PoV: Julia

Early in the morning, I woke up, uncertain why. A few seconds later I realized that the floor was trembling from lots of people thumping all around, and in step with each other.

I got up quickly and moved to wake Kaylee, placing my hand over her mouth before I shook her awake.

At first, she seemed to panic, trying to remove my hand, even licking it to try to get it to recoil or something, but then realized it was me, "Sorry," she whispered, then got out of bed, "What's going on?"

"Police, I'm pretty sure. We have to move, and possibly fight. Hopefully, they'll try to talk me down first before firing because I am not equipped for a gunfight whatsoever, "I said quietly, not wanting to alert the police to the fact that we were awake.

Kaylee nodded slowly, "Right... what should I do?"

I thought for a moment, trying to predict how the police would engage us, "They will either break into the room ready to engage us violently, or they'll try to talk through the door and get us to surrender. They should have the hotel surrounded unless they are complete idiots, so can you go and see if you can open the window. If you see any police out there, ignore them."

"So are we going to try to leave through the window?" she asked, thankfully still keeping her voice down.

I shook my head, continuing to whisper, "No, I don't think so unless they don't fall for the trick. I want to make them think we will so that they will bring more people over there and away from the doors and other windows. Once you've figured out how to open it, you'll need to remember so we can use another window to escape."

Kaylee nodded, looking pale, but it was hard to tell. It was still dark outside, so the only light came from the streetlights outside, casting yellowish stripes of light into the room. She moved towards the window, her body language communicating nervousness but determination, I was fairly sure.

Someone knocked on the door firmly, causing both of us to jump, and I spun to face the door.

"Megan Jones and Kaylee Boardman, we know you are in there," A loud voice said, "Come out with your hands up and no one will be hurt."

I pitched my voice to sound nervous and startled, almost panicky, trying to sound a bit younger than I was, "No! Leave us alone!"

"Unfortunately we can't do that. After the stunt you pulled in Spokane there is no way we can let this go," the man's voice softened, "And you stole a car, not to mention instigated a car chase just hours after the local helicopter was taken out."

"What?" I protested, "I had nothing to do with any helicopter damaging!"

Kaylee turned around from her window fiddling and mouthed, Is that true?

I nodded vehemently as the man continued to speak, saying, "If that's true, then that's one less charge you have to worry about. I'm inclined to believe there are some misunderstanding, or wrong place wrong time shenanigans going on, but we can't prove any of that if you continue to run. Open the door, come out peacefully, and we can get this all sorted out as quickly as possible."

"Before we come out, what are the charges?" I asked, wanting to know what their view of the situation was.

"I can tell you once you are under our custody." He said firmly, "Come out now and we can start unravelling what happened."

I caught Kaylee's eye, telling the man, "All right, I'm coming."

"What about Miss Boardman?" The man sounded suspicious.

Kaylee pointed at herself, then at the door, with a look of questioning on her face.

I nodded, walking towards the door slowly, with my backpack tucked in the room's closet.

"I'm coming too," Kaylee said loudly, sounding very nervous. She caught up with me, and I gave her hand a quick squeeze before opening the door.

The man who I assumed had been the one talking stood close to the door. He was tall, broad, and fairly muscular. Behind him happened to be a SWAT team.

I felt Kaylee tense up beside me, I assumed it was because of the SWAT team. Those guys are fantastic at being intimidating.

"Sorry we didn't have our hands up, I said timidly, "I wanted to open the door, and I'm a bit tall to do that with my hands up." My hands were just at my sides casually, though I was surveying the hallway and the men and possibly women in the SWAT outfits. It was hard to tell gender, but I could see that this crew was pretty well trained. I held my hand out in front of me, asking, "So, what are the charges?"

"Theft, assault, damage of property, terrorism," he said, reaching for his handcuffs, "Hands behind you please. Chris, pat her down please."

One of the SWAT guys moved towards me and as soon as he was within comfortable range, I lunged forward and grabbed his gun, removed the safety, and shot him in the foot.

He yelped, and I realized that he was actually a female. Oops, I'd forgotten Chris can be a female name.

I spun, reloading the gun and dropping to a crouch as the others grabbed their guns. There were two SWAT guys still standing as well as their leader. I shot the leader, then kicked out and tripped one of the remaining swat guys. I looked up and saw that the last one had their gun trained on me and was ready to fire. I shoulder rolled to the side, messing up their aim, but when I came up from the roll and tried to aim, I saw that Kaylee had grabbed her water bottle and smacked them with it. The tripped one was getting up, so I spun, aimed at their chest, then changed my mind, moving my aim to their arm, then fired.

