Chapter 29
Claire stirs, and I’m clutching a knife in one hand, a gun in the other. I don’t know what she’ll do when she wakes up. She might stay there, or she might charge at me like a bull. She’s not a very good fighter, so she’ll go down easily. At least, I hope she will.
When her eyes flutter open, she looks around, head on the wall. She finally spots me and groans. It’s quiet for a moment or two, and I’m watching her every move. But I jerk away when the lights of the studio come on.
The power is on. Someone of the Vinges turned it on. They’re ready to send the cue out. There’s a scream that comes from upstairs, but it doesn’t sound like a girl’s. Some gunshots go off, and a bunch of loud rumbling and thudding noises pound the floor. I wince at the noises and look back to Claire, who is now fully staring at me.
“What happened to your leg?” She asks quietly, in pain.
“You’re fucking boyfriend broke it,” I hiss at her. “But don’t worry, I got him back.”
“Piers isn’t my…” And it hits her. Her eyes widen, and she looks around. A full sob leaves her mouth when she sees Riker in a pool of blood around his head. A couple more sobs leave her mouth, and I stay silent, just simply watching her.
She’s a bitch. She leaves Piers, but I can understand that. But leaving him for Riker? It’s messed up. Riker doesn’t even know how much pain he was in, what she put him through. Leading him on like that was the dumbest idea ever.
When she’s finished crying, she looks to me numbly. “He was my true love.”
I feel a little remorse, but it bounces off me just as fast as it came. “He deserved it, just like you do, you two-faced bitch.”
She glares her hatred towards me. “No. I’ll just get revenge, I’ll kill your true love. Better yet, I’ll have Graham do it. I wonder where they are now…”
As if on cue, another gunshot goes off. I panic and look towards the ceiling. I want to get up there, I need to see if he’s okay. I’m suppose to be helping, for Christ’s sakes. I can’t even move, I’m so friggin useless.
“Well you know what,” I snarl at her. “Since you miss Riker so much, why don’t you go join him?”
I take the gun that I was hiding behind my back and cock it. She sees it and starts sobbing hysterically. She starts to struggle in getting off the ground. But I’m quicker. The bullet hits her chest, and she dives into the floor again, this time unmoving. I sigh deeply, squeezing my eyes shut. She’s dead. And I have no remorse, at least, for her.
I instantly feel bad for Piers. I have to be the one to tell him she’s dead. But not only that, I have to tell him I’m the one who killed him. I’m the one who shot her in the chest. I’m the one that killed his ex-girlfriend that he probably still cares about. And now she’s gone.
I clunk my head to the wall, eyes still closed. Now I’m stuck here, alone. I don’t even know if the cue was sent out. The machines are all over on the other side of the wall, but I can see them. I could probably shoot them and they won’t work anymore.
So it’s exactly what I do. I raise my gun and in a line, I shoot the machines one by one. I don’t know what they do, but all I know is they won’t work ever again. Let’s hope those were the machines that were suppose to send out the cue. If not, I just wasted a lot of bullets that I could’ve used.
Someone is coming down the stairs. I can see their legs. I have a 50-50 chance that it’s either going to be one of my teammates, or the other side. So pushing the gun to the floor behind my back, I go limp against the wall, stopping my breathing completely and shutting my eyes. If they think I’m dead, maybe they’ll go away.
I hear a laugh. It’s a sickening laugh, so I automatically know who it is. “Get the fuck up, Scarlett. I know you’re not dead and unless you want to be, I suggest you open your eyes.”
I peal open my eyes to stare into Graham’s soulless ones. “Did you send the cue out yet?”
His grin is purely insane. He looks pretty bruised up, but still functional. “No, not yet, darling. But oh no,” He looks to the machines I shot, “what are we going to do? You shot the machines!”
I want to growl at him. But I stay silent, watching him walk across the empty room. He steps over Riker, not even glancing at him. He was just a step on the stairs, something he needed to get higher to his goal. Behind one of the machines, he pulls out a safe and secure laptop. He comes back closer to me, about ten feet away. And then he glances to the side, looking at the bleeding Claire.
The grin drops, replaced with a cold stare. “You killed her?”
“In the most painful way possible.”
He growls, opening the laptop and takes a seat on the wooden chair in the corner. The TV/Radio station was a decoy. He could’ve sent the cue from anywhere in the world. They just needed us here to kill us all. Slowly, I start taking the gun that’s behind my back.
