Chapter 14: Chapter 14

Thirteen's POV

"I'm speaking from experience, as well as personal knowledge when I say...since she's a lot like me, she should not be in charge of the missile launcher."

Lily's evil laugh and the following explosion only confirm Devin's statement.

"No worries. I can always take over." Olivia says.

"That's a horrifying thought." Kate mutters, crossing her arms over her chest and turning away from her sister. "I for one would like to live to see my next birthday."

"Don't you mean our next birthday?"

"No..." Kate drags out the word. "I mean my next birthday. You'll be dead already."

"Can you two focus on the problem at hand?" Josh asks, irritation lacing his tone.

Kate peers over my shoulder at the screens in front of me. She makes a show of squinting her eyes at the screens before shaking her head.

"What problem? I don't see a problem. Do you see a problem?" She asks Olivia.

Olivia does the exact same thing Kate did. "Nope. No problem." Josh smacks his palm against his forehead.

"Where's Sam?" I interject, keeping my eyes on the screens.

"I've met the guy twice now and suddenly I'm his babysitter?" Josh says sarcastically. I shoot him a glare.

"A simple, I don't know, would've been fine." I grumble. Josh simply shrugs as he picks up one of the guns Devin brought from the table next to me. He lets out a whistle as he makes a show of checking the gun over and pointing it at Kate. She reaches her hand up and swats the barrel away like it's nothing more than a pesky fly.

"Devin go find Cody, Chase, Zack and Sam. They need to be briefed right away."

"No worries we found you." I turn to Chase as he walks into the room and looks around. "Never been in here before. We heard the alarms and figured we needed to find you."

"Where's Sam?" I repeat the question to Chase. He shrugs.

"Haven't seen the guy since the alarm went off."

I bounce my leg up and down and try my best to focus on the screens and making sure the outside of the house is locked down. "I need to find Sam." I announce pushing back from the desk and standing up. "Gear up, this is going to get ugly." I tell them.

I grab a few knives from the table as well as a couple of guns. I also pick up one of the comms Devin brought up and slip it into my ear. I make sure my dagger's strapped securely to my hip before rushing out of the room. There's the sound of another explosion and the house shakes.

"Mayday, mayday. That explosion was not my doing." Lily's voice sounds over the comms. "We're going to be having company soon."

There's another three explosions. "Now those were totally my doing." I roll my eyes and continue down the hall to the staircase.

I don't make it to the staircase. Instead a hand is thrown over my mouth, and an arm wraps around my waist, pinning my arms to my sides. I'm dragged backwards into one of the rooms. I throw my head back into the person's face and they let go of my arms, but keep their hand firmly over my mouth.

"Calm down." Sam hisses in my ear before removing his hand. I turn to glare at him as he rubs his hand over his cheek.

"Where have you been?"

"Hiding." He stresses the word as if I don't know the meaning of it. "In case you forgot, if Garrett sees me here it's a death sentence."

"I didn't forget." I pull the two guns I grabbed out of my waist band and hand them to him. "I wanted to make sure you were armed."

"Thanks." He takes the guns from me. "But I already have a couple of my own."

"Make sure you stay out of sight. If Garrett, or anyone else sees you your cover's blown."

He rolls his eyes at me. "I'm well aware Daggers."

"You know, next time you guys decide to have a private conversation, you should really take the ear bud out because now you and I are going to be having a really long chat about why I was not made aware of the fact that Sam's working for Garrett."

"Shit." I mutter.

Sam's eyebrows furrow together. "What?"

"I was thinking of a word a lot stronger than shit, but we can go with shit."

"Miss Marshal, please stop." Henri's voice is distant but I can still hear him.

"You're lucky I'm the only one with an ear bud in right now. Real lucky. I don't even know how you could possibly forget that you have an ear bud in your ear. They're so damn irritating....just like you."

"Please Miss Marshal."

"No chance I can get you to forget what you just heard?" Sam frowns at me in confusion, thinking I'm talking to him. I hold up my hand to keep him quiet.

"I'll take a bribe."

"A bribe?"

"Yep. I want another gator."

"No freaking way."

"Well then in that case there's no way I'm forgetting what you just said."

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Zack's voice intervenes as he takes an ear bud.

"None of your damned business."

"Miss Marshal, that's quite enough."

I tune them out and focus back on Sam. I tap the comm in my ear and he nods in understanding. "Lily was listening."

"Have fun with that conversation." He says nonchalantly. I give him a droll look. Another explosion shakes the house.

"Lily where did that come from?" I question.

"How the hell should I know?"

"Language Miss Marshal."

"Hell's not even a curse word. It's a place." Lily retorts.

Several gunshots begin to echo out around the house. "Lily!" I shout, getting her attention. "Who's firing?"