With everyone down, I got up, walked around knocking all of them out with the butt of the gun and grabbing their walkie-talkies. I grabbed one of their utility belts and put it on, shrinking it a lot in order to get it to fit me. Tucking the gun back in the holster I walked over to Kaylee, "Thanks for the help."

She nodded, "You're welcome. It was noisier than I expected. Um, we need to be going, don't we?"

"Yes, metal water bottles tend to be noisy when used as weapons. And yes, let's go," I said, walking into our room quickly to grab my bag, then began leading the way down the hallway. It looked like all the thumping around had been them evacuating the floor, if not the building. Well, I thought, At least they took the threat seriously. I turned into one of the rooms that had been evacuated and crossed over to the window. I'd taken us down to the far end of the hotel, closer to the stairs than the elevator.

"Can you remove the window?" I asked Kaylee.

She still looked unsettled by the hallway fight, but nodded, "Yes, I... think I can do that."

"Please do, because otherwise, we will have a much harder time getting away," I said.

"Right... no pressure," she joked, beginning to fiddle with the window.

I stood around as she worked, alternating from checking the hallway and outside the window for threats. It looked like we'd given them the slip for now.

Just as Kaylee informed me that she was "Nearly there," the walkie-talkie turned on.

"Walter, report," the person on the other end demanded, "Do you have the fugitives?"

Kaylee paused her work at the word fugitives, seeming startled, but then got back to it quickly.

"Walter, please copy. Anyone in the hotel, please copy," The voice was female and vaguely familiar. I tried to remember where I'd heard it before, but before I did, Kaylee called quietly, "Finished!"

Joining her at the window, I asked, "Are you all right if I go first?"

"Um, sure, leave me in the abandoned hotel, no biggie," she said, then clarified, "Seriously though, go right ahead."

I nodded, "All right."

The walkie-talkie spoke again, the person sounding more desperate, "Walter, do you copy? Please come in!"

I smirked as I slid out the window, enjoying the confusion I'd caused. I got to the ground and crouched, looking around. I could see some more SWAT people off to my right, but they seemed to be focused on the other room. I heard the crash of glass breaking, and they disappeared into the building. Realizing that the scene of our fight would be discovered soon, I hissed, "Kaylee, come."

She slipped out after me, and the radio on my belt began to speak again, this time with a male voice that I didn't know, "They are all unconscious," the voice reported, "Some of them have been shot but not all."

The female voice swore, then asked, "Do they all have their coms on them?"

I grabbed Kaylee's arm and began leading her across the parking lot in front of us, constantly checking to see if we had anyone spotting us. I felt very aware of the tall building behind us and realized that my nervousness about a sniper in the building was very unlikely.

"Negative, Doner does not have her belt or com," The male voice said, and the response was almost immediate.

"Swap to channel two, we have a breach," the woman ordered, and the com went silent.

"Storm it," I snapped as we continued to walk quickly away from the building, "We aren't dealing with idiots, that's annoying."

Suddenly Kaylee gasped, "Megan, get down!"

It took me a millisecond to register she was talking to me, but I hit the deck, diving forwards and keeping myself as low to the ground as possible.

Something zipped by my head and embedded itself in a nearby tree.

Instantly I was on high alert, and cursing myself for ignoring my instincts, "Kaylee, run in a zigzag! Sniper!"

We bolted away, all desire for stealth lost as we were in the open in a parking lot. We'd have to cross the street in order to get any cover, so speed was needed.

One zigzag mad dash later, we were in the cover of the trees across the street, and I ducked behind one, crouching to hide from the sniper. Kaylee followed my lead, eyes wide.

We stayed crouched there for a couple seconds as I strained my ears, trying to listen for anyone coming to detain us. They've got to be on their way, whoever their Coordinator is, she's good. I thought.

"What now?" Kaylee asked quietly, looking very jumpy.

"We need to leave town, and therefore find a car. We can take transit up to the north side of town, then find a car, and it should throw them off our tail somewhat," I decided, "I looked at the bus map last night, and there is a bus stop not too far from here. Can you take off your jacket?" I asked.

"What?" Kaylee sounded confused.

"Your jacket, take it off!" I snapped, "We need to change our appearance slightly, and apparel is the easiest way to do that."

"But-" she started, then stopped herself, "Okay, fine."

I opened my backpack, pulling out a scarf and handing it to her, "Here, wear this."

"I... okay?" Kaylee took the scarf, trading her coat for it, and wrapped it around her neck, flopping one end behind her and one in front.

"Very fashionable," I commented as I pulled a silver vest out of my bag. It was designed for backpacking and therefore was very compact. I put it on and shoved Kaylee's coat in the backpack before hoisting it back onto my shoulders.

"Lead the wa- oh shoot!" Kaylee said, pointing.

