[A/N] This chapter will be edited later when the book is complete! Don't mind any typo's because they will be fixed :) Also, I'm between moves, and had serious writers block while writing it :x Plus, I'm not a violent person, so sorry that this chapter probably sucks. . . But I hope you like it anyway :x
The sound of gun shots all throughout the warehouse had my ears ringing, but that wasn't the least of my concerns at the moment. I was in a dark room with my brother and my ex-boyfriend—both gang members, both had guns and both were willing to shoot the other if they had to. That's kind of something to worry about, right?
No one said anything for a while, but the small emergency light lit the room and I watched as Jayson stared from me to Trace and back and forth with an angry gleam in his eyes. “So,” he began, “this was your little plan? Shut off the power and then try and attack me?” Grinning to himself, he shook his head and began pacing back and forth behind his desk, his eyes never leaving my brothers. “I've gotta say, I expected better from you, Trace. Not only did you disobey me, no, but you helped that faggot Haydn attack my men?” All was silent again for a few seconds, but then anger took over all of Jayson's features and he flipped his desk.
Him and Trace pointed their guns at each other at that very instant, and I saw a small grin on his face now. Trace was the one to speak though. “If you think your little diversions are going to distract me enough to drop my guard, you really have lost your touch.”
“Oh please,” Jayson interrupted, “I've lost my touch? At the first sign of me hurting someone you love, you just dropped everything and ran off to find someone else's help. I've lost my touch?” Shaking his head, he blew out a sigh and brought his finger down on the trigger of the gun, making me gasp a little. Not loud enough to hear, thank goodness for that. “You never a touch!”
I was about to comment on how that wasn't really a threatening thing to say, but Trace beat me to the punch. “Oh, please. I never had a touch? Every girl you've gone after was smaller than you—hell, smaller than me! And then, you had the audacity to go after my sister?” Angrily, he shook his head and looked at the gun in his hand for a second before looking back up at Jayson. “The only reason I didn't kill you the moment I found out was because you saved my life. Plus, I didn't think that you would dare put your hands on my sister. So I stood by and I watched, quietly, and without making myself known to anyone. Things seemed fine for a while, but that was only when I wasn't around, wasn't it?”
That was probably meant to be a question, but judging by his tone, I knew that it was an accusation. That wasn't really the thing that had caught my attention though. 'He knew the entire time that I was dating Jayson, and he didn't step forward when I needed help? Not even once?' I shook that off, knowing that we would both make it out of here tonight and that we could talk in the morning, and I watched as the rest of the scene progressed.
“Yeah, but even if you had been watching when everything had unfolded, what could you have done? You were—and still are—in debt to me, and you can't lay a hand on me.” Jayson grinned when he said that, but Trace didn't so much as move a muscle.
“Yeah well,” he said after a small silence, “I can't be in debt to you if you're dead, right?” And right before my eyes, I watched Trace pull the trigger and hit Jayson right in the shoulder. I jumped when he pulled it again and shot Jayson in his forearm, making him drop the gun and scream out in pain. But that wasn't the end of it, because as soon as I began to say something to Trace, he shot Jayson again; this time, in the thigh, making him fall to the ground and blood spread around the small room. I knew he wasn't dead, Trace hadn't hit any critical spots, but he was in a lot of pain, and I knew that he probably wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon, let alone taking part in the gun fight that was happening on the other side of this door.
Even with that being the case, the sound of the shots going off had put me in shock, and Trace noticed this because he ran over to me and gave me a quick shake before finally getting my attention. The look in his eyes was a relieved one, but that quickly vanished when I narrowed my eyes and shook my head at him. “You knew what was going on and you didn't do anything about it?” He opened his mouth to answer, but quickly closed it back when he realized he had nothing to say. That was answer enough for me, but I didn't say anything else on the subject. “How exactly am I supposed to help here, Trace?”
Knowing that I was referring to the fight, he walked over to Jayson's somewhat conscious body and grabbed the gun that he had been holding. After checking to see if it had any bullets, he handed it to me and laughed when he saw that I had no idea what the hell I was doing with it. “It's not as hard as it looks, Adri. You just,” moving behind me, he placed my fingers where they needed to be, “hold it like this, and pull the trigger whenever someone—who isn't from Haydn's gang—comes up to you. If they try to hurt you,” he turned me around to face him, “do not hesitate to shoot them. It's your life or theirs, and I'm not losing you tonight because of this. Do you understand?”
Not trusting my words, I nodded and watched again as he walked over to Jayson and threw a hard punch at his face, the only light showing me what was going on being the small emergency light in the corner. Once Jayson was completely knocked out, if not dead, Trace opened the door and motioned for me to follow him out into the ring of fire. Someone was already right outside the door, and Trace didn't hesitate when it came to shooting them right in the face. I jumped at how gory he was being, but like he said, it was life or death and I didn't want to die tonight.
I'm sure he didn't want to either.
“Come on, Adri.”
We both moved through the shadows of the warehouse's main floor, and I watched, horrified as blood splattered everywhere and bodies began piling up. Trace had to shoot a few people while we were on our search for whatever it was we were looking for, and for a minute, all was silent.
Just as I let out a breath to calm myself down, I heard footsteps in front of and behind me, so I panicked and turned around, pulling the trigger and just barely missing Haydn's head. I breathed out a sigh of relief when I noticed that I hadn't hurt him, but all my anger came back to me from about an hour earlier, and I'm sure he noticed. He just didn't care. “Are you guys OK?”
Trace answered for me. “Yeah, we're fine. Jayson's in his office, probably bleeding out as we speak. Did you set up the trap?”
