billy mumbled through gritted teeth.
“Billy, what do we do?” Now, it was my turn to panic. Billy didn’t answer. He was losing focus in his eyes and I could tell he was in a lot of pain.
“Now, what do we do?” Lionel screamed over the barrage of bullets flying everywhere.
“I don’t know!” I yelled back to him.
He grabbed my arm and started to pull. “Alexis, we need to get outta here. I saw a door back that way.” He pointed around a corner, away from the fire fight.
“Lionel, we can’t leave Billy,” I told him wrenching my arm from Lionel’s frantic tight grip.
“Fine, you stay with him. I’m finding my way outta here,” Lionel spat coldly. He started to move away when I grabbed his arm.
“No! Please Lionel. We have to stay together. We can’t leave Billy. He didn’t leave us.”
Lionel cursed but he didn’t leave. Instead, he moved to Billy’s prone body and hefted him up. Billy groaned but he stood, shakily. Lionel wrapped the agent’s arm around his shoulder and looked at me.
“We can’t stay here. You know that. I’m going to go and find a way out of here. You can either stay or come with me.” I looked over my shoulder and saw Ethan and Jessica still shooting at bad guys. Not once did they look in our direction. Lionel was right. We had to make our way out of here. We were dead if we stayed. Good thing we had a weapon.
I grabbed Billy’s gun and checked the clip just as Ethan had done. I had visited a gun range multiple times in Philly so I wasn’t oblivious on how to handle a gun. However, I only shot paper targets, not human targets.
Lord, please help me.
Billy’s clip was half full and I wasn’t sure how many clips he had left. I had to keep that in mind and not waste any bullets. I also prayed no one crept up behind us or anything.
I looked up at Billy and noticed him trying to lift his shirt at his hip. I stood, helped him lift his shirt, and found his side holster. He had one clip attached and I took it and put it in the pocket of my jacket. I then sent one last look behind me before I followed Lionel down an empty hall.
I did my best to keep my head on a swivel, making sure to look both in front of us and behind for any potential threats. When I caught movement behind us, I aimed and fired at a black clad figure with a mask who appeared out of nowhere. He went down and we all stared at his motionless body for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure if I killed this man, but for the seconds we stared at him, he didn’t move, didn’t twitch.
Oh shit!
I shifted wide eyes to Lionel and Billy. They met my panicked stare before they both sent grim nods my way. I knew it had to be done but it didn’t feel good doing it.
I had just killed someone, or at least I thought I did. My adrenaline was in overdrive, but I couldn’t dwell on what I had just done. We had to get out of this alive. I’d freak out after we were safe.
Chapter Twenty
Ethan
“Did you see where they went?” I called over my shoulder at Jessica.
We were taking heavy fire that had us pinned down on both sides. I was down to a half clip in my gun and one mag on my hip. I think Jess had one left and she was about to be out.
“Yeah, they went down the back corridor where you sent Bruce.”
I nodded, hoping like fuck Bruce found Lester or we were screwed.
“We have to get out of here or we’re done,” I yelled, ducked down, and waited for a lull in the automatic hail of gunfire. When they took time to reload, I peeked around the corner, found a target and hit him in the knee then forehead.
“What do you want to do?” Jessica asked me.
I looked back at her, waited for her eyes to meet my manic ones and smiled. “Cover me.”
Jess rolled her eyes knowing what I was about to do next and took my spot, after sending a barrage of bullets behind her. Using her cover, I sprinted down the hall, for a few steps then slid on the marble floor, shooting as I moved. Two dumbasses reacted to the footsteps and peeked around their hiding places. I shot neat holes in the middle of both their foreheads. Another crawled from his spot behind a pillar on the other side of me. I spun quickly, landed on my sid
e, and hit him in the shoulder first then the face. My gun clicked and in one quick movement, I released the empty clip, slapped in another one, and turned to face the direction Jessica was lying in wait.
“Move!” I called out to her, pulled up to one knee, and started firing as she ran towards me. A guy dressed in all black suddenly appeared from around the corner ready to shoot Jess in the back. I yelled for her to get down and aimed, ready to fire, but just as I had the man’s head in my sights, it exploded, spraying the walls with blood and brains, a pink mist hovering just above the body.
