Chapter 22: Chapter 22

Thirteen's POV

"Wait." Zack says as he grabs hold of my arm again. He looks back at the body and grimaces, his face turning even paler than before.

I look over again but I don't see what he sees. "What?" I question.

He takes several reluctant steps towards it and points. "Didn't Lydia have a bullet wound in her shoulder because of Sam?"

I look at where he's pointing as I mover closer. I kneel back down and probe at the shoulder with my fingers. Zack gags.

"I didn't point it out so you could do that!" He shouts in complete panic.

I roll my eyes at him but continue picking through the slash wounds on the shoulder. They're all just that, slash wounds. No bullet holes.

"You're right." I tell him as I push myself back up so I'm standing. I look back at the necklace in my hand. Zack eyes it too.

"So..." He trails off. "What does this mean?"

I stare at the necklace a while longer. It was a gift from my mom to Lydia, that much I remember her telling me. And she never took it off, even if you couldn't see it, she was always wearing it.

Finally I reply to Zack. "It means someone seriously pissed off Lydia."

Zack pales further. "She did this!?"

"They want her dead," I reply "so she gave them a body." I toss the necklace back onto the body.

"Who did she kill?"

"Probably a guard that came in. Without them running a DNA test they'll assume its her. That buys her some time. Of course the body would have to be unrecognizable."

"I hate your family." Zack mutters quietly.

"Come on." I grab his sleeve and pull him back into the hallway.

"Where are we going now?"

"Did we find Lydia?"

"Well I guess not."

"Then where do you think we're going?"

"After seeing that, I don't want to find Lydia."

I roll my eyes and glare at him, but it's wasted since it's so dark, he can't see me anyway. We move quickly further down the hallway when I hear it. Footsteps coming towards us. I start to call out a warning to Zack but before I get the chance we collide with whoever was moving down the hallway towards us.

I'm thrown backwards into Zack and he can't keep his balance. We go falling over with me landing on top of him.

He lets out a high pitched screech as he lands in the sludge on the floor.

"And here I was worried you were a couple of guards. After that screech I'm assuming not."

"Lydia?" I question.

"Yeah." I hear her grumble as she gets back to her feet. "Which one of the boys did you bring down here that screamed like that? Cause no matter how girly that sounded I know it wasn't you or Lily."

"Zack." I reply as I help him back to his feet.

"Is there an exit back the way you came?" Lydia asks. "There isn't one that way."

"Yeah. This way." I turn, grabbing hold of Zack who I'm pretty sure has gone into shock, and quickly going back the way we came.

We make it out of the hallway and into a slightly more lighted area and I can clearly see Lydia now. My eyes widen slightly as I take in her blood covered hands and arms, her blood soaked clothes, and the long gash starting at her hairline and running down the side of her face to her jaw, just barely missing her eye by less than an inch.

"Holy Shit!" Zack shouts and stumbles back a step. Lydia just crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at him, daring him to say more.

Zack clears his throat before speaking again. "You look quite lovely."

I laugh and Lydia just looks amused.

Gun fire echoes outs as soon as we exit and make it back to everyone else.

"About time!" Lily shouts as she reloads her crossbow while Devin covers her with his gun. She raises the crossbow back up and begins to fire. "You find Lydia?"

"Yeah." I reply. Lily turns to look at us and raises an eyebrow at Lydia's appearance, before then looking questioningly at Zack, who's still pale.

"What's up with him?" She asks. I fake ignorance and shrug in response.

"Where's Chase and Cody?" I question as I begin to pull knives out my boots.

"Cody woke up in the middle of the shooting and him and Chase moved up to try and keep Garrett's back up dancers from coming down any further." I smile slightly at her choice of words as she waves her hands dramatically, gesturing to the bullets still flying. "They're keeping them up there but they're not keeping us from getting shot at." She grumbles.

"Stay back with Zack and Devin. I'm going to move up with Chase and Cody. When I tell you to, you push up and we'll see if we can't get these guys to fall back." I tell her.

I stay as close to the wall as possible as bullets fly by me, but I still can't see well enough to tell where they're coming from exactly. I nearly run into Chase and Cody.

"Glad you could make it." Chase mutters, never taking off his eyes away from the staircase about fourteen feet away.

"How many are left?" I question as I stay low and up against the wall opposite to him.

"Not sure." Cody replies. "Nowhere near the amount they started with, but it's too dark to actually tell."

"Lily push up." I order into my earpiece.

"On my way." She replies.

Bullets fly past me in both directions as Lily approaches from behind with her gun drawn, he crossbow slung over her shoulder. She keeps her eyes focused on the fight and stands opposite to me, slightly behind Chase. She keeps herself ducked behind him as she reloads.

Chase looks back at her for a second. "Are you using me as a human shield?" He questions her, and there's no disbelief in his voice because he knows it's something she'd do.

There's a sparkle in her eye as she replies. "Of course not. Using my fellow teammate as a human shield in a life or death situation. Why, I'm offended you think I'd do such a horrible thing."