Haydn nodded and gave a cocky smile. “You know I'm not one to procrastinate. Anyway,” he looked down at me, but away when I wouldn't meet his eyes, “we have to get rid of everyone in here, and then destroy the evidence. When I click this button.” he raised his hand and revealed a small remote with a red button on the top, “everything blows up, and everyone inside this building—alive or dead—is going to be blown to bits. Trace,” he looked at my brother, “I'll give you a ten second warning, but if you're not out by then—”
“—I already know.”
They exchanged nods, and it was just now that I noticed that the person who was running up to Trace was Haydn's brother. That didn't calm me down at all because I knew that they were all risking their lives to ensure my safety, and what kind of person would I be if I just let them die?
Trying to be discrete, I reached for the remote, but Trace grabbed my arm and shook his head 'no,' which angered me. “I'm not letting you guys die for me tonight. I won't live with that guilt if something happens to you!” I was going to continue, but in the distance, I saw a shadow moving and making their way over to us. Pulling my hand away from Trace, I quickly raised by hand and shot at the shadow, watching as blood splattered on the wall and the person fell. The three boys looked at me in shock, but I simply ran off and continued looking for people to shoot so I could get everyone out of the factory and out of harms way.
Haydn was the only one who followed after me, leaving our brothers together to go fight, and I guess this was his attempt to get me alone, but I wasn't ready to hear whatever it was he had to say. Not now, anyway. “Adriana, you have to give me time to explain.”
“I don't want your explanation.”
Right above our heads, someone shot out the emergency light, making me shriek and making Haydn shoot out in the distance, hitting something and making someone scream before they fell to the floor. I wasn't sure what the person looked like, but judging by their voice, it was female. The image of how Jayson shot Christina in the head with no remorse popped up into my head and before I knew it, I was vomiting behind two stacked up boxes.
Haydn didn't try to console me or anything, but why would he? Like he said from the very beginning, I was nothing but a puzzle piece to the mission that he wanted to have finished. Me being scared to the point of vomiting wasn't really something that he was all that concerned with.
“Adriana,” he said in a stern voice, “this isn't any time to get sick. We need to move, and we need to move now.”
Before I could ever answer, the sound of gunshots in the background got to me, and I screamed when one grazed right past me and hit the box that I was using to keep myself up. Haydn didn't hesitate when it came to shooting in that direction, and I watched as he shot and the person fell to the ground in a pile of blood. Using that as my motivation to keep moving, we both ran off in the direction we had initially chose to run in, and I noticed that on the opposite side of the warehouse, Chase and Trace were shooting people left and right without so much as breaking a sweat. 'I guess since they're used to this stuff it would be easy to them. . .'
That thought quickly left my mind when Haydn pulled me in their direction and we both had to shoot people that were coming after us. I missed quite a few times, and eventually ran out of bullets, so I did the first thing I could think of. I threw the gun right at the persons head and watched as they fell to the floor in pain.
Gunshots continued to go off all over the warehouse, and I watched as Haydn pulled out a walkie-talkie and called out all of his surviving men to leave the warehouse. People from all over scrambled to get out of the building, and just as my brother came into view, I heard a gun shot, and he stopped running. I was confused at first, but when I looked over in the direction from where the sound came from, I saw Jayson leaning against the wall with a gun in his good hand and aimed at my brother.
My heart sank to my stomach and I watched as he pulled the trigger again before falling to the ground himself.
“Trace!” I shrieked before running over to his body and putting his head in my lap. “Oh my god, Trace, no. . .”
Coughing up blood, he shook his head and shot me a small smile. “I guess we both won't be making it out of here alive. . . But sis,” he coughed again and brought his bloody hand up to my face, “I'm sorry I wasn't a good brother. I know that I wasn't always there for you when you needed me to be.”
By now, tears were streaming down my face and I shook my head in disbelief. My brother couldn't be dying because of me. Had I just never got attached to Jayson. . . Had I just kept my distance, none of this would have happened. “Trace, you can't die!” Placing my hand over the wounds, I pressed down and tried to stop the bleeding, but my attempts were proven worthless. He was bleeding out in my lap and there was nothing I could do to stop it. “Please, please don't die!”
He shook his head again, now staring out in to the random space in front of us. “I'm sorry I wasn't good to you. I'm sorry I couldn't stop this, but I do love you, Adri. . . You're the reason I came back.”
Still shaking my head, I pulled his head closer to my torso and I continued to cry out. I'm pretty sure I heard someone running up to me, but Haydn shot them before they could do me any harm. That of course was the last thing on my mind though. My only sibling was dying in my arms right now and I'm supposed to care about my own life? I couldn't even begin to think straight!
“Adri,” he coughed again, “you have to do me a favor.” Pulling away, I looked at him and nodded. “You have to live. . . For the both of us. Don't stop fighting, and just don't. . . Give up.” I nodded at him, not trusting my voice anymore now than when I watched him shoot Jayson earlier. Before I could even say anything to him though, his body went limp in my arms and I knew that he was gone.
Still, I looked at him in shock and shook my head. “Trace?” I asked, even though I knew I wasn't getting an answer. “Trace? Trace!” I shook his now dead body and only cried further when I knew he wasn't coming back. Somewhere in the background, I heard someone calling me, but I ignored it and continued to cry into my brothers dead torso. I guess whoever was calling me didn't really like that I was ignoring them because they ran over to me and all but dragged me away from Trace's body and out of the warehouse.
I screamed and kicked and did everything in my power to get back inside to retrieve my brothers body, but the person holding me had placed me in the back of what I was guessing was my brothers truck and held me down as someone else hopped into the drivers seat and drove off. I was still putting up a fight, but my whole body froze when I heard a small beep and I watched out of the back window as the entire warehouse was engulfed in flames. A look of terror found its way to my face, and before I knew it, I was unable to move, think, react, or anything.
I wasn't sure what to do and before I knew it, everything around me faded to black.