War of Hearts [Gang!Calum AU]

Part 7

"That's enough!" Ashton shouted, coming up behind Michael and forcefully pulling him off of Calum, who let out a short breath now that the other blonde was off of him.

Calum watched as Michael breathed heavily, pulling the black cap off his head and running his fingers through his hair, pushing the strands back before putting it back on in its usual backwards position. He looked away from Calum, shaking his head and rubbing his hands down his face, the room being draped in an eerie silence. Tensions were running high and no one dared speak; from what they knew so far, most of the Sabers were dead, Vick was dead, Sean was recovering from the bullets whoever had taken Ruby put in them, and they still had no idea where she was. Or how whoever got her found her.

There were cameras all around the safe house, and when Calum and the others arrived they saw that they were broken. But Avi, the resident tech whiz right after Michael, had instantly gotten to work on hoping to recover any data he could, hoping there was something on the backup servers that would tell them what the fuck happened while they were gone. They were still waiting on him to finish, and as soon as Michael arrived, he was demanding to know what the hell had happened and taking his justified anger on Calum.

And he let him, because this was Michael's sister, and Calum had screwed the fuck up. He was torn between having a breakdown of his own, in disbelief over how he could've let this happen. He had just seen her. He'd just been with her—just kissed her, and now she was gone. Calum had promised Ruby he would come back, promised that he would come back for her. But someone had beat him to it. They'd taken her and Calum was having trouble thinking straight because he could literally feel his mind beginning to melt in numbing panic.

"I've got it!" All eyes snapped to Avi, who was running into the room with his laptop in his hands, everyone gravitating towards him as he settled it on the coffee table in the room. Calum, Michael, Crystal, Luke and Ashton were at the front, everyone else gathering behind them as Avi clicked a few buttons on the keyboard. "I was able to retrieve the footage from all of the cameras before they shot them. The one on the porch wasn't able to catch a car—I'm thinking they shot it from a distance—but the others—"

Michael's patience was long gone. "Just fuckin' play it."

Calum stood, sharp eyes on the screen with his hands clenched into fists at his sides, ignoring the stinging pain in his right hand and how the flex of his muscles protested against the quick stitches on his left bicep. They watched the black and white video playing, and Calum held his breath at the sight of Ruby, sitting in the same bedroom she'd sat in when the Riders were having their meeting about the plan that night. There was no sound on the cameras, the screen split into four sections, showing off four different rooms; the one Ruby was in, the kitchen where Vick was, the living room where Sean was, and the upstairs hallway that led to Ruby's room.

He watched as Sean on screen instantly jumped up from where he was on the couch, turning around to face the front door, off camera, before there was a flash coming right from there and he was dropping to the floor. At the same time, Vick was pulling out his gun, firing off a few shots, ultimately getting dropped after a bullet buried itself right in his forehead, killing him instantly.

There was a collective intake of breath from the group as they watched one of their own drop, his blood still in the kitchen and body resting in one of the back rooms. But there would be time to mourn later.

The faces of two of the three men that infiltrated the safe house could be seen, Calum vaguely recognizing them as mid-ranking members of the Sabers, but they had yet to see the face of the third one. Calum watched, jaw tight, as Ruby scrambled off the bed as soon as she probably heard the gunshots from downstairs, and he felt his chest constrict at the sight of her alarmed, frightened expression on the black and white screen.