A bunch of SWAT people were headed our way, six or seven of them.

"Run!" I ordered and dashed out of the trees onto the sidewalk, Kaylee a couple steps behind me.

We reached the end of the block and I kept running, ignoring all traffic as I crossed the street. Across the street was a small green space, with lots of trees, and a half gazebo at the end. I kept running until we reached the gazebo, where I ducked down, using the wall as cover.

Kaylee crouched down behind me, but I hissed at her, "Keep going! I'll meet you at the fountain over there. Feel free to walk normally."

"You want to split up?" she sounded shocked.

"Go!" I snapped, and she off she went, walking fairly casually, except that she glanced behind her to see where the SWAT team was at. Thankfully they missed her glance and just kept thumping along towards the gazebo. I dug into my bag, pulling out another smoke grenade, and using a lighter, I lit the piece of string and lobbed it out towards the SWAT team.

The grenade was not as effective as it would have been inside, but it gave me some decent cover as I ran after Kaylee.

As I approached the fountain I began to look around for her. I found her sitting on a bench, looking around nervously.

"You doing all right?" I asked as I jogged up to her.

"Wha?" she jumped slightly, "Oh, Me- Julia, you startled me."

"No need to state the obvious," I commented, "Come on, we need to catch a bus."

I was in the lead again as we walked towards where I remembered the bus stop on the map to be. I began to mumble, "Third and Oak, third and... okay, good there's Oak. Now, bus, you'd better be here very soon, okay?"

"What was that?" Kaylee asked.

"Nothing important," I answered, looking around.

The SWAT team had left the smoke cloud and was looking around, almost definitely for us.

"Should we be concerned?" Kaylee was eying the SWAT team as well.

"Don't worry, I am," I replied, and received a small moan in response.

"That is not what I wanted to hear," Kaylee said, continuing to stare at the SWAT team.

"Stop watching them," I told her, "That'll draw attention to us. It's possible they'll just pass us by, as we sort of doubled back on them, and- oh, there's the bus."

Kaylee began to look for her wallet, but I held out a hand to stop her, saying, "The bus here is free, don't worry."

A dark gray bus with colourful spots in a wave pattern on the side pulled up, and we got on. The inside layout was fairly normal for a city bus. Two seats on each side of the bus and emergency exits all over. Kaylee and I found two seats and after a brief debate, I claimed the window seat. I looked out the window and saw the SWAT team continuing down Main Street. I relaxed into the plastic chair of the bus and sighed in satisfaction. We'd successfully given them the slip.

"Are they coming after us?" Kaylee whispered.

"No, they've continued on. We should be clear for now," I answered.

"That's a relief. Why are you grinning?" She frowned.

I blinked, realizing she was right, "I enjoy that sort of thing, I guess."

"You enjoy that sort of thing?" She repeated, looking very confused.

I shrugged, "Yeah, I do. It's familiar, and I'm good at it."

Kaylee continued to frown, "I... um, okay."

"You don't sound very confident," I noted.

"I'm not, but I don't need to share my doubts with you. Where are we headed now?" She not very subtly changed the subject.

"Up to the north end of town," I answered, "There we can find some transportation away from here, and get back on our way."

"Are we going to... find it similarly to when we were in Spokane?" Kaylee asked hesitantly.

"If you are referring to the form of acquisition, then yes," I said. I'd looked for car rentals in town last night, and hadn't found any that would work for our purposes.

The minutes passed as the bus stopped and started, picking up and dropping off people at a fairly normal pace. Kaylee seemed fidgety and ready to jump at anything.

"Are you doing all right?" I asked after noticing how nervously she was eying everyone who came onboard, "You've been really jumpy after the hotel."

"I wonder why," she said dryly, then sighed, saying quietly, "Yes, I'm nervous. I was woken from a wonderful sleep, then had to flee from my room and watch my little sister shoot people without batting an eye. And I slammed my metal water bottle into a guys brain without really thinking about it. I probably gave him a concussion!"

"And you saved me from getting shot," I pointed out, "Possibly from getting killed. So thank you for giving him a concussion."

She sighed again, "That doesn't make me feel much better, but you're welcome," with that, she pulled out her earbuds, then paused, likely remembering that her phone was pretty much useless right now, she asked, "Um, could I use your phone for music?"

I eyed her, "Only if we share the earbuds."

She nodded, smiling slightly, "Deal."

We listened to music for the rest of the ride, enjoying lots of music by Sia, Twenty One Pilots, and some other random people.

At Kootenai and Walmart, yes, they named the bus stop after the street and the nearby store, we got off, thanked the bus driver, who commented on the strange smoke where he'd picked us up, and we agreed, yes, it was very strange, before leaving hurriedly.

