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As I opened the door, my eyes fell on an empty room. I let out a frustrated sigh as I searched the room for any sign of the guys. I was going to seriously think about killing Sharon if she lied to me and set me up! This was ridiculous and I was really agitated. None of us spoke as we all exited the room and started flinging open doors up and down the hallway. If anyone were around, they surely would have come to investigate the gunshot.

“Any luck?” I asked, already knowing the answer, as we all gathered back in the hallway.

“Nothing.”

“Nope.”

“There are six stories in this place, so that leaves five more that we have to search,” Sarah grumbled. “We better get to searching.”

“How are we going to do this? I mean they could be anywhere in here and I don’t know how much more luck we have, when it comes to fending off gang members.” Kelly sighed.

“THERE THEY ARE!” someone shouted from the doorway. We saw two guys appear at the far end of the hallway.

“SHIT…RUN!” Erika shrieked as we all scattered.

“Come on, Blake. Keep up!” Sarah shouted as she grabbed my arm. She whipped me around so I was in front of her, then she shoved me into a room. I stumbled as I saw her slam the door shut.

“Bitch, you better move aside,” I heard a male voice right outside the door. I began to panic and searched the room for something to use as a weapon. Coming up with only a board, I tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge.

“Fucking great,” I mumbled as I continued to tug on the knob. I flew back, landing on my ass because the knob broke. I let out a sarcastic chuckle of sarcasm and ran my fingers through my hair. This was not turning out to be as easy as we thought. So, I figured I would call for back up. Guess what I realized at this point. My dumb ass dropped the damn backpack in the other room, where the guys were supposed to be! Leave it to me, to do something so idiotic!

“I said, MOVE!” I heard the voice boom.

“Suck…my…non…existent…DICK!! Then, you can go screw yourself,” she replied in that cocky voice that I had grown accustomed to. Okay, so this must be where she gets killed. To be honest, I was sitting on my ass, waiting for the gunshot.

“Excuse me?” the man questioned. He sounded surprised.

“Oh,” she giggled sarcastically, “I’m sorry are you deaf?”

“Don’t test me or you will join those pitiful guys in the basement.” I snickered, now I got it. She was pulling an age old trick…I just didn’t realize anyone was stupid enough to ACTUALLY fall for it! Do the bad guys ALWAYS divulge the information like that? Seriously? How retarded is that, anyways? Hello…it IS a tad bit cliché, dontchya think?

“Ooooo. I’m so terrified,” I could, almost, hear her eyes roll. “You just have to ask yourself one question, ‘Do I feel lucky?’. Well…punk, do ya?”

“That’s it. Come on, you’re going to the basement with the others.” That’s when I heard a grunt, followed by a bunch of scuffling and some loud bangs. I heard a thud, like a body hitting the ground. Here I am, still sitting on the floor like a pussy and she is out there getting her butt whooped on. Some kind of a fake husband I am turning out to be!

“Let’s go,” she looked down at me, from the doorway.

“Wha…?” I shook my head in disbelief, then I saw a bloody lump on the floor behind her and a metal pipe in her hand. “How?”

Do me a favor and remind me to NEVER get on this chick’s bad side! I mean COME on! Isn’t the chick supposed to cower behind her knight in shinning armor? Oh nooooo, not in THIS action movie…the guy is cowering behind the chick in shinning stilettos! Okay, so she wasn’t REALLY wearing stilettos, but you get my point. I really got to man up my game, and NOW.

“Never mind, that, right now. We have to find the guys! So, break time is over,” she arched an eyebrow and rested her free hand on her hip. I scrambled to my feet and ran to grab the backpack before we headed to the stairwell.

“So, how did you do it?”

“I spotted the pipe on the floor, so I kicked him in the nuts and made a dive for it,” she explained as we flew down the stairs. Our stealthy approach had gone out the window, this was now a full on war zone! I heard Dani cussing loudly as someone as we passed the second floor. Kelly had just broken some other guy’s nose, right before we passed them on the stairs.

“The flood gates have been opened,” Erika shouted as she passed us, heading up the stairs, followed by a swarm of other girls.

“They’re in the basement!” Sarah shouted as we continued our descent. We finally came to the bottom of the stairs.

“Wha…” I began to question the fact that the stairs stopped, not on a basement floor but, the ground floor that we had entered through.

“Where’s the damn basement? He said there was a mother fucking basement! Why is there no basement? SHIT!” she was tugging at her hair as she frantically looked around. Suddenly she stopped and looked out a nearby window.

“What is it?” I asked as I followed her gaze.

“Come on, follow me and don’t fall behind.” She instructed as she barreled through the emergency exit door and back into the night air. Her legs were carrying her as fast as they could and I was close behind her as we approached a building that was right behind the warehouse.

“Do you think they were onto us?” I asked quietly as we reached the building.

“Who knows, but they aren’t in the warehouse, so we have nothing to loose,” she said as she crawled into a window that was level to the ground. The window was somewhat small, so I had a bit of difficulty getting in. As I finally wiggled through the tight space, she helped to steady me so I wouldn’t hurt myself, and then we looked around at our surroundings. There were no lights on, making it very dark and it was deathly silent.

“I can’t see a thing,” I whispered.

