Chapter 142

The door was right ahead of her.
All Rain needed to do was push through that door and head around the side of the medical building, run around the side, and make her way back to camp. Hell, she even knew how to get there if she cut right through the woods and swing around so that there was little to no chance of any of the Mothers catching up to her.
She had the thumb drive in her pocket. That was all they needed, other than just killing as many Mothers as possible. Once she got back to camp, the commanders could call the rest of their forces back, and then, they could bomb the hell out of the building, killing every one of those bitches and destroying them once and for all. Without this building, the Mothers wouldn’t be able to survive. At least, that was the impression Rain had gotten from how they were defending it.
So why was she hesitating?
It all seemed too easy.
Was there an explosive device on the door? Maybe there were Military Mothers on the other side of the door, ready to shoot her down.
No, she knew she was being ridiculous. Other Quebecian forces had been coming and going through various doors all day, and none of them had been blown to smithereens, at least not that she knew of. Why would this particular door be rigged?
It wouldn’t be. She needed to go.
Rain slowed as she neared the hallway next to the door, though. A bad feeling in the pit of her stomach told her that she shouldn’t just stick her head out there. Taking a deep breath, she pressed herself against the wall and then quickly took a peek out into the hall.
Immediately, gunfire came in her direction from her right, which didn’t happen to be the way she’d been looking. She was lucky she was fast enough to get out of the way.
She had no idea how many Mothers were firing on her since she’d been looking the other way. No footsteps seemed to be headed toward her, which meant they were already close enough that they thought they could take her out the next time she ducked out. If she was stupid enough to do that. Enough bullets had come her way that Rain wasn’t thinking she should be bold enough to try again. After all, she was on the edge of the building now. There were other doors she could run to.
If she had a grenade left, that might be another story. She could toss an explosive down the hallway and then make a run for this door, but she was out of those, so she had a choice to make.
“Rain Gretchintown!”
Or maybe she had no choice at all.
Rain looked up. Her name had been shouted by a Mother through the public address system. Her heart was thumping in her chest so hard, Rain could hardly believe she’d heard her name at all. Perhaps she was delusional.
“Rain Gretchintown! Your presence is requested at The Bridge.”
“The Bridge?” Rain repeated. What the hell? Why in the world would she go there?
She didn’t recognize the voice. She thought about shooting the speaker, but that wouldn’t actually kill the person talking.
“If you value the rebels that left with you, find your way to The Bridge, Rain. Now.”
A wave of terror washed over Rain as she tried to process what that might mean. The rebels that had escaped with her? Did someone have one of her friends at The Bridge? Was that possible? All three of them had left the building. Surely, they wouldn’t come back. If they got out, why would any of them come back?
She knew the answer in her head before she could even process the answer.
She knew who would come back, and she knew why
Rain looked around--how did she get to The Bridge from where she was standing?

