We left the room that the girl was kept in.

I made sure to hide the sight of the dead bodies from her by hugging her close to my chest, only releasing her after we had reached the corridor.

Amber was still in the lead while I held the girl in my arms. She was literally shivering in fear so I tried to distract her by talking to her.

“What's your name?”

“F… Faye…”

“Fae?”

She shook her head, “Faye… F, A, Y, E.”

“Oh, that's a beautiful name, as beautiful as you are.”

She giggled, “Ehehe… Big sister is pretty too.”

“Awww, thank you. I'm Tera, and the pretty sister in front is Amber.”

The girl turned to look at Amber, “She's… She's pretty too… Where is Mommy?”

“We'll take you to her, don't worry.”

“Unn… Ok… Did Mommy send you to find me?”

“Yes, that’s why you don’t need to worry.”

“Ok…”

Everything was smooth sailing so far as we passed by the Security Office again, meaning just around the corner would be the ladder that we used to reach to reach the basement.

If the words of that gang boss were to be believed, there should be a back door that we could use to get out of this warehouse unseen.

I doubt we would need to steal a car but it'll be a long walk for us.

Just as Amber turned the corner, she suddenly ducked back and almost bumped into me had I not moved back to avoid her in time.

She quickly turned around and made a shooing motion at me to move away from here.

The fact that she didn't start shooting meant that it wasn't thugs that she spotted around the corner but those Mercs we saw earlier.

I pointed towards the security office down the corridor and she nodded.

Faye was giving me a worried look so I quickly flashed her a reassuring smile as we snuck back to the security office.

The door slid open and we slipped inside, shutting the door behind us.

I immediately looked for the screens that would show the camera feed and found them in the corner of the room, searching for the ones that would show the basement area.

“What… What's happening big sister?” Faye asked, her voice shaking.

“Some bad people are outside, we need to hide here and keep quiet for now. Could you wait a little longer for me, Faye?”

“O… Ok…”

I scanned through the screens and found the ones I was looking for, one of them showing the corridor outside where the two Mercs were peeking around the corner.

I found it a little ironic that they were doing almost the exact same thing as Amber and I did while we were sneaking in.

I covered Faye's ears before asking Amber, “Would it be a problem if we killed them?”

Amber shrugged, “If you're fine with making an enemy out of their entire group and whoever they are affiliated with, sure.”

“Err… Doesn't that mean they might kill us since we're not really affiliated with anyone?”

“Mmm… I won't lie, it's a possibility. But I'd say unless they're desperate or just plain bastards, they wouldn’t shoot us on sight if they know we're Mercs. Especially considering that we're carrying her,” Amber explained, nodding at the girl in my arms.

I looked at the girl and she was looking back at me with an inquisitive face, probably wondering why I was covering her ears.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Just as I was about to remove my hands, voices came from outside the door.

“You sure this is the way?”

“I'm pretty sure I can read a map, so yes.”

“Shouldn't we get the others for backup?”

“It's just two other Mercs. If it comes down to a fight, we can take them. Come on.”

“What if those two got done in by these guys?”

“Then we just pick up where they left off. Relax already.”

Damnit, they saw us in the security office upstairs for sure.

I turned to the console and saw the flashing big red button on the console that matches the one upstairs.

Pressing it would activate the anti-riot countermeasures but I think it's unnecessary now if they were just going to walk past us.

And as though fate was laughing at me for thinking so, I noticed a small timer counting down from five just beside the button.

What is that thing supposed to be counting down for?

Wait… Don't tell me there's an automatic activation function on this--

The button sunk into the console without anything touching it the moment the timer hit zero.

The lights around us suddenly switched to red and a siren started blaring while an automated message played over the intercom.

“Warning, riot in progress. Lockdown is in effect.”

Faye was looking around in bewilderment while Amber and I shared a look of concern.

“What happened?” She asked.

“Well fu… I mean… Crap… Seems like there's a timer on the second button that automatically activates if not pressed within a certain time…”

I had to make sure not to curse in front of Faye.

Amber blanched, “I thought you'd need a master control card or something to activate it using one console?”

“That's what I thought too… But I guess that point was part of the torn out portion…”

“Well fu… I mean… Damn… Do we know which parts have been locked down?” Amber asked, also making sure not to curse.

I tried looking around the office and found a control panel that showed exactly which part had been blocked off.

I went towards the console just as Faye started tugging at my collar, “Big sister? What’s wrong? Why is everything so red?”

“Umm… The bad guys tried to lock us inside here. We’ll need to look for another way out.”

“We’ll… We’ll be fine, right?”

“Yes, we will. Don’t worry about it. Your two big sisters will protect you.”

“Unn…”

With the little one sufficiently soothed, I started inspecting the console.

“Ok… Good news… Assuming those two Mercs had already gone past this security office, they would have been blocked off from us,” I reported.

Amber raised an eyebrow at me, “And what’s the bad news?”

“Well… Assuming there’s only one back door… That one’s blocked off too. And so is the main entrance as well…”

She groaned, “Which means the thugs left inside the warehouse aren’t pinned down by the Mercs outside anymore… How do we lift the lockdown in that case?”

I tried to look around the room but there wasn’t a ‘cancel lock down’ button anywhere around that I could see. Even pressing the anti-riot button again did nothing either.

There must be some kind of procedure to cancel the lockdown but I have no idea what it was and it doesn’t look like there’s instructions for that either.

What do we do?

Amber suddenly pointed at the screen, “Wait, look there. The indicator for the rooftop entrance.”

I followed her gaze and saw that there was an ‘error’ message beside that specific door. Does that mean that particular place failed to lock?

“I guess that’s our way out… But we might need to fight our way through what’s left of those thugs outside.”

“Unless we can sneak past them. Come on, let’s go! I’d bet they must be confused why the front entrance would shut on them so they should be sending someone to get instructions from the boss. Since the runner didn’t go past us, there must be another way down for them.”

Amber nodded, “Right, then we can sneak past them while they’re distracted and preferably before they find out their boss had his head… Ahem… Before they find out what happened to him.”

I turned to Faye, “We’re getting you out of here.”

She nodded at me before I picked her up in my arms and ran out of the room with Amber leading the way.

We reached the ladder in record time and I had to let Faye climb up the ladder on her own.

Thankfully, she had already recovered enough to be able to walk on her own and I could arm myself with my blaster while holding her hand once we got back up to the first floor.

Peeking around the corner, we found the front of the warehouse had been blocked off by a solid door and the thugs were standing around looking at it while making confused noises. I could still hear the muffled sounds of gunshots coming from outside so I guess the Mercs must be trying to break down the door though with little success.

Taking the chance that the thugs were still distracted, both Amber and I crept up the stairs towards the second floor with Faye following behind me.

Unfortunately, someone just had to turn around amongst the thugs and let out a shout.

“Hey?! Who the fuck are they?!”

His shout made every other thug still alive turn back to stare at us, all three of us freezing up like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Run! I’ll cover you!” Amber shouted, already shooting at the crowd of thugs and nailing the guy who shouted at us in the head.

Damnit… And here I was hoping for a clean getaway too…