How to Keep a Secret

Chapter 15- Pain

We silently scanned the floor, making sure all was empty. "You watch the roof access point, I'll watch the stairs," Roger said, turning away from me to face the stairwell. I turned towards the door leading to the roof, and we were silent.

The only noise was the gentle wind rustling the few abandoned papers that lingered on the floor. I don't know how long it was like that, but after the longest of whiles I heard Roger take a sharp breath. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" I said, turning my head around to face him.

"The sound of a gun reloading. Very faint, sounded kind of like a..." he trailed off as he turned his head to the right, then to the left.
"Sniper," he said, turning fully towards me as he tackled me to the ground.

And not a moment to soon. As soon as we began to fall to the ground I heard two bullets whisk by from the window on my left-- two bullets that would have hit me had not Roger thrown me to the ground. I grunted as my back hit the hard floor, Roger's full weight on top of me.

"Are you okay?" He asked, slightly lifting his body from the floor so that he wasn't crushing me, yet our bodies were still touching.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Did you just... save me?"

I instantly regretted my words. How much more stupid could I sound? It was only a tranq dart, for crying out loud.

Despite my stupidity, Roger cracked a small smile. "I suppose so."

His unique eyes glittered in the dim moonlight, bringing the flecks of gold in his irises into higher contrast. Our faces were inches apart, and I could feel every inch of his hard body as he held himself above me. I temporarily forgot where we were, and the question of why he hadn't stood back up yet eluded me.

After what seemed like an eternity he stood up, and held out his hand to help me up. Both our backs were turned from our original lookouts, facing each other instead.

"Thank you."

"Of course. I couldn't just let my partner get shot, now could I?" He said with a soft smile on his face.

That smile sent shivers down my spine-- but what made my blood run cold was seeing someone encased in shadows slowly reach the top of the stairs and raise his gun towards me, or rather, towards Roger's back.

Time seemed to stand still. I quickly shoved Roger as hard as I could to the side as the shadowed figure fired, turning to face Roger and meet his inquisitive eyes with my determined ones as the tranq dart pierced my chest.

Then everything exploded.

Well, at least my senses did. As soon as the dart pierced my skin it felt like fire was running through my veins instead of blood, and I collapsed to the floor.

I heard screaming coming from somewhere, and I vaguely heard the sound of bullets firing and of someone being beaten to a pulp somewhere.

As I writhed in pain I saw Roger's face appear above mine, filled with worry. Worry? That couldn't be right. And how could he be screaming if his mouth wasn't open?

Oh. That was me screaming, not him.

I quickly attempted to stifle my screams by moaning and groaning instead, feeling as though I was being skinned alive. "Gracie, you're going to be okay, it's not real, I promise," I heard him say. His voice was more like an echo, barely audible through the wall of pain that consumed me. I watched him gently raise his hand to caress my face, but I couldn't feel it-- the pain was everything, numbing my skin, poisoning my organs.