Fallen

Chapter Nineteen

We turned the corner and submerged into darkness. "Ben, wait up." I slowed to a stop in the abandoned, quiet street. Ben turned, an eyebrow raised in question. "We need to go find Wong."

Ben shook his head. "Wong will be fine. He's trained like you, remember?"

It was my turn to shake my head. "No, you don't understand." The next words tasted bitter in my mouth. Oh, Ben will be mad. Mad that Audrey was with Wong on top of the building and with the heavy shooting – Ben wouldn't be amused.

"Before you say anything," my hand raised toward him as if I could stop the storm he was about to unleash, "I want you to remember how annoying your sister is."

His grey eyes scanned my face before he looked up at the building beside us. The building was dark and a skeleton like the rest. He looked back at me, "Are you implying my sister is with Wong?" His eyebrows were so high, they could have disappeared into his airline.

"The earpieces weren't working and if we took her back we would have missed that whole thing."

Ben said nothing, a heavy puff of air escaped his chest, a hand ran through his hair. The storm I had expected didn't surface. "Well, let's go get her." He pointed a finger at me, "Don't think you are off the hook either."

He walked into the building. I followed him, watching his shoulder tense as we made our way up the staircase to the roof. From where we stood and where Wong and Audrey was, there were boards that acted like a walkway between beams, gaps, and rotten flooring. The boards underneath our feet were bolted down and were wide enough to comfortably walk across, but the fear of falling to our deaths was present.

We walked across several buildings. The soldiers who aided us from the top of the buildings were packing up their equipment beside the edge of the roof. None of them looked up at us as we walked by. Seeing the number of soldiers made me feel better about sending Audrey up here with Wong. Nothing could have happened to her with so many of them around.

At the last building, we didn't go to the roof, but down one level into the building. The building was one of the few that still had walls and floors intact but the windows were shot out.

Entering the building, it was dark but there was a little light that came through the windows that were closest to the street I had been on moments before. There was no talking, no noises while we crossed the empty level to where Wong and Audrey were stationed.

"Audrey?" I called.

No silhouettes of two people were against the many windows. The area looked abandoned in the semidarkness. They must have already gotten out.

There was a moan. A soft moan and then a wet cough. I looked up at Ben who was scanning the area. "Audrey?" I said, looking back to the row of windows and focused beneath them.

Three-fourths down the line of windows, a body laid on the floor. I ran to the spot, my feet echoing through the floor and a second later Ben's joined mine.

Reaching the body, Wong laid on the floor. Specks of dry blood from coughing splattered on his cheek. Down on his stomach, his fingers were red, ruby red in the light from the street below.

"Wong!" I searched for any fabric to hold to the wound the blood was seeping out of. There was nothing nearby, I pulled off my jacket and pressed it on his abdomen. Behind me, I heard Ben calling for aid with his communicator.

"I told you," Wong said weakly. "I told you, I didn't want her."

"I know," I said. There was a lot of blood. Too much blood. And where was Audrey? Panic took a hold of my heart, squeezing it so hard I thought I may black out. "Where's Audrey? What happened. Wong tell me."