Night Six

There is a moment, when staring down life or death, where everything seems to shift.

Something monumental changes, clicks into place, tears itself apart again. As if the fabric of the universe itself warps and shifts into one dreadful moment to the next. That same shift occurs, as it were, when watching a friend die.

Ada had felt it time and time again, more than she wanted to admit, had watched as those she cared about faced down death with nothing but terror to arm themselves. None of them had walked away.

When she heard the gunshot, it was as if time itself had frozen. She could see how it was going to happen: there would be a wheezing cry of pain, the boom of fresh blood as a bullet ripped through her friend, the sickening sound of a body thudding to the earth, twitching limbs as life clung to a body that was rapidly rejecting it.

The cry belonged to her, echoed by those around her, pure panic burning her veins because again, again, it was happening again, but it wasn't Thomas's body who slumped to the ground.

Barkley doubled over, and blood sprayed in a violet arc through the air, splattering on the ground in front of them and staining the stone red. Ada stared at it, horrified, her heart still lodged firmly in her throat. He hit the ground face first, twitching violently, and when he stilled he didn't move again.

Empty stomach or not, Ada was sure she was going to throw up.

The girl stood behind him, the one who had led them to Jorge, who had handed them over to him without a second thought – the gun was clutched in her hand, steady and unbothered, and she stared at them with fire in her eyes as she lowered the pistol and jerked her head towards the door.

"Come on."

They didn't move.

"Come on, let's go!"

Minho cocked his head to the side. "We trusting that?"

Ada stared down at Barkley, at the blood pooling around him, and then winced at the sound of gunshots breaking through the air in the distance. "I'll take my chances."

Thomas nodded, and they moved without thought. Newt's hand was a steady presence on her lower back, guiding her forward.

The low murmur of static over the discarded walkie talkie flickered to life. "Barkley, what's your location? ... Barkley, are you there?"

Ada cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder just in time to see Teresa straightening again, her hands in her pockets. She couldn't see the walkie talkie anywhere – Teresa must have thrown it into the pit, and Ada wished she had thought to do the same earlier.

It was as they were rushing up more stairs – Ada would be glad to leave this place behind her once and for all, because good lord – that the song broke out over the speakers. Jaunty and upbeat, it rolled through the air at a volume that was almost deafening, drowning out the rush of blood in her ears and the pounding footsteps of her friends around her.

"Weird time to play some music!" She yelled over the noise as they crested the stairs and skidded into the dimly lit room they had first been guided to. Jorge was waiting for them, busying himself by shoving guns into every crevice of his outfit that he could reach.

"Brenda!" He yelled when he spotted the girl, frantically waving her over. "Hurry! We don't have much time!"

"Where the hell are we going?" Ada asked, staring directly at Jorge. He had gotten them into this mess and she would be damned if he didn't get them out of it too.

"Let's go!" Was all he responded with, gesturing hurriedly down a hallway to their left as he took off at a sprint.

"Fucking hell," she mumbled to herself, and Minho grunted in agreement beside her as they followed. She hated this, hated everything about it, hated running behind someone with no idea where they were guiding them or if they would make it out the other side. So much of her life had been reduced to running, she just wanted it to stop.

He skidded to a halt beside two doors made of frosted glass and flung them open without preamble. Ada's heart dropped straight into her stomach.

There was no room beyond. No hallway, no shelter, no floor, no roof. There was nothing, just open air and a drop that would kill the second you cracked open against the ground.

She stared at it, horrified, as the others stopped behind her. A thin stretch of rope connected the building to a crumbling skyscraper across the way, frayed in sections and yellowed with age and the elements.

Frypan exhaled slowly. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me."

"Nope." Ada shook her head. "Nu uh. Absolutely not."

Jorge turned to stare at them gleefully. "Plan B, hermanos."

Ada took a large step back. "Well you shove Plan B straight up your ass, thank you very much."

Jorge clicked his tongue disapprovingly and reached up to tug something from the ceiling. Swathes of fabric cinched together with messy stitches that, if she squinted, almost resembled a harness.

A resemblance nowhere large enough to have her even debating getting on one of those things.

"You kids wanna get to the Right Arm?" Jorge asked.

"Not badly enough to get on that DIY death trap." Ada shook her head again. "Think I'll take my chances with WICKED, actually."

