Finn
All that I want right now is for somebody, literally anybody at all, to ask me what it was like waiting for five and a half fucking hours to get rescued. Five and a half hours—330 minutes—sitting in that goddamn conference room across from Percy, whose eyes were fixated on the table. 330 minutes under the watch of an obvious security camera, keeping any word from slipping out of our mouths unless I was chatting up Orion or a security guard. I want at least one person, no matter who they are or what their alignments are, to be just the slightest bit curious about what that was like.
I would like even more for someone to have just a little bit of sympathy for the 40 minutes we had to wait for those asshats to reach us. It took over 50 people almost an hour to go up 30 flights of stairs and clear out the throne room. Two giant explosions, one out-of-control fire burning below us, God-knows-how-many people injured or killed—including the guy who just got shot out of the window—before the three of us could leave the fucking conference room.
The whole lobby looked like a fucking disaster the moment I stepped into it. The entire back window was shattered and the view outside of it was blocked with smoke; the choppy lighting from the ceiling gave every single thing in the room at least five shadows; chunks of debris were scattered all over the ground like it just rained broken marble; at least six (hopefully) unconscious guards were scattered around the middle of the lobby covered in said debris; Brice’s body armor (and I assume his right leg) was in tatters; and—let’s not forget—THERE’S A GIANT FUCKING HOLE IN THE GROUND.
“This is Lambert,” Brice half-whispered to his walkie-talkie. His voice was weak and gravelly, almost sounding more tattered than his clothes. “I’m alright. There was some… explosive hidden below the ground. I was caught in the blast, but I’m not injured badly. There are… about five people that are confirmed dead up here, none on our side. Four were killed by the explosion, one of them was shot. Percy, Finn, and Adrian are all accounted for. We’ll meet up with the rest of you soon.”
Brice grabbed Lennox’s hand and lunged him to his feet.
Adrian pushed past me and walked to Brice. “Was that you?” he asked, nodding towards the hole in the ground.
“No. I don’t know who that was.”
“What about the fire? We heard the guards talking about it.”
“Don’t know who caused that either. A lot of shit went wrong here, and we don’t know why.”
I was immediately suspicious of Adrian jumping straight to asking questions when he’s the reason we’re here in the first place, but I decided to keep it to myself until we were out of immediate risk of death. Assuming we ever will be.
Jae and Skyler, the only other friendly people in the room, gathered next to us. “Glad to see you’re alright, Brice,” Jae said, holding the gun that I assume killed the window guy. “You’re about as good as the news gets right now. None of the teams could get the fire under control, and it’s spread up to the sixth floor now. A few firetrucks are outside the front entrance trying to evacuate the employees, and a ton of major news outlets are broadcasting from a distance. In short, there’s no way out from where we came in.”
“Fuck.” Brice looked like he was about to lean against the back window before realizing there wasn’t one anymore. His hand redirected to Jax’s desk beside him. “Well, we can’t settle down in here. What options do we have right now?”
“Have you guys tried the parking garage yet?” I added. They both stared blankly at me like I was speaking Russian. “The parking garage? Did you check it?”
“We… didn’t know there was one.”
“Dammit. Could anybody have escaped from there?” Jae said to Brice.
“I hope not. How do we get to the garage?”
Adrian and I looked at Percy, who was still standing at the doorway. She looked back at us confused, sighed, and speed-walked past us to the elevator.
“Is it safe for us to use that thing during a fire?” I asked.
“More safe than it would have been before the fire department showed up,” Jae responded. “Still, be prepared to cover your faces.”
The six of us packed inside and Percy punched the P1 button. There was still a dent on the edge of the door where I slammed the guard’s head in. Fun times.
The trip down to the garage was going to be a long one, so to avoid a painfully awkward two-minute silence, I asked the obvious question: “Where are all the others at?”
Jae responded. “After the explosion, things were getting so bad below us that Graham, Karan, and Roman left to help the others move employees out of harm’s way. Now that the fire department has shown up to rescue them, everyone is waiting somewhere between floors 29 and 34.”
Listening to the dinging of the elevator again after passing each floor was giving me a headache.
“Where did all the guards go?” Brice asked.
“No idea. All but a few of them were already gone by the time we woke up, including the leader guy and his friend.”
“Jax,” I interrupted. “The ‘leader guy’ is named Jax.”
“Uh… good to know, I guess.”
Floor 28. The sound of the employees screaming out at the fire department hit us fast.
“They better not say anything to the police,” Brice grunted.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“If they do, that information will likely hurt Eclipse more than it’ll hurt us.”
“What about the security cameras? If any of that footage is leaked, our faces will be plastered over every state law enforcement’s Most Wanted.”
“No, remember what the security guy said? He turned off all the cameras when we showed up.”
“Yeah… yeah, right, I remember. My head's still a little fuzzy.” Brice leaned against the wall, carrying all of his body weight on his left leg.
“Are you going to be okay? You were just a couple of feet away from that bomb. You could have died there.”
“I’ll survive. What I’m more concerned with right now is why a bomb was there in the first place.”
“And what the hell was the fire about?” Adrian asked. “Was that started by the first explosion?”
“Hell no. C-4 isn’t an incendiary explosive, and the fire started on the third floor. We would have known if it was us.”
