Chapter Twenty

Lucien

“Get down!” Maddox screamed, pushing the girls up against the wall. Shy whimpered as she tumbled to the ground, blood seeping through the fingers she clutched to her arm. None of the others noticed, their eyes were fixed on the two men firing at them from outside the elevator. Maddox was the only one who managed to keep his head. With a growl, he kicked the gun out of the hands of the closest guard and grabbed it out of mid-air. It took only a few seconds for him to twirl the gun in his hand and fire at the armed man.

Maddox aimed at the kneecaps and shot both men quickly, waiting until they fell to the ground, moaning in pain before her took a step towards them. He quickly disarmed the other man and handed the second gun to Ro. “Is anyone hurt?” He asked.

“Shy is,” Ro said breathlessly. “She took a bullet to her shoulder. I think it’s still in there. There’s no exit wound.” Maddox cursed violently and knelt down next to Shy. The young Asian girl was hissing softly as she clutched her arm. “Lemme see,” Maddox said gruffly. Shy removed her hand and frowned at the wound. It took all her willpower not to clamp her hand over it again. “Dammit!” Maddox roared. “They’ll have the whole place down on us in minutes. Athena, your little friend better have a fast way out of here.”

Athena just nodded, “We’re really close, Maddox, I can feel it. You can take Shy back if you want, Ro and I can go on alone from here.”

“No way,” Shy snapped, forcing herself to get to her feet. The pain made her knees weak and she had to lean on Maddox for support, but she managed. “We’ll go on together or not at all.”

“But Shy...”

“I’ll be okay, it’s only a flesh wound.”

Ro frowned at the younger girl but finally agreed. “Let’s be quick though, we’ve already wasted enough time talking.” She took Athena’s hand and let her lead the way back through the maze of passageways. Maddox trailed behind, helping Shy. He had tied a piece of cloth around her arm to slow the bleeding, but it was clear that they would have to get the bullet out quickly before it got infected.

Athena was practically running down the hall, turning this way and that without so much as a thought. It was pure instinct now, with the boy in her head telling her which way to go. She stopped suddenly outside a heavy door with a keypad.

“Great, now what?” Maddox groaned.

Athena didn’t even acknowledge him. She just raised her hand and let her hands fly over the keypad. The device beeped and the door slid open. “What...how did you do that?” Ro gasped, staring at her sister.

“He knows the code,” Athena shrugged. “C’mon, we don’t have much time.” The girl dashed inside the darkened room, the others just behind her. What they saw made them all stop and stare.

In the center of a dark room, a hard metal table lay surrounded by beeping machines. A young boy was on the table, connected to dozens of electrodes and machines, with respirator in his nose and an IV in his arm. There were dim florescent lights around the edge of the room, but they succeeded only in giving the room a bluish glow. Everything was metal and cold, and Shy shivered as she stepped inside. There was the noisy hum of the air conditioner in the background, but Shy couldn’t find any vents where the cold air could be coming from. To the left there was a metal door beside what appeared to be a two way mirror. She hobbled over to it and tried to open it. To her surprise, the door was unlocked and it led into an empty control room, very small and barely able to hold the six or seven computers and monitors within.

As Shy directed her attention to the various machines, Athena walked right up to the side of the table and looked down at the boy lying on it. He was young and very thin. He appeared to be unconscious but Athena could feel his thoughts racing in her mind. Fear and confusion and anger and cold, dark hatred bubbled up inside her, but they were not her emotions. They belonged to the boy. She had to get him out, she just had to!

“I wonder what this button does?” Shy said aloud to herself from within the control room. She punched her index finger against a large red button that read ‘abort’ beneath it. A sudden gasp from Athena made her look up and grin. The machines were all turning off, one at a time, slowly allowing the boy control over his own body. The restraints on his limbs that held him to the table snapped open and the boy let out a tiny moan.

“He’s waking up!” Athena cried excitedly. Maddox and Ro raced to her side and hovered over the frail boy, carefully making sure that he was still alive and stable. “Whatever you did, Shy, good job.” Maddox said distractedly as Shy joined them. The Asian girl grinned in pleasure and attempted a salute, although the pain from the bullet wound in her arm made her falter.