"It looks..." Thomas trailed off. "Questionable?"

"I think the only question is how many seconds it'll take to hit the ground when that rope snaps." Minho said, staring down through the doors with wide eyes.

Ada made the mistake of doing the same, and black dots danced in her vision. "Yeah, fuck that."

"Listen," Jorge said, all traces of levity gone from his voice. "You wanna get to the Right Arm? Fine. I'll lead you to them. But you're gonna owe me."

Nothing had ever sounded worse.

"What do you want in return?" Newt asked. That furrow was back between his eyebrows, sharper than she had seen in a while.

"That's for me to decide, and at a time where we aren't about to get shot to pieces." Jorge jerked his head at the harness. "Follow me."

He didn't even hesitate, wrapping his arms in the fabric as he flung himself from the building. Ada's hands shot up to cover her mouth as she watched his form vanish into the blackness.

Brenda tugged the next swath of fabric from the ceiling and waved Frypan over. "Alright, let's go! Come on!"

Thomas was the first to move. "Alright, yeah, yeah okay, go on Frypan."

Frypan stared at him, affronted. "You want me to get on that?"

"We don't have time for this!" Brenda grabbed Frypan's arms and wrapped the fabric around them, giving him barely a second to tighten his grip before she ushered him towards the doors.

"Ay, ay, wait a second!" Frypan dug his heels in, but Brenda gave him a shove and he was gone, zooming down the makeshift zipline with his scream vanishing into the distance.

Brenda turned to stare at them. "Who's next?"

Ada immediately put her hands up in surrender. "Not it."

Minho exhaled slowly as he stepped forward. "Remember how pretty my face is before it gets splattered all over the concrete." He gripped onto the harness, took a deep breath, and threw himself through the doors.

Aris went next, then Teresa, until only Brenda, Newt, Thomas, and Ada were left.

Newt turned to Ada, his face a shabbily constructed mask of calm. "You next, love."

Ada shook her head violently. "I'm not doing that."

"We don't have a choice, Ads."

"Absolutely not."

Brenda shifted frantically on her feet. "Come on, Red, we don't have time!"

"We don't even know what's waiting for us on the other side!" She protested. The song reached its peak, a jaunty chorus that echoed harshly off the stone.

"I'll be on the other side, alright?" Newt asked, reaching up to cup her face in a firm grip. "I'll go first, and I'll be waiting for you. I'll be right there to catch you, yeah?"

"But-"

"Trust me, love. I wouldn't let you fall."

Thomas rolled his eyes. "If you choose now to kiss, I'm throwing you both out those doors."

Brenda stared at them with raised eyebrows. "We don't have time for this, we need to go!"

Ada nodded quickly, and Newt pressed a fleeting kiss to her forehead before he moved quickly to the doors. He wrapped his forearms in the dirty fabric and turned to shoot her a reassuring smile. "Right behind me, yeah?"

Ada nodded again, a lump of fear in her throat. "Yeah."

Newt vanished into the darkness, and Ada had barely made one step to follow him when Brenda suddenly took off running.

Thomas gaped at her retreating figure. "Brenda! What the fuck-"

Ada stared up at him with wide eyes. "What do we-"

A bullet slammed into the wall just above her head.

Ada shrieked and immediately darted to the side, away from the open doors, and turned to see dark shapes taking form at the end of the corridor they had come down. Guns were raised in their direction, metal gleaming, and Ada barely hesitated before she grabbed Thomas by the arm and took off at a sprint after Brenda.

Thomas clutched her shoulder and dragged her forward at breakneck speed. "Why the fuck are we always getting shot at?"

Brenda's form skidded around the corner, and Ada followed blindly, incredulous and panicked because oh god oh god, Newt was gone and Minho was gone and Frypan and Aris and Teresa and they were waiting for them, Newt was waiting for her, and they were running in the opposite direction.

They entered into a small room cluttered with desks and lit oil lamps, with papers strewn across every surface. Brenda was bent over one of the desks, frantically rummaging through one of the drawers.

Thomas skidded to a halt beside her. "Brenda, c'mon, what are you doing?!"

