A/N: okay we're getting reeeeeally close to the last chapter this is so exiting
"So, are we all in agreement that Thomas needs to die?" I asked, from the backseat of the car, squeezed in between Alexis, Hayley, and Valerie.
"I'd say so," Valerie replied.
"It's the only way this can end," Pluto agreed from the driver's seat.
Hayley just nodded, clearly haunted by Sean's death, more then the rest of us. She leaned her head against the window, purple residue still on her face.
We all turned to look at Alexis. "Well," she said. "I can't condone murder. And this is my brother we're talking about. I don't exactly want him to die. But he's ruined so many lives, done so much irreversible damage, that if it comes down to that, I'll allow it. Sometimes the ends justify the means."
I couldn't help but think that Beatrix would agree with that. I hoped she was okay, wherever she was. And Marcus too, I supposed.
"How are we gonna do it, though?" Pluto asked. "I mean, you can hurt him with your your powers, but how are you gonna get close enough to him to do that? Do we even know where he is?"
"Well, he'll be underground, most likely," Olivia said. "Unless he went back to the orphanage, to wait this out?"
"I doubt it," I said. "He'd want to stay here and watch it all unfold."
"What if he has Beatrix?" Valerie suddenly asked. "And Marcus? I mean, they were out on the streets so he could have found them, brought them back underground?"
"So, does this mean we're going to go rescue them?" Alexis asked.
"We're going back underground?" Hayley asked.
I looked over at Olivia, and felt a wave of sympathy wash over me, as I saw the fear in her eyes. Then, it went away, being replaced by a look of determination. "We have to," she said. "They're our friends. We're not leaving them behind. They helped rescue me, so we owe it to them. And if Thomas is there, then we're going there anyway."
"So it's settled," I said. "We're going to Oakwood Drive."
As we drove through the night, my heart twisted as I thought of Beatrix, stuck in Thomas's clutches. Was she locked in a cell? Was she being drugged, tortured? Was she even still alive? I felt sick with worry for her.
And Marcus, of course.
"Alright, we're close now," Pluto said. "Are we sure we wanna do this?"
"We don't have a choice," I said quietly.
"I love you guys," Olivia said. "No matter what happens tonight."
"You are the best friends I've ever had," I told them. "Thank you for always being there for me, and I'm so sorry for dragging you into all of this."
"Don't even," Valerie said, leaning her head on my shoulder. "If it wasn't for you, I would have never understood my powers."
"Not to interrupt this touching moment, but we have a problem," Alexis said. "A big one."
We all turned to look at her, and she pointed out the window. We had pulled up to Oakwood Drive, and as I looked down the line of trees, I saw dark vans parked everywhere, and outside them, were people in vests, holding guns.
"Okay, so that's kinda bad," Pluto said. "It looks like it might be a bit hard to get into the underground facility without anyone noticing."
"Maybe we won't have to," I said, leaning over Alexis to look out the window. Beatrix was standing beside one of the armoured guards. My heart leapt in my throat when I saw her. Beside her stood Marcus. For a girl who usually stood tall and confident, she withered beside him, her arms crossed over her chest defensively.
"I see them," Olivia said. "And they see us. Maybe we can cover for them while they run to the car?"
"There's no way we can all get back to the car without getting shot," Alexis said.
"She's right," Pluto said. "Have you seen the size of those guns?"
"It's about the number of bullets and how many come out at once, not the size of the gun," Alexis expained, but no one was listening.
"We can try texting them," Valerie suggested.
"Oh yeah, because the guards will be totally cool with them just texting people when they're clearly hostages," Pluto said sarcastically. "They probably don't even have their phones."
Hayley said. "It doesn't look like anyone is really paying attention to them. They don't look like prisoners."
"We're about to be prisoners!" I said, as some of the guards started to approach the car. Even if we had wanted to, it was too late to drive away now.
"Step out of the car, or we're gonna open fire!" one of them yelled, interrupting our plan making.
"What do we do?" Valerie whispered.
"We could step out," Pluto suggested. "I'd rather not have my car get ripped up with bullets. Or, you know, any of us."
We opened the doors, and got out, as the guards surrounded us. "Don't make any sudden moves," one warned us. "And let's walk nice and slowly over there."
As we walked, I made eye contact with Valerie, nodded my head towards the guard that stood behind her, then wiggled my fingers slightly. She nodded, showing she understood, and was waiting for my signal.
"We got em," one of them said into his walkie-talkie. Alexis walked behind me, at the back.
"I hope you have a plan," she murmured under her breath.
They walked us until we were in front of Beatrix and Marcus, who didn't look all that happy to see us. "Are you guys okay?" Hayley mouthed.
"We're fine," Marcus said, not mouthing back, but speaking openly like he wasn't afraid the captors would hear him. Because they weren't captors, I realized. They didn't need to be rescued, but now we sure did. "We've chosen the winning side."
At first I hoped he was joking or something, or he wanted us to play along. But then I looked at Beatrix, noticed how she looked away, not meeting my eyes, and my stomach dropped.
"What is he talking about?" I asked.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But there was no future with you. They would have gotten us eventually, and it was the only way out."
"I should have known," I spat. "Once a double agent, always a double agent."
She didn't respond. She didn't even look at me. And I couldn't bring myself to look at her.
"Wait, where's that cute little girl in the red dress?" one of the guards asked.
"Her name is Evianna," Beatrix snapped. "And she has special orders to be inside."