* * *

He needed to find Rain.
Adam ran back to IW--again--not thinking about where he was going, only that he was going. He had to find Rain before something awful happened to her. But he had no idea where she was at or how he was going to find her.
Hopefully, by now, Lightning had gotten all of the information they needed off of the computer and made her way out of the building. He hadn’t seen her anywhere, though. It was possible she might’ve gone a different direction.
Wouldn’t Rain have gone with Lightning? If so, surely she would’ve gone the same way that he went, knowing that it was the most direct way to get back to camp.
Not necessarily. There were some other places she could’ve gone, and there could be logical reasons why she might be there.
He just needed to keep his head clear and think.
Adam was almost back to the building. He wasn’t waiting to see if more snipers were waiting in the surrounding windows to fire down on him this time. He flew across the ground as quickly as he could go, his boots kicking up dirt and grass as he tried not to trip.
The door he’d used as an exit was around the corner. It made sense that Rain would use that door because it was the one closest to where she’d been when he’d left her. Likewise, he knew that he’d have access to the offices if he went through that door. If he went through any other doors, he might not be able to get back into the Dicks’ area where they’d been.
Deciding it made the most sense for him to go back the way that he had come, Adam charged around the side of the building, glad he wasn’t faced with a barrage of gunfire.
He had to slow down before he got to the door. There was a good chance that the situation had changed in the hall since the last time he was there. He’d had to kill quite a few Mothers to get out, so there was a good possibility that more had headed in since he had left.
Holding his breath, Adam poked his head around the corner and looked through the gap in the door. As quickly as he’d exposed his face, he pulled it back.
No one appeared to be there. Adam sucked in a deep breath and moved as quickly as he could across the opening in the door to lean on the side that hadn’t been broken open when they’d escaped. With his gun at the ready, he spun around and aimed. Again, the hallway appeared to be empty.
It would’ve been great to have a comm about now.
With no other option but to duck through the opening, Adam moved as quickly as he could through the jagged metal, catching his hip on a piece of metal. HIs uniform kept him from getting cut, but it didn’t feel good.
Once he was in the hallway, all he could see were the bodies he’d left behind and lots and lots of blood.
Some of it looked fresher than the rest, which concerned him, but there was no body lying next to that pool of crimson. Not letting his guard down, he glanced around the corner. Again, there was no one. Just a lot more blood. The white wall was covered in it.
He was certain that hadn’t been there when he’d left, but he had no way of knowing whether it was Mother’s blood or one of his ally’s.
One of his friend’s.
Or even Rain’s.
No, Adam couldn’t let himself think that that was a possibility. Surely, if she was gone, he would feel it, wouldn’t he? The same way he was fairly certain that Walt was no longer with them, wouldn’t he feel it even more if it was Rain?
Deciding it was best not to think about the blood at all, Adam headed down the hallway toward the office, the last place he’d seen Lightning, where he hoped Rain had returned to after she’d dispatched the invading Mothers--hopefully.
It didn’t take long for him to run down the hallways that led to the office. It was so quiet in this part of the building, he could hear the lights above him buzzing. His footsteps seemed too loud as they echoed off of the white floors. In the distance, he heard some gunfire now and then, but it wasn’t close by at all.
Maybe he was the last one left.
While he was out escorting the Dicks and carrying Walt across the open spaces into the woods, maybe the rest of the soldiers had gotten tired of fighting the Mothers and took off. Or maybe they were getting ready to bomb this building from the air, not realizing there was still a Quebecian troop left inside.
HIs imagination was running away with him. If that was the case, Rain would say something. She’d stop them from bombing anything until he was located.
Wouldn’t she?
What if she couldn’t?
Adam wiped the perspiration on his forehead on his sleeve. The bulletproof material didn’t do a good job of absorbing liquids either. The sweat beads rolled up on his arm and trickled off. He needed to get a grip on himself.
Being back here, in these same hallways where he was tortured for all of those years was unsettling, to say the least. He’d known it would be before he’d even began his training. Still, as mentally prepared as he’d hoped to be, he was struggling with it now.
The buzzing of the lights was beginning to crawl under his skin. Why did they have to be so loud? Had they always been that loud, or was this some sort of new, noisier bulb?
The office was ahead of him on the left. His gun was at the ready. Only a couple of other doors were visible in the hallway. He knew one was a supply closet. The other one he thought led to a control room, but he wasn’t sure. He just needed to see if Lightning and Rain were still in the office.
Adam approached cautiously from the side. Unlike most of the other rooms, the office had a glass window in the wall next to the door, as well as a window in the door. Apparently, whatever happened in the office needed to be extra transparent.
Just as he had jutted his head out to ascertain whether or not a sharpshooter was awaiting him, Adam pressed his back to the wall and then peeked his head around to look in the window. He backed away quickly enough, and then stopped to process what he’d seen.
Lightning was in there, sitting in the chair in front of the computer. He thought the data was still running along the computer screen, though he hadn’t looked long enough to make sure. Was it taking this long for the data to be transferred? Did they ever even find anything to transfer it to to get it out? What was the last they’d said about that?
He listened for a few more seconds. Lightning wasn’t typing, so she must just be waiting, but he was certain that was her sitting in the chair. Her caramel brown hair was dirty and greasy from not being washed for months, and her thin shoulders were so bony, her shirt hung down off of the sides, exposing her skeletal frame.
Hearing no sounds from the other rooms or hallways nearby, Adam swung around again and stepped through the open door. It seemed a little odd that the door would be open. “Lightning?” he whispered. Had she not heard him come in?
Something was definitely wrong. Not only did the smell of blood permeate the room, even more so than the stench that had been rolling off of Lightning from the cell, but she wasn’t moving. Adam took a few more cautious steps toward her. Was it possible she was injured and couldn’t turn to look at him or speak?
He put his hand on her shoulder. It was cold and stiff. Pulling his hand away, he realized it was covered in blood. The red, sticky substance was fresh.
“Lightning?” He turned the chair around, and the girl slumped over onto the keyboard.
So much blood covered the front of her clothes, he thought there wasn’t any chance she still had a single drop in her body.
Adam recoiled in horror, knowing there was nothing he could do to save the ghostly white girl in the chair. She was clearly already dead. But what did this mean? Who’d killed her and propped her up in this chair?
The fact that this was all a trap didn’t dawn on him until he heard the click of a pistol right next to his head. “Drop your weapon, Twenty-four C.”