"You already shot Cody."

"Ok now that was actually an accident."

I roll my eyes as the two of them continue to bicker back and forth, but to their credit, neither one of them ever takes their eyes off the fight before us. Neither one of them loses focus.

That was one of the things I always loved about Lily. No matter how many times she would crack jokes, pull pranks and sing at the top of her lungs, she'd always be ready for a fight. She'd never lose focus of what really needed to be done. She always knows what to do, even if it seems like she's nothing more than a little child tagging along for a field trip.

"Devin, Zack, both of you push up..." I trail off as I wait for a break in the shooting. Just by counting bullets, these guys have to be reloading soon. Or at least a couple of them have to be. Any break in the shooting, no matter how small, is welcome.

"Now." I say when there's finally a break in the shooting. Devin and Zack come up behind me, bickering and shoving at each other the entire time. Zack goes and stands behind Lily, and Devin comes up behind me.

The shooting continues on, with me occasionally throwing knives as someone gets too close to us. Lydia stays back, a gun in hand, just in case there was an exit we missed and someone else comes up behind us. Suddenly all gunfire stops, and it's dead quiet in the hallway.

Cody and Chase go ahead first, checking the stairwell to make sure it's clear. Cody nods his head.

"Did we get them all?" Lily questions, but there's a look of confusion on her face. "Or did the rest just retreat?"

Chase shakes his head. "I couldn't tell."

"If they retreated I'd be curious as to why, and to where." Lydia says as she comes up behind us.

"As long as we have a clear shot out of here, I'd say it really doesn't matter that much." Devin interjects.

"Devin's got a point. We came here to find Lydia-mission accomplished-nothing else, so I say we get the hell out of here while we have the chance." Chase agrees.

Zack shakes his head before jerking his thumb in Lily's direction. "She brought detonators."

"So?" Chase questions at the same time Cody says, "That really doesn't surprise anyone."

"So, I say we use them. We have a chance to take out one of Garrett's stronger bases. We should use it."

"If another fifty guards come after us-"

"That's a bit of an exaggeration."

"-we're going to lose." Chase continues as if Zack didn't interrupt him.

"And if we don't take this chance now Garrett will more than triple the guards here. We'll never have this opportunity again."

"It's not our problem."

"Garrett is our problem. That's the mission that was assigned to you."

"And we have Garrett, in case you haven't noticed."

"There is no way that's going to last long." Zack shakes his head. "He's probably already escaped-"

"You don't know that."

"Oh for the love of..." Lily trails off as she pulls her flashlight off her belt and shines it in each of their eyes. "Shut the hell up!"

Both of them turn to her, stunned at her outburst. She lets out an angry and irritated huff. "You're both giving me a headache." She then tosses Zack a small black rectangular device.

"What is this?" He asks her.

"The remote to detonate the bombs, now can we please get the hell out of here?" She shoves past both of them roughly and starts up the stairs.

"Wait a minute," Chase says and stops and turns to look at him, letting out an annoyed sigh. "you've been setting bombs the entire time we've been here?" She rolls her eyes as if it's the stupidest question anyone could ever ask her.

"I have never liked Lydia. I did not come here for a rescue mission. I came here to blow shit up." She states before turning on her heel and marching the rest of the way up the stairs.

All heads turn to look at me. I just shrug. "Not quite sure what you all want me to do about it." I say as I start up the stairs behind her.

We all move through the twists and turns of the base as quickly and quietly as we can. Unfortunately we're not quiet enough, and it isn't long before bullets are flying by us. We all duck into one of the rooms and slam the heavy metal door behind us. Chase and Zack shove several tables and large bookcase in front of it after locking it.

"That's not going to hold them for too long. We probably just bought ourselves an extra ten minutes, fifteen tops." Chase says.

"Well good thing for us that the exit is just through this next room them." Lily says as she point to another door on the other side of the room and runs ahead with the rest of us following closely behind.

We all come to screeching halt. Three guys stand in front of us, blocking the exit. None of them make a move to come towards us and instead each of them just raise a strange looking gun, aiming them at us.

They're completely decked out in all blank, bulletproof vests, several different types of weapons, and some strange black helmets with visors that completely cover their faces. Not an inch of skin is visible anywhere on them. I realize immediately that these guys are some of Garrett's higher ranking men, and they'll be more difficult to get past.

Difficult. Not impossible.

I realize just a split second before they fire what their guns actually are. They're flamer throwers. "Get back!" I shout as I push everyone back into the room we had just come out of. I slam the metal door shut behind us just a nanosecond before the flames reach us.

"We can't go back the way we came." Devin says.

"Yeah well, now we can't go that way." Chase replies. "We aren't exactly fireproof."

"We could wait for the flame throwers to go out." Zack suggests.

"No," Cody interjects. "by that time they'll have an entire army outside that door."

"Well then what do we do? Eventually they're going to get through that door."

Chase barely finished his statement before the door flies off its hinges as something is thrown into it.