Chapter 22: Chapter 22

THIRTEEN

You could hear a pin drop it's that quiet.

They all look at me and Devin shifts nervously on his feet. I can tell he's regretting asking me. I let out a tired sigh.

"The hike took longer than it should've." I start, taking my backpack from Devin and beginning to go through it. "Sun's going to set in an hour tops. I'd start getting your sleeping bags and such out now. We'll have to search through the building in the morning."

I pull out a flashlight from my bag along with a few extra knives. You can never be too careful.

"Where are you going?" Chase asks softly. I look up from the backpack to him.

"Don't worry about it," I say simply and turn and walk off down the hallway leading away from that room and into what used to be a storage room.

"We're going to die aren't we?"

I walk around one of the giant concrete pillars used to hold this building up, stopping next to another one...stained with blood.

"No. We're going to be fine, just stay awake alright?"

"You're a terrible liar."

"You'd be happy to know I've gotten better at that," I mutter quietly under my breath. I shake my head, trying to remove the memories, her voice from my head as I stare at the pillar.

"Or maybe you should just leave without me."

"Not happening."

I walk around the pillar to the staircase and walk up, slowly. Half out of caution, half because of my leg.

"You'd stand a better chance without me and-"

"It. Is. Not. Happening."

I walk across the empty floor till I'm standing underneath a hole in the ceiling, and I can see the sky above me. Everything's dark inside the building...but not as dark as I know it can get.

"I swear if you don't go now, I'll shoot you myself. Now go."

I walk around to the other end of the large room, my feet kicking at pieces of the ceiling and other random objects that have spent way too long here. I notice a long metal pipe in the corner. Perfect.

"You come any closer...and I'll shoot her."

I lift it up in my hands and turn it over a few times, banging it against the wall once to see how sturdy it is. This will work just fine.

"Last chance. Drop it."

I grip the end of the pipe tightly in both hands. I'll probably end up tearing through the stitches in my arm because of this. But this won't take too much effort since the whole building is basically already crumbling to begin with.

The blood runs down his face in a small trickle as he collapses, his eyes burning into mine as the life fades from him.

Eighty-three's gone.

"Please don't do this."

I raise the pipe high in my hands before slamming it back down into the floor below me, pieces of the floor cracking and flying upwards.

The bullets ring in the air. She drops to the floor, there's no rise or fall to her chest, no life in her body.

Sixty-one's gone.

"Stop! Please!"

I slam the pipe into the floor again and it begins to crack a lot more. Hopefully, the boys aren't standing directly below me...that would be unfortunate.

"NO!"

Blood begins to stain through his shirt, turning the once white shirt a dark blood red. He falls from the stack of crates and a loud crack sounds off as his head makes contact with the floor.

Thirteen's gone.

I take a minute and place my hands on my knees, bent over and breathing heavily...but it's not from slamming the pipe into the floor.

Two more gunshots echo out.

"Lily!"

Fifty-seven's gone.

I slam the pipe down several more times, trying to get the voices out of my head. Trying to get the screams and the gunshots to stop...but that's all I'm hearing. The floor finally begins to give way.

"She deserved it you know."

"I'm going to kill you."

The floor begins to crack and I immediately take several large steps backward as the hole in the floor begins to grow.

"You can kill me all you want but it's not going to change anything, and you'll still die."

"Stop talking."

Several large pieces of the floor begin to fall and I hear Devin's string of curse words from beneath me.

"What the hell? See this is why you don't spend nights in buildings featured in horror movies." He shouts, and as the ceiling falls away I can see him waving his arms around to emphasize his point.

"You've made a mistake..."

"I don't make mistakes."

"Oh calm down," I speak up and his head snaps up to me. I wave.

"Why would you purposely collapse the damn ceiling?"

I point to the hole in the ceiling above me before answering him. "We brought two lanterns and there's no way they're going to generate enough heat to keep all of us warm so our best bet is a fire, but I'm not going to die of smoke inhalation because there's no exit for the smoke."

"So you smash a damn hole in the ceiling?" I just nod in response and he keeps talking. "And a fire? What if that gets out of control?"

I gesture with a sweep of hand to his surroundings. "What is the fire going to catch on? It's all dirt and sand."

"I don't know about you but I am not dirt and sand."

"You're not going to catch on fire unless you continue to piss me off."

Devin snickers and walks out of view, I turn around and walk back across the room and down the stairs.

"You know perfectly well what I want, now where is it?"

"Sorry, I'm drawing a blank."

I walk back into the room everybody else is in, only now there's a pile of rocks and such in the middle of the floor and a giant hole in the ceiling.

"I don't think I can beat you, I know I can."

She clutches at the dagger in her chest, her eyes widening in shock as she drops to her knees. She falls forwards, no longer moving...no longer breathing.

Sixty's gone.

I shake my head again and place my hands over my ears as if it'll stop the voices in my head. The memories I've kept buried for years. I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"You good?" Chase asks and I just nod in response.