I straightened when I found Lester standing behind the fallen body.
“Bout time you got here,” I retorted as a greeting.
Lester snorted his reply.
“Did Bruce find you?” I asked him, bending down to check the faceless man's pockets next to me.
“Yeah, Bruce found me,” Lester reported. “We took some of them out on the east staircase and locked them down on the other floors. We heard the automatic fire up here and figured you guys might be pinned down. Bruce made his way to the front of the building to wait for George and I made my way here.”
I nodded and continued my task. The dead man’s pockets were empty, which wasn’t a surprise. He had an AK-12 though, which I gladly picked up along with one full mag. The AK-12 was a Russian made assault rifle currently used by the Russian military. It had a cyclic rate of fire of 700 rounds per minute and could hold your standard thirty-round magazine. How they got into the US was a mystery to me but I’d take it.
I began checking the rest of the dead bodies, Jess doing the same, for ID or something that would tell us who these clowns were but we came up empty. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find anything of use. These were professionals or seemed like it anyway, but it didn’t hurt to check.
We did find some back up hand guns, which we tucked in the waist bands of our pants. There was no such thing as having too much firepower. I stood and started to ask Lester if he ran into Lexie, when fresh sounds of automatic weapons thundered through the building. My heart started to pound against my chest. I met Jessica’s eyes; panic soaked in mine.
“Lexie,” I whispered, my heart dropping from my chest.
I quickly grabbed the AK-12 and a spare magazine before I darted toward the sound.
Jessica called my name, but I was already moving. I had to get to Lexie. I promised her if we ever split up that I’d find her. If anything happened to her… fuck, I couldn’t even think about that. I just ran.
***
Alexis
I saw Bruce come from somewhere in front of us, a sight for sore eyes.
We had managed to make it to the first floor and were heading to the front exit when Bruce appeared. Billy was holding on but he looked pale. Surprisingly, Lionel hadn’t complained too much. I think he was too busy trying not to die and relying on me to keep him alive to complain.
I killed two more people as we made our way to the front of the building, doing my best not to think about what I was doing. Billy had mentioned a safe room on the first floor we could use to hide out, if we could get there. I wasn’t sure why they didn’t have safe rooms on every floor, but I held my tongue and followed his direction. Luckily for us, we were found.
“You guys alright?” Bruce asked, looking us over. He moved to Billy’s other side and helped Lionel move him to a spot behind the security guard’s desk at the front of the building. I didn’t ask where the security guards were, I didn’t want to know.
“Billy’s shot, but I think we…” I began however was immediately cut off by bullets flying all around us. We ducked behind the huge mahogany security desk that Bruce claimed was made to withstand small arms fire and up to medium grade explosives.
I had no idea what that meant but I made sure to crouch down low and pray the bad guys didn’t have “large” arms fire or even larger explosives.
Bruce started returning fire toward the front of the building when someone started shooting from behind. We were cornered. Again!
I gave Bruce Billy’s weapon, but he told me to keep it.
“I need you to have my back, okay?” he instructed. “If you see anyone come from that direction that isn’t friendly,” he pointed behind me, “fire.”
I looked over at Lionel. I wanted him to take charge and take the gun from me, but he looked away, pretending he was tending to Billy. Coward. Seriously, what had I seen in him? Even Billy managed to give him a reproachful glare.
Determined not to punk out, I turned back to Bruce and nodded.
I kept my eyes in the direction Bruce told me and anytime someone appeared dressed in all black with a black ski mask, I fired, doing my best not to think about how many rounds I had left. I had to be almost out of bullets.
Dread was beginning to flood my veins. I was starting to lose hope. If someone didn’t come for us soon, I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to hold the bad guys off.
I silently sent a prayer up asking for help. I didn’t want to die today. I wanted the ability to at least settle things with Ethan. There was so much I wanted to say. I didn’t want the last thoughts he had of me to be bad.
However, as much as I prayed for us to make it through, I knew “faith without works was dead.” Therefore, we needed to do our part to keep us safe.