"Now what?" Kaylee asked as we walked towards the Walmart. She'd seemed to have calmed down and appeared to be back to her usual bubbly self.

"We need to acquire a car, and then continue on our way," I answered, turning into the Walmart parking lot, "We should be able to get one from a far corner of the parking lot without attracting too much attention."

"Um, okay," Kaylee said and followed me over to the far end of the parking lot.

Twenty minutes later we were in a Toyota Yaris iA driving out of the town. Within ten minutes from that Kaylee had hooked up my phone for music, and we were jamming out as Kaylee drove. We agreed to swap drivers at Bonners ferry so that I'd be the one driving through the mountains, as I had more experience with that.

With music blaring loud enough for those in cars next to us glare in our direction, we followed the highway towards Canada. I found my anticipation building as we drove, getting closer to home, not to mention safety.

"They say stay in your lane, Boy. Lane, Boy. Yeah, we go where we want to!" Kaylee sang along loudly, completely into the music. I grinned and let myself sing along, trying to ignore the knowledge that we were definitely being followed, and I didn't know how far behind us they were.

Kaylee looked over at me pointedly as she sang, "Don't trust a perfect person and don't trust a song that's flawless," to which I rolled my eyes, but continued to sing with her. I could tell I was horribly offkey, but so was Kaylee, and we, well, Megan and her, had agreed to be okay with singing horribly together, and I figured that extended to me.

The jam season continued for a while, occasionally interrupted by disagreements about skipping songs or not. Thirty minutes or so away from Sandpoint we arrived at a small town called Bonner's ferry. It was small, and quaint seems like a good word to describe it. It had a visitors centre which we stopped at to swap drivers and have a bathroom break. When I left the bathroom, I saw that Kaylee had struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman.

"...are you from?" the man asked, not unkindly, but his face expressed just the hint of concern and suspicion.

Uh oh, I thought and crossed the room to join them quickly.

"Washington area," Kaylee said offhandedly, "And yourself?"

"I live in town here," he said then continued to press Kaylee slightly, "And you are on road trip with your younger sister?"

She frowned slightly, "Yes, that's what I said, your point?"

"Just curious, nothing more," he said quickly.

I paused my approach as I looked at the TV that was mounted on a nearby wall for a moment. The news was playing, and I saw a clip of a silver car racing through some very familiar streets. The video was choppy like it had been shot with a cell phone but it told me what story they were covering.

I stepped up and tugged the sleeve of Kaylee's sweater, "We need to get going," I said, opting to ignore the man.

"Oh, okay. Nice chatting with you," Kaylee said to the man.

"Same here. Stay safe on your trip," he said, then walked a couple steps away.

I watched him move away and noticed that he was now looking at the TV screen.

I grabbed Kaylee's arm and walked a quickly as I could out of that building, hustled over to the car, and got into the driver's side as quickly as I could.

It wasn't till we were back on the highway that either of us spoke.

"You're mad at me, aren't you?" Kaylee asked.

"Yeah, kind of," I said shortly

She winced, "What did I do wrong?"

"You had an extended conversation with someone," I explained, annoyed that she couldn't figure it out herself, "Now he's going to remember you if anyone comes asking, and it's even possible that he called the police shortly after we left, because after chatting with you, he went to watch the news, which was featuring a story about us. So yes, I'm mad that you made such an amateur mistake."

"I am an amateur!" She snapped, "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing the best I can with my limited knowledge! Feel free to instruct me in how to do this smartly, but I really don't know what is going on, or how to cope with what is going on."

I took a deep breath to calm myself down before I responded, "All right, that makes sense. I'll try to give you better instructions and keep you better informed with what's going on."

"That would be appreciated," Kaylee nodded, "So, the guy I was talking to may have talked to me, then seen me on tv as a... fugitive, correct?"

"Yes, and the normal response to that is to call the police, and that will get them even closer on our tail," I added.

Kaylee groaned, "Storms, I'm an idiot. I'm sorry Meg-Julia."

I smiled slightly, "I hope it all turns out okay. I'm a little unsettled that I haven't heard anything from Agent Blackwood, as I left him a note in my room, but at this point, I'm thinking to just operate as if I'll be getting to backup or extraction."

"That sounds sensible," Kaylee agreed, then paused, looking distracted, "Is that a helicopter?"

I tensed, trying to listen over the sound of the wind racing by the car, and sure enough, I heard a helicopter.

"You're right," I said, "If they are after us, we could be in big trouble."

A/N Hello again! Look, another chapter! Phew, NaNo is overwhelming but good for getting words out. I hope you are all still enjoying the story! Please let me know if you are! Also, it would mean so much to me if you were to share this story with your friends. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story.

Well, that's all for now! I should be back in another couple of days!