by Opal Jones
I want to emphasize, that was the worst night of my life. Every creak and snap got me on my feet in milliseconds. My heart was going on overtime and my arms were tense.
When morning finally came around, I snuck through the brush. I frantically looked for any familiar landmarks. But nothing looked even similar. All the trees and bushes looked the same.
My knees felt weak. I eased myself down against a tree. I realized I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since last night. A small puddle was next to me, and I cupped my hands and drunk some of it.
It seemed hopeless to keep on going. But I had to hand it to Wallace; he had bought me lots of time. The only problem was that I wasn't sure it was enough. I knew I couldn't waste a second.
I looked straight ahead: a tree had a great big hole in it. Bingo. I got up and examined it. Sure enough, I was positive this was the right tree. From what I could remember, I lead myself to the camp.
Everything seemed to be there. Before I walked in, I grabbed a stick and felt around. Soon enough, a trap snapped it right in two. I smiled. It was hard to imagine we had been so hostile to one another at first. And yet I felt we had a close bond.
I gathered several supplies, like food, old water bottles, and am old, worn motorcycle jacket. The jacket wasn't very warm, but it was better than nothing. I keep looking around until I was face-to-face with the hollow tree.
Curiosity consumed me, and I looked inside. There was a shrine of of her family. Photos, drawings, and random items, like hairpins and old flowers. I picked up a photo of her family. She was only six and looked like the happiest kid in the world. Her older brother, mother, and father were behind her. I got that awful pit in my stomach, like I should've been there or something.
I put it in my jacket pocket and I stuffed an apple in my mouth. It was time to take care of business.
A sharp siren came from the distance. I didn't have any time to waste. It was time to get going.
CHAPTER 9
I ran through the forest, bounding over logs and fallen trees. The more distance I put between me and the police, the better. My heart was racing and my legs felt like jelly, but I kept going.
A little over five minutes later, I was sliding down the hill. X's hideout was just opposite of me. Fire burned in my eyes, and my hand clenched my gun. I held it up and shot the door open.
I walked in feeling invincible. Nothing was going to stop me this time or ever again. Many of his thugs tried to catch me, but I shot them dead. Every door around me was inevitably kicked open, but with no avail to finding Annabeth. I felt like a raging hurricane.
Soon, it seemed like I had searched every square inch of the place. And there was probably a body for every room I had barged into. Eventually, there were two rooms that I had yet to search.
I didn't have much choice, so I picked the right door. Okay, here's the creepy part: it was the old broom closet I last saw Annabeth in. I stepped in. It looked the same, but when I pushed against the clothes, it rippled. I grabbed it and gave it a hard pull. It ripped clean off, revealing another room.
The room wasn't very big. In fact, it was hardly bigger than the “broom closet”. It smelled like rust and mold, and the walls were peeling. It was pretty bad. And know that I think about it, it actually made a lot of sense why I couldn't find her at first.
I saw a flat figure in the center of the room. It didn't move or anything, it was just laying there. I loaded my gun and walked carefully towards it. As I got closer, I could see something else, protruding from the flat surface. I'm assumed the flat surface was a bed.
My breathing sped up, and my hands started to shake. As I finally made it close enough to tell what it was, I saw something else; it looked pretty tall, and it had a cord going down.
Before I knew it, I was at the bedside. Then I saw it; Annabeth was laying in the bed. The cord (I'm sorry, I mean tube.) was attached to her arm. I saw it was filling her with the yellow liquid. As fast as I could, I put the barrel of my gun against the tube, and pulled the trigger.
The room lit up for a small second, and then it grew dark again. The gun's firing boomed in my eardrums. My heart pounded. Now the liquid was spilling onto the floor, and a made sure not to step in it. Annabeth probably wouldn't wake up for a while, so I let her lie until she would wake up.
I walked out of the room and shut the door gently. Now there was only one room left, and I was betting X was in there.
With a huge kick, the door swung open with a bang. I held up my gun and stood in the doorway. Nothing. There was nothing but a large desk and a few chairs. I wasn't letting my guard down for one moment, though.
I stepped in further and still didn't see anything. My footsteps echoed in the eerie silence. As I got closer to the desk, a crunch hit my ear-drums. I whirled around and pointed my gun. There was no one there. I was still weary, but I turned back around to focus on my real business.