He laughs, eyes not even looking away from the computer. He pulls out a gun from his jeans pocket. “Scoot the gun this way, lovely, or you’re the one that’s going to end up like Claire.”
Grunting, I chuck the gun at his feet. It hits his foot and he pauses on his computer. “Watch it, sweetheart.” And then he continues, gun still pointed at my face. All I can do is watch him. But he doesn’t know that I have a knife in my hand, hidden underneath my broken leg.
“Alright,” He says after a while, putting the laptop down near his feet. He twirls it around so I can see the screen. It’s completely dark, except for a loading bar. At the top if it, it says 37% and it’s slowly increasing. “Now that that’s done, let’s have a little fun, shall we?”
He cocks the gun, coming a little closer. “Where is the most painful place I could shoot you with you dying? Oh, I know…how bout that broken leg of yours…”
Before he can do anything, I chuck the knife at the hand that’s holding the gun. It swipes across the top of his wrist and he drops it in surprise. But at that exact moment, Ace comes in out of no where and throws him into the wall. They start rumbling and trying to kill each other.
Ace struggles against the hold on Graham. “Scarlett! The laptop!”
My eyes widen and I look to it. 58%.
I remove myself from the wall, grunting out in the process. I flip myself over so I’m on my stomach, which hurts like hell. My leg is crying and begging not to do this, but I have to. So I grasp the cold floor and lurch myself forward. I cry out loudly, my leg getting to me. This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
Taking a couple deep breaths, I lurch myself forward again, but it’s not as much as the first one. My leg is weighing me down and I’m being blinded by pain. I glance at the screen and see it’s on 70%. Ace jabs a punch into Graham’s face and turns to me in a panic. “C’mon, Scar, I know you can do it!”
“I’m trying, it’s not easy!” I scream back at him.
Grunting some more, I lurch myself forward again. It’s barely at my fingertips. One more and I’ll be able to grasp it. So screaming out in pain, I grab the laptop when I get close enough. I look at the screen and see it’s on 85%. “Ace, what do I do now!?”
After he’s done receiving a punch from Graham, he dodges another one, and sails one at his enemy. “Find a way to stop it!”
Well thanks, Ace, you really helped me on that one.
Struggling, I try and find a way to close it out. There’s nothing. I search and search the screen, looking at every little cubic inch. And then I see something in the bottom right corner. I click it, and a little password box pops up. “Ace, I need a password, and fast!”
“Uh,” He swerves to the right, just in time to dodge a punch of Graham’s. “I know it, I found it before in that empty room!”
“Tell it to me then!” I scream back at him.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Graham seethes, trying to jump towards me.
But Ace is faster and knocks him to the floor. He rolls up his sleeve, the same arm I caused a faint scar to appear there a long time ago. On his arm, in sloppy marker is the password. “It‘s 225389 !”
As fast as possible, I type that son of a bitch in and hit enter. I look at the screen desperately, praying that the password works. I watch the bar, hoping it goes away.
But instead of stopping, it goes up to 96%.
I cry out, turning to Ace. “It didn’t work!”
“Fuck!” He shouts, knocking another punch into Graham’s gut. “I don’t know, then!”
I watch the screen, wanting to chuck the computer across the room. Maybe if I break it before it sends it out nothing will happen.
97%.
98%.
99%.
Error: Program stopped.
The computer then goes to a blank screen. Relieve floods through me more than it ever has before. “It stopped!”
“Thank God!”
“No!”
Graham goes into full rage mode. He starts throwing punches left and right at Ace. Grunting, I look to the gun that’s a couple feet away from me. I lurch towards it, grabbing onto it. Ace is on the floor now, and Graham looks ready to murder him with his hands.
So I send a bullet through his head.
He collapses onto the floor, and Ace stares at him with wide eyes. He looks over to me, shocked, unsure of what to say. But I smirk, despite all of my tiredness and the feeling that I’m going to pass out. “Ready to get on that plane to Europe?”
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Geez, sorry I haven't updated. I've spent the past four days locked away in my room watching the first and second season of The Vampire Diaries. Seriously, no joke. We just got Netflix and I've always wanted to watch that show and HOLY CRAP IAN IS HOT. I pretty much already know what happens in the next couple of seasons (thanks a lot, Wikipedia). But I don't know EVERYTHING, so no spoilers. ;)