I notice Devin throwing a bunch of dried plants and sticks into a little ring of rocks he's made, he holds a lighter in his hands but before he can light his fire, Jason snatches the lighter from him.

"Hey! Give that back!"

"Give you fire? Not a chance in hell." Jason replies, wagging his finger at Devin in a condescending manner.

Devin crosses his hands over his chest and mutters something under his breath about setting Jason on fire while he sleeps tonight.

***

I wake up with a start. I shoot up instantly and my hand goes over my chest as if to try and still my racing heart. Tears prick the edges of my vision but I blink them back and glance around.

The fire's been out for a while now as far as I can tell and I just barely see that the sky's beginning to brighten. Though it's still very early in the morning. The boys are all still asleep as far as I can tell.

I run the sleeves of my hoodie over my face in an attempt to rub away the sleep...and the memories.

"You know I'm going to need a complete statement on what happened."

"I know."

I feel a hand on my shoulder and react on instinct. My elbow shoots back and I hear a curse of pain, but my mind is just too on edge to identify who it belongs to. I swing my legs over so I pinning him down and I press my dagger into his throat.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa calm down it's me." Cody's slightly panicked voice reaches my ears and I'm finally able to snap out of it. I roll off him, dropping my dagger onto the floor next to me as I lie on my back on my sleeping bag.

I place my hands over my face and just lie still. I hear Cody shift in his sleeping bag next to me.

"Did I cut you?" I ask softly, my face still obstructed by my hands.

"No. I'm fine."

I sit up and glare at him, he smirks at me and I grab my flashlight and shine it in his eyes. He scowls and throws his arm up to block out the light, but I'm just looking at his neck to see if there really isn't a cut.

I turn off the light and get to my feet, walking out of the building and taking a seat on the steps outside. The air's still cold and I'm glad I brought the hoodie and my sweatpants. I rest my elbows on my knees and put my head in my heads.

"What exactly did happen?"

"Garrett betrayed us, took us out one at a time...I couldn't stop him."

I hear footsteps approach me from behind before I feel a presence next to me. I don't bother turning my head to look at Cody as he takes a seat on the steps next to me.

"I'm not going to ask if you're ok, cause you're obviously not. Even if you say otherwise." He says simply, and I gaze off into the distance, he does the same.

"I thought I'd be fine," I mutter after a long while of silence. I notice him turn to look at me out of the corner of his eyes. "I thought I'd left all this in the past...I didn't think I'd have a problem coming back here...then again I never expected to come back here"

I pick up a rock from the steps and toss it out into the sand in front of me.

"I figured if I just stopped thinking about it and put it behind me, I'd be fine. That's clearly worked really well so far." I mutter bitterly.

I shake my head and stare at the floor, wrapping my arms around myself as a cold breeze passes over me.

"What happened?" Cody finally questions softly.

"It was a stupid retrieval mission. We were just supposed to go in, get what we came for and get out." I shake my head and let out a sigh. "The building was empty before we even got there. They had known we were coming. I knew that and the rest of the team knew that. We all knew that the only way they'd know to clear out before we showed up, was if someone from our agency told them."

I let out a bitter laugh and shake my head again. "I never thought it was anyone from our team. Then all of a sudden, guns were going off, there were screams, blood was everywhere...all hell just broke loose."

Cody just silently watches me. I hear movement in the building. "Come on." I motion for him to get up as I get to my feet. "Sounds like somebody else is up, and I'm praying it's not Devin."

He smiles at me, but there's a sadness to it and I look away as he gets to his feet. His hands grip hold of my arms and he spins me around to face him, his facial expression soft.

"It wasn't your fault." He whispers as if reading my thoughts.

"If you had been there, you'd know that's not true."

"I know you. And I know you would've done everything you could've possibly done to save everyone...and even though you didn't, that doesn't mean you didn't try." He puts his hands on my shoulders when I try to turn away, forcing me to look at him.

"It wasn't your fault." He repeats firmly.

"I wish that were true," I mutter and unfortunately he hears me. He gives me a flat look.

He rolls his eyes and stares up at the sky in exasperation for a moment as if he's totally done dealing with me, he shakes his head before locking eyes with me once again.

"You're impossible." He grumbles. "You can hit me later."

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. "Hit you? For wha-"

He smashes his lips onto mine before I have the chance to finish my sentence. It takes me a minute to recover from my surprise before I begin to move my lips in sync with his.

His hands grab hold of my waist and pull me closer to him. My arms snake up and around the back of his neck.

"Hey! Look what I found!"

Cody pulls away and lets out a string of curse words all directed to Devin. His hands stay on my hips keeping me in place. I shake my head and move my hands down till they're resting on his chest.

"Why is it he always interrupts everything? He has the worst timing ever." Cody grumbles and I laugh lightly and remove myself from his arms.

"He's Devin," I respond. There's really no other explanation needed. "And I'll be hitting you later."

I walk up the steps leading back into the building and I hear Cody follow.

"I swear I'll get him back. He'll pay for what he's done. I promise."

I never break my promises...but the one thing Lily never knew about that one...

I was never talking about Garrett.