"We need to leave, they're right on our tail!" Ada poked her head back around the corner and immediately ducked back into the room at the sight of three figures sprinting towards them. "Yeah okay now we really gotta move!"

Ada caught a glimpse of something shiny and gold before Brenda shoved it into her pocket.

"Okay, got it!"

The masked men were in the doorway now, and Ada reached back to claw blindly at the desktop for anything that could be used as a weapon – a twisted piece of metal, a letter opener, she didn't care... god, she wanted her knife back so damn badly.

Brenda grit her teeth and raised the gun. She fired without mercy, without hesitation, letting the bullets slam into flesh and steel as the guards scattered and ducked back around the corner out of sight, yelling something she couldn't make out over the music.

"Go!" She yelled back at them, and Ada didn't waste a second. She grabbed Thomas by the back of his shirt and tugged him towards the back of the room where a steel day waited for them. It was unlocked, thank fuck, and she slammed it open with her non-injured shoulder.

There was a glass wall to their left, constructed of mottled yellow panes with holes and cracks dotted throughout. Bullets shattered it as she sprinted past, throwing her hands up over her head and swearing frantically under her breath.

"Shit!" Thomas yelled from right behind her, and she felt his hand on her lower back urging her forward blindly.

"Turn right!" Brenda yelled, and Ada did so without question, letting pure panic and adrenaline guide her movements as they high-tailed it across one of the rickety bridges. Brenda sped past them, her eyes wide and her forehead beaded with sweat. "Hurry! We're almost out of time!"

There was a stitch in her side, and injuries she had pushed to the backburner of her mind for the better part of a week were protesting violently. Nausea churned relentlessly in her stomach. Ada gripped the handrail like a lifeline as she sprinted down the steps, stumbling over a few in her haste.

"On the east!" One of the guards yelled, and she spared a terrified glance over her shoulder to see that they were right behind them, gaining fast, their guns raised and the odd bullet slicing through the air above them.

Were they stun bullets? Actual bullets? Would they drop her for a minute or for forever? Both options had her moving faster.

"Cut 'em off!"

"I fucking hate my life," Ada wheezed to herself as the ground levelled out and they skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. A slew of soldiers were swarming the gangways in front of them, at least two dozen, all armed and ready and waiting and fuck they were screwed, absolutely screwed.

Brenda glanced around them quickly, and Ada let herself do the same. They were suspended on a tiny-ass platform with nothing but steel support beams stretching across the facility around them with easily a thirty foot drop to the warehouse floor below it.

To her absolute horror, Brenda stared at one of the beams and nodded quickly. "Okay, follow me!"

Take me back to the harness, Ada thought miserably, I wanna jump out the damn doors now.

Thomas gulped. "Is she joking-"

"Just do it, Greenie," Ada groaned, and clenched her hands into fists at her side as she eased her way out onto the first beam. The guards were yelling something, shouting, the sound of bullets were back. "It's okay, they can't stab you with needles if they shoot you first, they need you alive."

"That's not comforting!" Thomas exclaimed from behind her.

"Stop!" A distorted voice came from behind them. "Stay right where you are!"

If she wasn't so focussed on not falling to her death, Ada would have happily pulled a Thomas and flipped him off.

The song continued to blare its tune above her, and Ada thought blithely that surely it must almost be at its end – it felt like a lifetime had passed since its jaunty melody had begun. Brenda was almost frantic ahead of her, panicked and moving as quick as she were able, and something about her urgency had alarm bells blaring in Ada's head.

One foot in front of the other, the words played like a mantra in her mind. She moved as fast as she could, a sort of half shuffle half run that had her teetering precariously more than once. Her heart became a permanent resident in her throat, and her palms stung from where her nails dug into the flesh.

"He's right behind us!" She heard Thomas yell, and spared a fleeting glance over her shoulder at the risk of her balance. A guard had climbed his way onto the support beam behind them, only a dozen feet away.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck," Ada muttered to herself as her head snapped forward again and she moved with as much urgency as she could.

Guards were either side of them, stalking their movements on the gangways that stretched across the colossal space. She could see the harsh glow of their flashlights in the shadows, felt the heavy weight of their stare, and felt, not for the first time, like a dying animal on display.

"Kid!" She heard the guard yell, and now she was offended for a whole other reason.