When I got to the desk, there was nothing special about it. There was a lamp, some paper-work, and a jar of pens and pencils. My gut was still on edge, so I turned on the lamp. It illuminated the room and I saw the desk's every detail: the cracks, the pencil shavings.
I set my gun down next to me and flipped through some of the paper-work on the desk. It was mostly bills, to my disappointment.
“Anyone ever tell you it was rude to get into someone else's business?”
Without thinking, I jumped over the desk. And I made sure to grab my gun in mid-jump. My foot hit desk just right so it fell over.
It was X's voice; I was positive. I heard his footsteps crunch closer and closer. Then I felt the table shutter. I realized he had thrown and chair at it. But I knew the desk was too stable and thick to be penetrated by a chair.
He probably realized that. Before I knew it, I was feeling the table shake. X was pumping bullets into the table, the son-of-a-gun. I rolled over and looked around the corner. The only thing I could see was his silhouette. My gun shook too much to hit him right, and it accidentally hit him in the left thigh.
X cried out in pain and cursed under his breath. He sprayed more bullets into the table, but it didn't do any damage to me. I had one more shot, and I had to make it count.
It was a lucky shot, but it didn't kill him. My bullet pierced his abdomen and he fell down. I grinned with pleasure. But my work still wasn't done. Before I could get up, though, something flew through the air and I fell to the ground.
CHAPTER 10
My eyes burst open to the sound of blaring alarms. Panicked voices flew through the halls and gruff voices seemed to follow. I got to my feet and looked at the carnage. The desk had dozens of bullet holes, remains of a chair, and another gun near me. I guessed that X had thrown his gun at me and it had knocked me unconscious.
I looked out the door; no one was in sight, but there were voices coming from further away in all directions. There were several voices coming from down the hall. I went to get out, but my foot stepped in something. When I looked down, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. My foot had stepped in a pool of scarlet blood. It seemed to trail out around the corner.
I felt my hand grow sweaty as I followed the trail of blood. The problem was that I didn't know how long I'd been out. It could've been five minutes or two hours. But I couldn't concentrate on that. My thoughts re-focused on X.
The trail seemed to drag on for a long time. I wondered how X could've made his way this way for long, being mortally wounded. Soon the blood path lead me to an open door.
When I fully opened the door, the green, young outdoors were waiting for me. The trees shimmered and the bees buzzed around the bushes. Once again, I had found a hidden paradise.
I got myself focused again. The blood was growing lighter. It wasn't going to be much longer before I couldn't see it at all, so I had to move fast.
The blood gathered close on the grass, and a single drop was laying on a flower petal. But there was no sign of the source. Just when I decided to give up, I saw him.
The poor sucke
r; he was dragging himself along the ground, getting closer and closer to the woods. His suit and trousers were stained in his blood. But none of it hid what he had done. He wouldn't get away this time. Or ever again.
I looked at my gun, and took a deep breath; I had foolishly wasted my bullets on everyone else. So now I only had one left. Now I had to make it count.
My aching heart pulled me to him. This bullet, this priceless bullet, was going to represent what I had felt all these years. All the pain and sorrow I had gone through, the agony. Now it was going to be put to an end.
I got next to X and kicked him in the hip, and he laid on his back. My gun found its way to my hand, and I held it up. When I pointed it at his head, he merely chuckled.
“You can't kill me. It's not in your nature. It's not in your eyes. You'd only turn me in to the police.”
“Wanna bet?” I asked coldly. With that, his eyes widened behind his sunglasses.
I closed my eyes. My index finger pulled with all its might, and I felt its power. The blast shattered the world around me, and the yet power only jerked my hand back slightly. Almost instantly I felt the pain and sorrow leave my body.
My cracked lips felt the relief of air seeping through it. Had I done it? I hardly dared to open my eyes, but I managed anyway.
The moment of triumph had come; he was dead. For good measure, I gave a good, hard stomp to his gut. I looked down at my gun, and threw it into the woods. To me, it brought back too many memories. It had helped me, but I didn't need it any more.
Behind me, I heard a crunch on the dirt. When I turned around, I was overjoyed to see Annabeth walking out of the door. Even though she looked exhausted, I was just happy to see her conscious.
She looked at me, then the corpse, then me again. Her mouth was slightly open, and couldn't seem to find words. Then, she ran and flung herself to me.