"Who told you that?" he demanded. "I didn't hear anything about that."
"Why would you?" she asked. "You're very low ranked. No one is going to tell you anything."
As the two began to argue, I watched as the attention of the guards went to them instead of us. Taking the chance, I looked over at Valerie, who met my eyes, and I nodded. We broke away from the group, and I slammed my shoulder into the guard in front of me.
Two of them went for Alexis, and she brought them down easily, stealing a gun while she was at it. At first I was surprised at her skill, then I remembered she was an agent, of course she would know this stuff. Thank God she was on our side.
I saw five of them surrounding Valerie, who looked colder and more pale then ever. As I was about to go rescue her, Marcus got there first.
"Nice try, but you're not going anywhere," he told her with an evil smirk like he was some kind of superhero movie villain, and not a highschool kid.
"Fuck you!" she yelled, bringing her foot down on his shin and making him keel over. Then, there was a burst of light blue light, and I winced at the brightness and looked away. When I looked back, I saw that the the guards around her had fallen to the ground, gasping and grabbing at their throats, which had a solid block of ice wrapped around them, quite intricately.
I looked over at Beatrix, and watched as she casually stepped behind the guards by her side. As they started forward towards us, they suddenly stopped, a strange look on their faces.
Taking the opportunity, I hurried over to them, where Valerie stood, her chest heaving. "I think I'm beating it," she whispered to me. "I don't feel that sick anymore. Is it over?"
"It's not over until I say it is," Thomas said cooly, coming up to us. I hadn't even noticed him approaching.
He turned to the guards that Beatrix was standing behind, and his eyes narrowed. "Where is your friend Evianna? I specifically asked for her to be here."
"She said Evianna had special orders to be inside," one of them snitched.
"Did she now? Well I don't remember giving her any such orders," Thomas said cooly.
He looked over at the guards with the ice around their throats, regarding them with disdain, as if he were unimpressed that they could not simply melt a thick block of ice with their hands, then turned to the ones that Beatrix was standing behind.
"Kill those two," he said, nodding towards Pluto and Olivia. "I have no use for them." Pluto jumped in front of Olivia as the guards raised their guns.
The bullets flew forward, but I quickly stopped them. With a bit of focus and some adrenaline, I made them hover in the air two feet from my friends's faces.
"You can't deflect all of them," Thomas said cruelly. He started to speak, but before he could complete the order, all eight of the ones near us raised their guns to their heads in perfect sync, and pulled the trigger, the blank expression never leaving their faces.
Hayley screamed and Valerie let out a tiny gasp, going rigid with shock. Alexis took her arm, pulling her back to stand behind us. I barely breathed, staring at the bloodied corpses.
I turned my head slightly, and saw Olivia clinging to Pluto, tears rolling down her face, seemingly also unable to look away. They held her tightly, as if trying to shield her from the world. The two of them looked at me in panic and despair, but there was nothing I could do to help them.
I could not look away either, and I didn't notice as everything around us fell into chaos. I could not look away from the blood spurting out of the wounds, the way one of them was still alive and lay twitching in the dirt.
Then, someone grabbed my other arm, ripping me from my spot. For a moment I barely processed what happened, then I broke out of my trance, and ran like hell into the forest.
I stumbled over roots but somehow stayed on my feet, never looking back, but desperately hoping my friends had made it out as I heard the bullets whizzing through the air. I heard pounding footsteps behind me, and ran faster.
Eventually I fell, scrambling behind a rock and gasping for air, my heart hammering against my chest. Then, my chaser fell down beside me.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Beatrix gasped.
"You made them do that," I whispered.
"I had no choice," she choked out. "Don't you get it Damira? I didn't spy on you for Thomas because I'm an evil person. I didn't go back to him now because I didn't care about you. I didn't kill those people because I want blood on my hands. Don't you understand? Everything I've done has been to try and keep myself alive. To keep you alive."
"I know," I whispered. "I should never have thought you were a traitor."
"Oh, but I am," she murmured. "I just betrayed a lot of very armed, very angry people." I pulled my knees up to my chest, feeling sick to my stomach as I saw the blood sprayed on her shirt and face. "And I would do it again," she said. "I would betray and kill a million people for you."
"Don't say that," I whispered, terrified at her words. I didn't want that from her.
"But it's true," she replied breathlessly.
"Where's Evianna?" I asked, moving the subject along.
"She's underground. Destroying as much of the labs as she can. It wasn't hard to convince her to switch sides." She got up shakily. "I'm gonna go up ahead, keep a lookout."
I didn't bother asking for what. I doubted she would tell me. She started to walk away. "Beatrix," I called softly. She turned back to look at me, and it was all silent for a moment. Then she ran into my arms, kissing me hard. But it didn't feel like a love kiss. It felt desperate. It felt like a goodbye.
Then, she started to head away, without saying a word to me. "Wait," I called, needing one question answered. "How come you didn't get one of the guards to shoot Thomas? Then he'd be out of the way."
She paused for a moment, an indescribable emotion crossing her face, and I knew that as much as she hated him, she wasn't able to to kill him. Whatever ran between them was deeper than I thought.
"I was saving him for you," she finally said with a grin, before heading off. Whether or not that was true, it didn't really matter.
I turned back to where I had come from, my heart pounding. Then, the ground began to shake, so hard I almost fell over. I whirled around, and saw a figure approaching in the opposite direction. I couldn't make out who it was, but I could see the way the roots in the earth started to slither out of the ground like snakes.