“We didn’t have anybody guarding the second or third floor,” Jae added. “And Teams 1 and 12 would have caught anybody going in. Not to mention, every floor above 28 was empty, so there couldn’t have been anyone to set up a bomb below us, except… except that fucking security guy.” Jae leaned back against the wall. “Dammit.”
“Two blocks of timed C-4 from the weapons room were missing.”
“Of course. We should have seen this coming.”
I had no idea what any of them were talking about, but at least listening to them helped pass the time.
As we passed the ninth floor, the shouting from the employees faded out. The elevator started getting a lot warmer very fast. Brice and Jae pulled their masks up, and the rest of us quickly followed suit with our shirts.
“Did any of you hear anything from Eliot?” Brice continued, his voice slightly muffled.
“Uh… no, I don’t think he’s said anything. Why?”
“There was a man with a broken leg he was treating on floor 23. He may not have been able to finish patching him up by the time the fire department arrived.”
“Well, if he didn’t, then at least another professional will.”
The elevator moved directly into the fire zone. Brice and I stepped away from the door as the metal started fogging up from the heat.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if elevators had A/C?” I stupidly asked. “I mean, there are only two elevators in the entire building, so it’s not like they would go bankrupt from it.”
“There are two elevators?” Jae noticed. “Where the hell is the second one?”
“It just goes between the main work floors. It’s not one that would be useful.”
The elevator finally stopped. The smoldering hot doors opened to reveal the parking garage, free from emergency services or media outlets. I was about to step out before a familiar face with a particular Tina Fey haircut walked out in front of me. Her eyes widened and she bolted away. Or rather, she tried to. I easily caught up and grabbed onto her shirt collar, which was followed by her dramatically fake-collapsing on the concrete.
“You!” I yelled. “You work for those fuckers up there?!”
“I don’t even like them!” she clamored at a machine gun’s pace. “I’ll leave right now and you’ll never see me again!”
“You intentionally tried to block and mislead me so I wouldn’t get to the elevator on time! You’re the fucking reason this shit happened in the first place!”
“I only say whatever stupid things they tell me to say, I swear to God!”
Brice limped up to her. “How long have you been here?”
“Uh… I left a few hours ago to pick up a friend at the airport, a-and then I came back 15 minutes ago when I heard about the fire so I could grab all my personal stuff in the office.”
“Where’s your car at?”
“I-I parked it in the front, it-it’s not in here. There’s a bunch of firefighters and news guys out there, y-you won’t get past them.”
“Right.” Brice started pacing. “Get out of here. Tell nobody about us; it won’t take long to figure out where you live.” She jumped up and darted instantly.
“We don’t need to get past them,” I said. “There’s another road going out on this side that leads into Newtown. We should be clear over there.”
“We can’t reach the transport trucks, though.” He suddenly stopped in place. “Fuck it. We don’t need them.” He took out his walkie-talkie. “All teams, change of plans. Apparently, there’s been a parking garage hidden behind the building this entire time, along with another road past it leading to Newtown. Just take the elevator down to P1. The front entrance is flooded with firefighters and journalists, so we’ll have to ditch our transport trucks, which shouldn’t be a problem as long as you didn’t leave anything in them. But there are plenty of other cars in the garage, so as long as you remember how to hotwire them, we all should be able to get out of this damned place. We’ll regroup in Columbus.” He put the walkie back in his pocket and turned to faced us. “This whole mess with Eclipse isn’t going to blow over on its own after tonight, so all of us are gonna have to lock down at the base indefinitely until we can find a way out of this.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” I said, walking up to Brice. “No, no, the others and I need to go back to Lakewood as fast as possible. Solaris was Eclipse’s offshoot, and if they want our heads because of our heist, they’ll come after the business we worked with too. That can’t happen; we promised them they wouldn’t be affected by anything we did.”
“They are coming for us first, Finn. We can’t risk splitting up 150 miles apart after five of their men were just fucking killed. And while four of the deaths may not have been us, the fifth one unquestionably was, and they’re not going to listen to us try to explain it. You have seen firsthand what they’re capable of doing, and they will not hesitate to do it again. This is not up for debate.”
“So, what? We’re just going to share the base with the militia then? We have our own fucking house, for God’s sake! We have shit to go back to, shit that we need! You can’t just pull us out of our lives like it’s fucking nothing!”
“You pulled yourself out of your own goddamn life when you showed up at their front door! This is for your own safety, because if they decide to retaliate and find you in your home, there is nothing to protect you. If they don’t kill you right there, then you get your asses captured again, and I’m not going to bet on how merciful they’re feeling right now. You either come with us, or you risk losing everything.”
“Finn,” Skyler sighed. “There’s nothing else we can do. I’m sorry, but it’s just how shit turned out. Five people died today.”
“I know five people are dead,” I muttered. “You all have said that three times now.” My headache was growing into a migraine. I would have screamed if I still had the energy. I looked behind me to Percy, who had been standing silently with her arms crossed as Brice explained how he was about to upend all of our lives. She acknowledged me back with the same death stare she perfected back in the HQ.
I threw my arms in the air. “Goddammit. We’re always hiding from something. Why would it be any different now?”
Brice continued talking like nothing had happened. “Lennox, Percy, and Adrian are going with me. Jae, you drive Finn and Skyler. We’ll meet at the bank.”
And just like that, we were done, and I was sitting in a hotwired car driving through the snow on my way to the place where I had to live indefinitely. And just five and a half hours was all that it fucking took.
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