Yes, she was seventeen – probably? She supposed she wasn't actually sure, but if she thought on it too hard then she could feel an existential crisis barreling her way – but after everything she had been through, after everything they had put her through, she felt like she had already lived several lifetimes and damn well didn't deserve to be called kid.

"Don't move!"

"Brenda!" Thomas yelled from behind her. "Where the hell are we going?!"

"We're surrounded!" Ada chimed in, but Brenda didn't turn around.

Instead, she reached the end of the steel beams and climbed onto the only gangway not yet occupied with soldiers. "Hurry!" Her voice was tight with unrestrained panic. "The song's almost over!"

Ada didn't even want to think about what that meant and, stubbornly refusing to look down, shuffled forward the final few feet until she could haul herself over the railing and reacquaint herself with solid ground.

The singer's voice dimmed to a low hum, a soothing note echoed over the speakers, and Thomas dragged himself over the railing not a second too late.

A small click that seemed far too loud came from somewhere above her.

"Brenda, what the fuck-"

The building exploded.

One by one, the tops of the support beams gave way in a blaze of heat and flame. Sparks rained down in a burning blur of white, and in a split second the entire back section of the warehouse was engulfed in a blinding haze of fire. Ada saw the blast of light before she felt it – the wall of heat slammed into her, violent and forcing sweat to bead at every crevice of her skin. The gust of air that followed blew the hair away from her face and had her stumbling backwards against the railing.

Blood rushed into her ears, the deafening booms racing to outdo each other as every crevice of the warehouse in front of her descended into a flaming hell. The roof blew out next, and she caught a glimpse of the stars before thick clouds of churning smoke stained the sky black.

"Go," she tried to say, but the word came out a cracked whisper as she smacked Thomas's arm repeatedly. "Go, go-"

Ada staggered backwards, watching horrified as the warehouse gave an almighty creak, as if every screw and rivet holding it together strained against the weight of itself. The building gave an almighty shudder that shook her to her very bones as, one by one, the support beams gave way. The ceiling followed it, then the floor, then the walls, swallowing soldiers into an abyss of fire and screams.

"Run!" Brenda yelled, her voice barely audible over the horrific screech of metal on metal as everything, everything, collapsed in on itself.

Ada could barely think past the screaming panic that threatened to engulf her – each frantic step she took, each trembling beat of her heart, all of it seemed too slow, too slow to outrun the destruction that was spreading towards them like a wretched disease.

She could feel Thomas at her side, see Brenda ahead of her, feel the smoke burning in her eyes and lungs, the blaze of the fire at her back, yet all she could focus on was the violent trembling of the earth beneath her as the ground ripped itself apart.

"The elevator!" Thomas yelled, and she could see it ahead, an empty elevator shaft that reminded her with a sickening jolt of Archie and the dark hole in the glade and the gleam of metal and a legless torso. The cables were waiting for them, swaying violently, and they burned under her palm as Ada threw herself at one and grabbed it with all the strength she had left in her.

It was so loud, so so loud, and tears blurred her eyes as the ground gave way beneath her, and then she was falling, falling, her hands scrabbling against brick and stone as she screamed.

Her back slammed into the ground, the air rushing out of her with a desperate wheeze – Thomas and Brenda slammed down beside her, and she was staring up at the patch of light that was the fire that had swallowed the gangway she had been standing on just moments before.

A panicked cry ripped out of her as she used one hand to pull herself backwards, the other cupping her side protectively. Her rib was fucked again, she could feel it with every jagged breath of air she forced into her lungs.

"Move!" Brenda yelled, her voice a distant echo as the blur of her figure forced itself backwards through the gap at her back. Ada followed blindly, hardly aware of what she was doing anymore.

Black dots danced in the edges of her vision, threatening to drag her under. Debris rained down from above in a storm of stone and steel, and with shaking limbs Ada forced herself as far away from the elevator shaft as she could, making herself as small as possible with her arms clamped tight over her head.

"Fuck," her voice was little more than a trembling wheeze, "oh god."

As the roar of sound died, and the glow from the explosion was snuffed out by smoke, Ada slowly let her hands fall from around her head and pressed her cheek into the dirt of the ground below, letting it ground her. It took more effort than she would have liked to force her eyes open.

Nothing but darkness met her.