Alex Rider: Trouble Never Stops

The End of the Night

Holding his small handgun, loaded with knock-out stun darts, out in front of him, he peaked around the end of the wall, half way down the stairs.

He saw a man with a pistol leaning lazily on the wall near a door.

Then he heard yelling. He didn't understand the words, but he knew it was coming from the other half of the basement, behind that door.

Luckily, the guard hadn't seen him yet, but he wasn't going to wait for the man to look up at the stairs. He aimed at the guard's left leg and fired.

After a hiss of pain, he was out in seconds, falling to the floor with a thud.

Eagle quickly went down the rest of the stairs and ran up to the unconscious man. He had a single key on a cord connected to his belt. Eagle figured it was for this door.

He took it off and went to the door. Using one hand to hold his dart gun up, he used the other to unlock the door. If someone was in there, he was ready.

He opened the door to come face to face with a large man. Before the other man realized he wasn't the door guard, Eagle was already pulling the trigger. The dart hit the right shoulder. For good measure, he followed up with a punch to the face. He was too impatient to wait the short seconds for the dart to kick in.

The man fell to the ground to reveal another person behind him.

Cub! He found him!

The young man...kid to Eagle....was sitting, no, tied to a chair. The next thing Eagle noticed was the cuts and bruises on his face.

Eagle wasted no time, going over to untie Cub.

"You alright, Cub? Ready to get out of here?" he asked. He didn't need to ask what happened. He could figure that out himself, now noticing the brass knuckles on the unconscious man's hand.

"Yep, just....give me a second.." Cub responded, slowly getting to his feet.

Cub took one steep, and almost fell forward, clutching his stomach. Eagle ran over to help.

"He get you in the gut, too?" he asked, nodding to the man on the floor.

"Ya. a few times" Cub said, through sharp breaths, as they opened the door

"are the others upstairs? I'm assuming we're in a basement, right?" he asked, seeing the stairs leading up

"Yep. just waiting for the all clear, then we'll go up." Eagle said, helping Cub sit down against the wall, and sitting himself.

"Good. Did Jack and Fox make it back alright?"

"Yep. Fox is on his way here to pick us... and our new friends...up."

"How long will the darts last?" Cob asked

"About an hour. No worries." Eagle assured him

At this point, Eagle noticed that Cub was starting to nod off.

"I'm no medic, but I don't think sleep is the best idea for you, based on those head hits. Can you stay up till we can see Snake, who is a medic?"

"I Know, I'm just...tired....its late..."

"Just stay awake. How's school going?" Eagle said, trying to keep talking

"Alright. Gonna have a lot of work to do when I get back, though. If I get back by tomorrow night...or i guess tonight as its morning... i'll have missed 4 classes, and a night that I planned to do a lot of work."

"You'll get it done. After all, you graduated high school, and you weren't there half the time'

That earned a small chuckle

Just then, Eagle's field phone rang, saying that it was safe to go up.

"That's our que. Think you can get up the stairs?"

"Is there railings?"

"Yep"

"Then...maybe"

Cub and Eagle got up the stairs and the pair met up with the rest of their team.

Unfortunately, Wolf and Snake weren't able to find Chase, but they did help B-unit with the rest of the goons.

Once they got upstairs, Snake started  fussing over Cub and his cuts and bruises. Cub just needed a few bandages for some gashes, and an order to take it easy and ice the bruises for the next few days. 

in about 10 minutes, Fox and another Agent arrived with 2 vans for the new prisoners, and they where all loaded with goons, SAS men, and agents . Eagle got in the original van with Cub, Snake, Wolf, and 2 others from B-unit.

A few minuets after they started on the road, Eagle looked in the back view mirror from the passenger's seat, and saw that Cub was fast asleep, head leaning on the window.