"Josh, Chase and Cody mostly." She replies. "Devin and Zack are trying to sneak around back, and us girls are having a nice time chilling with the missile and land mine controls. Do you plan on joining the party any time soon, or are you going to start swapping spit with Mr. Mysterious. I won't tell Cody if you do. As much of a jackass as that guy seems, he is insanely hot."

"I said, language Miss Marshal."

I bury my face into my hands and turn away from Sam. I can't even look at him right now...and thanks to Lily I'll forever have that image seared into my brain. No filter. This girl just says whatever comes to mind. I'm forever thankful Sam is not wearing an ear bud right now.

"Sam is not a jackass." I mutter when I can finally find my voice. Sam gives me a questioning look.

"So you admit he's insanely hot, and the amount of time it took you to respond says you were totally entertaining the idea of swapping spit."

"No!" I protest immediately.

"I'm telling Sam you called him ugly."

"I never said that."

"You said no to him being insanely hot."

"That doesn't mean I called him ugly."

"So you admit he is insanely hot."

"This is extremely awkward and I'd appreciate it greatly if you two had this conversation another time...preferably in private." Zack says, reminding the both of us that there are other people listening.

I groan. "How many of you are actually wearing earpieces?" I question.

"Cody's not since that's the reason you're asking." Zack tells me and I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. "You're lucky."

I ignore them and grab a few knives from my boots. "Stay out of sight." I order Sam and he just nods as I make my way out of the room and towards the gunshots.

"Ev sweetie, you want to do me a huge favor?" Lily's voice fills my ear and I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

"Not really."

"Oh ok...I just wanted you to duck."

"Why?"

"Garrett's behind you." I drop to floor immediately after she says that, just milliseconds before bullets fly over my head.

I spin around and throw a knife at him before getting to my feet quickly. He dodges the knife with ease and continues firing at me.

"Damn that's a nice gun." Lily says. "Ask him what kind it is."

"Why don't you do it?"

"I would but the view from these security cameras is much more interesting. I need to be here to call out the shots."

I'm slammed back into the wall. I try to bring my knee up but he moves his hand and pushes it back down. He's got my arms trapped at my sides so I do the next best thing.

I head butt him. Hard.

He swears and steps back away from me. I swing my leg out and kick his legs out from under him. He grabs my ankle and I end up falling with him. He swings his leg over my waist before I can get up, and pins my hands down with his. He gives me a sadistic smirk and I just barely resist the urge to spit in his face.

"I haven't seen you in a while. Kind of makes me think you've been avoiding me."

"You've got keen observation skills. I have been avoiding you." I grit out sarcastically.

I swing my leg up and my knee buries itself into his back. He releases the grip on my hands to catch himself from falling too far forwards. I grab hold of my dagger firmly before driving it into his side and shoving him off me.

He rolls off and jumps to his feet while I get slowly, cautiously to mine. He presses a hand in his side and just barely glances at the blood staining his shirt and coating his hand.

"Now that's not a very warm welcome. You're not a very good hostess." He says mockingly.

"And you're not a welcomed guest." I lunge at him and swipe my dagger out. He ducks at the last minute before bringing out the other dagger. He presses the button and the familiar hissing sound seems to echo out as the black blade takes on a glowing orange color.

He swings at me and I dodge to my right, the blade just barely missing my arm. I can feel the heat from it as it passes. Each blade is uniquely deadly in their own way. One's coated with a deadly poison, and the other's like a jabbing the end of a blow torch into your skin and holding down the button to ignite it.

I slam him back into the wall, creating a pretty big dent. He swings out at me again with his leg and I don't dodge fast enough. He gets in a powerful kick to my upper thigh. I pull my fist back before slamming it into his face. He catches my wrist before I can punch him a second time. He twists my wrist painfully into my back and I swing my leg back, hitting him in his shins before bringing my legs up, throwing myself forwards and rolling us both back onto the floor.

I roll myself away from him right before he brings the dagger down where my head had been not even a second ago. I grab hold of his wrist before he can bring the dagger down a second time. He delivers a swift punch to my stomach with his free hand and I struggle to keep my hold.

"Oi! Asshole!"

Garrett makes the mistake of turning towards her voice right as a the end of heeled boot smashes into his face. Luckily for him, and unfortunately for us, Lily had switched out her shoes, so this pair did not have any spikes on it.

Garrett curses and brings one hand up to his face, which is now sporting a broken nose and a split lip. He moves away from her on all fours before getting quickly to his feet. He sways for a minute and blinks to get the water out of his eyes and refocus.

Lily holds out her hand to me and I take it. She hauls me to my feet before swinging her crossbow off her shoulder and aiming it directly at Garrett as he shakes his head as if to clear it.

Lily whistles at him as if he's a dog. He finally lifts his eyes from the floor to her. His murderous gaze suddenly turns into a wide eyed stare, and he seems to pale.

"Let's see if you can walk away from three bullets to your chest or in this case, three explosive arrows."