“Here, hold my hand and we’ll just feel our way through,” she replied, barely above a whisper. I shifted the backpack on my shoulder as we slowly walked forward.

“This isn’t turning out as well as we hoped,” I was nervous and my stomach had been flipping constantly since this whole thing started.

“Shhh,” she hushed me as she slowly opened a door. Peering outside of the room, she listened for several moments before tugging me out into the hallway. We continued down the hallway at an excruciatingly slow pace. Sarah made frequent stops to listen to our surroundings. I was beginning to think this was a VERY bad idea. There were, still, no lights and now that we were further into the building, it was even darker than before. I’m not exactly sure how she could see where we were going.

I remained quiet, as she opened various doors to find each different room empty. I was, quickly, loosing hope but never stopped my silent prayers. Every muscle in my body shook as both our heads turned toward a faint noise.

“It came from that way,” I whispered as quiet as I could.

“Come on,” she tugged on my hand as we moved toward the source of the noise. It took us a few minutes to reach the room because we were moving so slowly, trying not to make any noise, ourselves.

“There it was again,” I said in her ear. She brought her ear close to the door. The firm squeeze she gave my hand told me that we had, indeed, found where the noise had come from. Listening for several minutes, we only heard a few faint noises.

Sarah bent down and felt around the floor. After she stood back up, she grabbed my shoulders and positioned my on one side of the door before handing me a large object. I wasn’t sure what she was planning, at this point. I could tell that she was standing on the other side of the doorway.

Suddenly I heard her throw something down the hall and it landed with a loud bang. It finally clicked as I held the large object over my head. We waited for a few minutes but no one exited the door, so she threw another rock, or whatever, down the hall. Again, no one came out.

“I think we found them and they are alone,” she whispered. I could tell she must have been grinning as she opened the door.

“Hmmmm! Mmmhph Hmphmmm,” we heard a muffled voice.

“Bri? Aje?” I questioned quietly.

“Hmmk?” I heard the muffled response. I felt a sudden surge of excitement.

“See if there is a flashlight in the bag. We can’t risk turning on the lights,” Sarah instructed. I could hear her feeling around for the guys as I pulled out a flashlight. I flipped it on to see Sarah carefully peeling the tape off Brian’s mouth.

“Oh thank Gad,” I gasped as I looked at his face.

“Nick?”

“Yeah, Bri, it’s me,” I answered as I ran over to hug him. “where’s Aje?” I looked around the room.

“I kind of need that light to untie your friend, here,” Sarah said with a bit of annoyance.

“He’s not in here. I don’t know where they put him,” Brian answered with sadness in his voice. His face was a bit bruised and he had a bloody lip but it looked like that was the worst of the damage.

“Great,” I groaned.

“Look,” Sarah interjected. “Obviously, there aren’t any gang members in here, or if there are, there aren’t many. So, you take Brian back to the rest of the group. You will both be safer there and I will find AJ.”

“No. You said we were sticking together and that I was to stay with you no matter what the cost,” I argued.

“Plans change,” she replied as she undid the last knot that was restraining Brian.

“Not this time. I am staying with you and that is final.”

“You BOTH will be safer with the group. The police are probably here by now and they can protect you better than I can,” Sarah’s voice was not harsh but was filled with concern and urgency. “I will find AJ and meet you back there, okay?”

“Listen to me,” I began to raise my voice a slight bit. “We are NOT separating. There is power in numbers. The three of us are better off, if we stick together. I can’t let you go by yourself that would be stupid.”

“Um…guys…this really isn’t the time to be arguing,” Brian interrupted, quietly.

“Brian is right,” Sarah sighed. “You two better get moving.”

“Look, Stephanie. There is only one flashlight. You know damn well that I won’t be able to make it out of here, in one piece, if I can’t see; and you can’t save AJ if you can’t see. We started this together and we are finishing it together,” I continued to argue.

“Quit being dumb,” she was now raising her voice, too.

“Uh…guys?” Brian tried to get our attention.

“I’m not being dumb. I can’t just let you go by yourself. What kind of a jack ass husband would I be?”

“HUSBAND?!?” Brian voice pierced the air.

“You aren’t really my husband,” Sarah argued.

“Yes, technically I am. Remember? Blake and Sarah Lawrence? Yeah, according to the WPP and the government: WE…ARE…MARRIED! Okay? Face it. Until we get out of the WPP or you divorce my sorry ass, we are considered, by law, to be married; whether it actually happened or not, doesn’t fucking matter because we ARE Sarah and Blake now. So yeah, I am not leaving you…DEAL WITH IT.”

“Husband?” Brian questioned again.

“YES DAMN IT,” I yelled toward Brian. “I’m a married man. At least, our new identities are married,” my voice softened.

“Wow,” Brian sounded shocked.

“Fine. Let’s go then. Just…” Sarah growled, “just stay close and don’t hurt yourself. By the way, it’s nice to meet you Brian.”

“Yeah, you too. Thanks for rescuing me,” Brian pulled her into a hug and then gave me one. “I missed you, Nicky.”

“I missed you, too, Bri,” I hugged him back. We all exited the room and headed off to find AJ.
Chapter End Notes:

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I hope you all are enjoying how things are unfolding. Please let me know what you think. I am getting more and more anxious about the next chapters and hope you are, too.
Thanks, as always, for reading.