Honestly, it was kinda weird having a girl-that wasn't family-hug you. My arms carefully returned her embrace.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” she cried. Then she looked up at me. “I thought you had been captured or killed, or something! The only time that I woke up was when they were hooking me up to that machine, and then I fell back asleep again.”
Before I could answer, blaring sirens pierced the air. We looked at each other and smiled. When we went back inside, it was hardly sane.
The few surviving henchmen were scattered and running in all directions. I don't think the noticed us in the blind panic, so we took the chance and made our way through the hall. As we looked around for the entrance/exit, Annabeth would point out some police officers, and we'd get back.
It didn't take very long to find the entrance. Mainly because it was still burst open and there was about 10 squad cars outside. They didn't see us at first, since we had approached the door from the left. But even coming from the left, I could still hear a very familiar voice behind the megaphone.
Annabeth seemed worried about going outside, but I assured her that one of the officers knew me, and that they wouldn't open fire. She still looked nervous, but she followed my lead.
I took a deep breath and stepped into view. Annabeth stood out of sight still, and I didn't want her to move though. Not yet.
Miller was the first to notice me, and I don't think he took it too well. He instantly raised his gun and ordered my hands up. I smiled and happily obliged. He furrowed his brows and spoke into the megaphone.
“Where's your gun?”
I laughed a little and returned, “In the bushes out back.”
Now that I had made just the right amount of tension, I bravely walked up to Miller. Other officers put their guns up, but he waved them off.
“I have something to show you.” I told him.
Before he could respond, I called to Annabeth. She walked out into view. Miller's mouth fell open slightly. She gave a weak smile as she walked up to my side.
I smiled and introduced them. “Annabeth, this is Miller. Miller, meet Annabeth.”
She looked at him with an indifferent face and stuck out her hand. Miller nervously did the same.
I shook my head, “Common guys! You both look like you've seen a ghost or something. Can we just shake and get it over with?”
They looked at me, and then each other, and then we all started laughing, but it was cut too short.
The girl cop was running out of the building. She came up to Miller and whispered something in his ear. Miller's eyes widened at looked at us in surprise. Then he ran off with her in the building. Annabeth and I looked at each other in despair. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they had found X.
Neither of us knew what to do, since we were surrounded by police and only Annabeth had a real weapon. And I didn't know how to use a bow-and-arrow at all. So we were kinda stuck.
Around a half-an-hour later, I was sitting on a tree stump and an ambulance or two had pulled up and were filling with some of the injured men. I never realized how many people I'd injured in my rampage, but this scene wasn't going to help my case at all.
Annabeth walked up to me and gave me a sad smile. Then she sat down next to me. She shook her head and looked at me, “Heck of a mess we're in, huh?”
“No,” I said glumly. “It's me who's in the middle of it. I'm the one who got all physio and killed and injured a bunch of people.”
Then I chuckled a little, “But knowing this justice system of ours, you'll get in trouble, too.”
Annabeth laughed. We started to joke about what we'd been through all this time. It was pretty crazy that-we of all people- were actually happy. I actually told her about Wallace, and the brief friendship I'd had with him. I didn't think it was over, but I highly doubted we'd ever see each other again.
While we talked, Miller walked up to us. We stopped talking and looked up at him. His eyes reflected just how hard he'd worked, and how tired he was. As much as I wanted to, I made myself not be as sarcastic. Miller told us to stand up and he said to us:
“Listen guys, if you're going to go to jail for all this, you're going to need these.”
He handed us each a file. When I opened mine, the contents were hardly believable: it was our records. They were totally blank. We looked at him and started to thank him, but he interrupted us.
“Now,” he whispered. “If you two were, oh, escape from custody, maybe you'd register under these names at the nearest high-school.”
Miller pointed out the names were anagrams. Mine read “Christoper P.” and Annabeth's was “Anais J.”
He continued, “Then you'd maybe get a job and, heck, maybe even go to college. Of course I might lose my job, but if you did leave, I think it'd be worth it.”
I shook Miller's hand. “That should be both horrible and amazing.”
He smiled and stepped aside. “Left lane only, please.”
Annabeth's face lit up and we jogged into the forest. I looked back and Miller was already walking in the other direction. Annabeth turned me back around, and we ran into a new life.