Bruce was firing into the night at the front of the building. I kept my eyes on the hallway behind us, doing my part at keeping us all safe. He’d take aim and fire then take cover until he could make a move. I noticed the shots coming from further inside the warehouse, at our backs, had stopped. I hoped that was a good sign and no one was slowing creeping up behind us to finish us off. That would truly be unfortunate.
I heard a sharp cry or more like a growl mixed with a scream coming from directly behind me. I whirled around thinking someone might have been hit. I turned, however, and saw Lionel screaming and rocking; he was losing it.
I went over to him. “Lionel, it’s going to be okay. Stop screaming.”
“You don’t know that, Alexis,” he snapped, his eyes wild with fear. “This is all your fault, all of it. I wish I never met you!”
I hated to admit it, but his words stung. I thought about lashing out and remind him that this was actually his fault. Had he kept his dick in his pants, we wouldn’t be here. He had been the one that brought this bitch into our lives. He had been the one that told her all about me so he could to get laid. This had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the useless appendage between his legs that ironically was growing smaller right before my eyes.
My anger started to ebb away as I watched him scurry way from me and try to blend into the wall at his back. He was scared. I understood that. I was petrified. But hell, at least I was doing something about it. This idiot wasn’t doing anything but cowering. Really Alexis, you must’ve been extremely desperate and lonely to agree to marry this weakling.
I dismissed Lionel and checked after Billy. He looked worse for wear but at least he wasn’t bleeding out. I guess that was a good thing. I looked behind me at Bruce and he seemed to be doing okay without me. I brought my attention back to Billy.
“How are you doing?” I pulled him forward slightly so I could check for an exit wound. There was one and I exhaled. I remembered from the countless movies I’d seen an exit wound was a good thing.
“It looks like the bullet went through. You should be okay,” I told him and smiled. He smiled back but then his eyes grew wide. I turned quickly and found a masked man dressed in all black standing over us. I didn’t have time to wonder about Bruce. He had a bead on us. My gun was out of reach. If I went for it, he would spray us with bullets.
I met the man’s eyes and saw them crinkle on the sides. I guess he found this amusing. I didn’t.
He raised his rifle and aimed at me. I held his stare for a half a second before the side of his head exploded in a cloud of brains, bones and blood.
Lionel screamed. I gasped and started backing away, Billy pulling me toward him. B
ruce appeared but his gun was to his side, the slide back indicating he was out of bullets. Then Bruce looked to his left and let out a long sigh. A rifle sailed in the air his way and he caught it with one hand. He sent a nod to whomever threw it, turned and resumed firing outside. Okay, so whoever just shot that guy was friendly but who…
Just as I started to wonder who had arrived, Ethan appeared with Jessica and Lester coming up behind him.
Lester moved past all of us and went to stand next to Bruce. Jessica followed. Ethan gave me a quick onceover and asked with his eyes if I was good. I nodded I was okay and he left us, following his team to the fire fight blazing in front of the building.
Then suddenly, a huge explosion rocked the entire building. I covered my ears and closed my eyes, praying that this would be over soon. After what seemed like forever, the firing stopped. My ears were ringing and my body shook like a leaf, but no bullets tried to end my life.
Before I knew it, Ethan was by my side, bending over to check Billy. He grabbed the t-shirt Billy was wearing and ripped it open.
Billy grunted from being jarred but gritted his teeth as Ethan inspected his wound.
“The bullet went through, Billy. Nothing serious but it’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch for a while. Keep applying pressure. I’ll get the first aid kit and patch you up.” Ethan clasped Billy by the side of his face then gave him a light tap.
“It hurts like shit!” he admitted through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, but chicks dig bullet wounds.” Ethan smiled then put his arm under Billy’s non-injured arm and pulled him up.
Billy growled from the exertion and pain as he stood. “Yeah, only the crazy ones,” he managed to bite out.
Ethan laughed and touched his good shoulder. “Yeah, exactly.” He then turned to look at Jessica. Billy followed his gaze and met Jessica’s eyes. She then headed over in their direction and Billy met her half way. Huh, that was strange. Did Ethan just…
“Hey, Lexie. Are you okay?” I blinked and focused my attention on Ethan. His eyes roamed me from head to toe before resting calming eyes on mine.