Remember the Past

Chapter 39

   Clearly, Savannah had either encountered this before or has been trained in the event they are discovered.

We duck into a metal storage building. For a few brief seconds the sound of bullets stop. I hear the exaggerated sound of my heavy breathes as it echoes off the tin. It's so dark that I can just barely make out the silhouettes of old machinery and broken furniture that lay scattered across the room.

The drum of the helicopters is quickly drowned out by the sound of pounding footsteps. "Foot Soldiers," Savannah whispers into my ear.

I hear one of them shout. A moment later a 'tink' sounds on the outside of the building. When a beeping starts, I am confused until the wall is blown in.

I scream and Savannah helps me cover my head, but grips my sleeve to keep me standing. Instinctively I want to hide, but then we'd be trapped.

Savannah hurries me to the back before the smoke clears. I can hear over a dozen soldiers already charging through the smoke.

This time they ran into an old apartment building. The windows are broken and the doors are unhinged. That doesn't matter now. We just run through the ground level. It's like a maze maneuvering through the walls and gaps between cement barriers. Savannah seems to be an expert, never taking a wrong turn, although, glancing around I can see dead ends left and right.

When we make it to a back store room, Savannah closes the door and we wait, breathing hard in the dark. I can hear the soldiers running through the building, shouts from lost and frustrated soldiers.

After a few minutes of waiting I am about to ask Savannah what she plans to do now, when another explosion goes off. It is close, clearly they are fed up with searching. The walls around us rumble, but we are far enough away that the wall holds, besides a shower of dust from the ceiling.

Then all goes quiet. Did they give up? The question is on the tip of my tongue when a door, that I was unaware of, opened behind us.

I gasp, frozen in fear. I think they found us, temporarily blinded by the light flooding in, until my eyes focus and I see that Colin is reaching for me. I take his hand and his puts a hand on my back to guide me forward.

I hear him give Decker a command once the four of us are clear of the building. I cover my ears as a string of explosives go off. Glancing over my shoulder as we flee the scene, I see the building collapsing, every floor down to the main level where the explosives were located.

We are caught in the cloud of debris as we make our hasty exit. I feel chunks of concrete and pieces of scrap metal cut through my clothes and graze my skin. I turn back and watch as the helicopters emerge from the cloud of smoke retreating, clearly thinking that their mission is over.

When we get back to the university Morgan and Mitch are awaiting our arrival, no doubt seeing the commotion in town from afar and noting my disappearance. They check us over. There are no major injuries and after they treat our for the scrapes and bruises we received, we are sent to our dorms to clean up. It feels more like a punishment as we wait there until they call us for one-on-one debriefings. That's when I know I'm in deep trouble, and not just for leaving the university.

When it was my turn to talk to Morgan and Mitch, they ask me to explain everything that happened while I was in town. After I finished Morgan asked. "What did you and this woman talk about?"

"She just told me that I wasn't welcomed here," I explained.

"So you didn't give her any information?" Mitch inquired.