“C’mon,” Maddox started, picking the boy up in his arms, “We’d better get him out of here before - “

”We know you’re in there! Drop you’re weapons and come out with your hands up!”

“Fuck!” Ro cursed, getting odd looks from the other three. The blonde girl rarely swore. “What do we do?” Ro continued, ignoring them.

“We get out.” Maddox said.

“How! They’re at the door! We’re trapped!” Shy whined.

“No we’re not,” Athena told them quickly. “There’s a...another door, a secret stairwell that the President uses when he wants to come here alone. It leads up to his office but...”

“It’ll have to do.” Maddox growled. “Get it open, Athena.”

“If you do not come out in ten seconds, we will open fire on you!” Someone outside called to them.”

“And hurry up!” Shy squeaked.

Athena nodded and dashed to the opposite side of the room, running her hands along the wall. At first glance everything looked perfectly smooth, but then her fingers found a crack invisible to her eyes. Biting her lip, she pushed in the section of the wall and stepped back as it slid open to reveal a long, spiralling set of metal stairs. “Let’s go!” Maddox ordered, leading the way. “Shy, take this gun from me.”

Shy did as she was asked, but held the weapon out in front of her like it was a snake about to bite her. They crowded into the narrow stairwell, watching as the doors slid shut behind them just in time.

“I hope no one saw that.” Ro breathed. She started to follow Maddox up the stairs. “What do we do once we reach the top?”

“Hope Mr. President isn’t in his office, then find a way back down.”

“Well, that sounds real encouraging.” Ro scowled. Maddox didn’t bother to answer and instead directed his attention to his feet and making sure that they didn’t strip him up on the winding stairs. Athena took the lead, with Ro helping Shy up in the rear. The corridor was empty save for their metallic clang of their footsteps. The stairs went up for what seemed like forever, and the entire group had to stop and pant for breath. Maddox slumped against the wall, letting the small child in her arms rest on his knees as he struggled to get air back into his lungs. It had barely been twenty minutes since they’d left Irvine inside, and already he was haivng more excitement than his old heart could take.

“Do you think he’s in there?” Shy whispered, shifting her fingers around the bullet wound which was rapidly losing blood.

“I don’t think I care anymore.” Ro growled back. “Let’s just get the heck out of here.” At least she was shying awake from swearing again, which relieved the other three to no end. One always knew that things were going badly when Ro started swearing about them. “If we have to we can just jump out a window,” The blonde shrugged, and then promptly ordered her sister to let them out of the claustrophobic stairwell.

Athena did as she was told, and soon the corridor had opened up to reveal the impeccably clean and cream-colored oval office, with an impressive looking wood desk sitting against a large window and various patriotic photographs nailed up on the walls. They probably had been there since the dawn of time, or at lest a few decades. Ro absently wondered if the walls were any light behind the pictures, and then if they could even be moved.

“Now how do we get down,” Maddox speculated, looking around the room. Doubtless he was afraid anything he touched would trigger an alarm and have them all blasted into smithereens before they could even curse their bad fortune.

“This tree will do nicely,” Shy said, peering out the partially opened window.

“Tree?” Maddox gaped, “A tree?!”

“Sure, why not?” Shy blinked.

“You’re telling me that after all that there is a perfectly convenient tree that we can use to climb to safety?”

“Mother Nature loves us,” Ro smiled, pulled the window open the rest of the way and hopping out onto the nearest branch. She extended her arm to help Shy across, who fell against the trunk and clutched it with her good arm for dear life. Ro scuttled across the branch, holding on to the branches overhead for balance as she helped Maddox get Lucien across. It took some careful maneuvering and a lot of curses on Maddox’s part to get the boy across safely, but eventually they managed.

Once they were all in the tree Maddox slung the unconscious boy over his shoulder and started to make his way down. “It’s about time that’s all over with,” He sighed as his feet met the solid ground. As if on cue, just milliseconds after he got out of the tree, a terrible wail broke out from within the White House. “Dammit! We never get a break, do we?” Maddox ground as he took off in a run towards where he could see his van waiting.

“There they are!” Lys cried, pointing excitedly, jumping up and down.

“Where?” Echo cried, jumping towards the window, trying to get a better look.

“There! They’re coming down that tree!” Lys continued.

“Is that the alarm?” Bold asked quietly. His comment went unnoticed by the other two. Andrew started wailing, but he too was ignored.

“Go pick them up, you dimwit!” Echo cried, hitting Lys in the shoulder.

“Already three steps ahead of you, kid.” Irvine laughed, slipping into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. The van roared to life and went hurtling across the nicely manicured grass to stop by the tree. Echo pulled the door open and yelled at the others to hurry. Already there were people swarming out of the building. A few were panicked tourists, but most were secret service men wielding guns. They didn’t waste any time shooting at them, aiming for Maddox first, who was carrying a small boy over his shoulder. Ro picked up her sister and carried her to the van while Shy lingered just behind her, clutching at her bleeding arm.

“Get in! Get in! Get in!” Lys chanted. He helped the others up into the van and before Shy was evenin completely Irvine has slammed his foot onto the gas, sending her tumbling overtop of Lys and straight into her brother.

“Dammit Irvine!” Maddox roared. “Be careful, she’s injured!”

“Shy! Are you okay?” Bold choked. “What the hell happened!?” Chaos immediately ensued as everyone started yelling at everyone else. Out of all of them, only Echo had the good sense to close the door again, effectively stopping the rain of bullets.

Irvine cursed loudly as he swerved and skidding along the roads, attempting to lose themen who were all on their tail.

“Looks like we’re about to enter a high-speed chase.” He informed them all. “Hang on tight!” His remark was accompanied by another sharp jerk to the side as he dodged a slow-moving vehicle in front of them. The line of secret service cars were soon joined by police cars and eventually even helicopters. Echo found herself gripping Lys’ arm for dear life and praying that they would somehow manage to survive this. After all that work she didn’t want to be scraped off the pavement. If Irvine didn’t crash going at these speeds, then there was still the possibility of them being shot, or at the very least captured and sent to wherever it was that the Hunters took them.

Lys wrapped his arm around her waist and tightened his hold on her. He was trying to act brave, but one look at his face told her that he was as scared as she was. Athena was hunched over the boy they’d picked up, and Bold and Ro were tending to Shy’s arm. Maddox was swearing loudly at Irvine, holding Andrew in his arms and steadying himself against the passenger seat.

“Take the exit!” Maddox bellowed. “Get on the highway you shithead!”

“Are you insane! Do you know how easy it would be to cut us off on the highway!? All they have to do is block off all the exits and then we’re screwed. Plus it’s a thousand miles of open landscape! Those helicopters will be all over us!”

“It’s easier to maneuver on the highway! At this rate you’re going to go smashing into the side of a bus and kill us all!”

Irvine started to shout back when Athena cut him off. “Guys! He’s waking up!” She cried. Immediately all attention shifted to the boy on the floor, whose eyes were slowly flickering open.

“Uhn...” He moaned.

“Are you alright? Can you hear me?” Athena asked. She sounded so old to Echo’s ears. But she was only seven years old! What could a seven year old go through to make her age like that? Echo didn’t want to know.

The boy whispered something, and Athena leaned over and asked him to repeat it. Everyone surged towards him to hear what he had to say. “The highway...” He moaned. “Get on the highway. I have...an idea.”

“Highway it is,” Irvine said, jerking the whell at the last moment to go speeding onto the onramp.

“Oh come on! You’re going to take advice from a little kid?” Maddox shouted.

“I thought you wanted to go on the highway!”

“No way! We’ere sitting ducks out there!”

Ro rolled her eyes, “Guys...guys...GUYS!” She screamed. They stopped bickered and stared at her. “Stop this fighting right now. It’s not helping us any!” She looked down to the kid and asked him softly. “So what’s this plan of yours, um...”

“Lucien.” He told her.

“Right, Lucien. What’s the plan?”