Stephanie Johnson

My feet slammed into the ground as we ran around the corner. I could hear Park running behind me as he dragged Santiago along with him. I glanced back to see the two of them holding hands. Cute.

If we were in any other situation I would take a picture for Instagram. Unfortunately running away from crazy people with guns took priority over perfect pictures.

We're almost there!

"Oh my god, there it is!" I couldn't help myself from saying it out loud. There, within sight was the gate that had kept me in here for far too long.

BANG!

"Fuck." I turned to what my brother had seen, dismayed. No.

An unbelievable amount of guards were moments away from reaching us. Even though only a small portion had guns, the rest had shiny objects that I assumed I should avoid. Suddenly my view was cut off as Minhyuk stepped in front of me. Peeking over his shoulder I saw that he had his own gun aimed at the group. I breathed in sharply recognizing the design. That's what he shot at me with before.

"Since when did you have that?" Santiago's voice was filled with disbelief as he also noticed what the boy was holding.

"How about we don't talk about that right now." He glanced at my brother, "Santiago stay out of the way."

Bang!

Bang!

I looked at Minhyuk in confusion as he still hadn't pulled the trigger. Why isn't he shooting? Is there something wrong? Then who's shooting? I looked back at the mass to realize a handful had fallen over. Scanning the crowd, my eyes widened.

Castle and Trigger stood on top of the hill, overlooking the small army that had assembled to try and stop us.

"You try and hold them back!" I shout at Minhyuk, "I got the gate!"

Minhyuk gives me a nod in confirmation and then focuses his gaze on the advancing mass of people.

I motion for Santiago to help me and together we rip the panel cover from the control box.

I almost sighed from relief once I looked inside. Despite how complicated it looked, the gate's controls were very similar to the ones that Luke and I dealt with. Luke...

"Steph!" Turning in alarm, I reach for my knife only to remember that I dropped it while tearing off the control box cover. Without a second thought, I slammed the control box cover over the person's head, wincing as she crumpled to the ground. Returning my focus back to the task at hand, I haphazardly connected wires shaking hands. Please work.

OVERRIDE CODE INPUT

Shit. Luke was always the one who dealt with this kind of stuff.

"Park, you better remember something from the hacking class of yours!" The boy in question gave me a tentative nod and before running over.

"Take this." He passes me his gun as we trade places. It's cold. That wuss hadn't even used it yet.

BANG! BANG!

I do my best to aim, but I'm only causing a distraction at best.

"AAGH!" Minhyuk makes some sort of grunt behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I see him reaching around on the ground before stabbing the attacker wildly. So that's where my knife went.

"Got it!" Suddenly, Santiago grabs my arm, we run through the now open gate as Minhyuk waves us on. "Come on! Come on!" Pushing something, the gates shut behind us rapidly. The guards clatter against it, swarming like bugs.

We ran like our lives depended on it, which technically they did. I quickly took care of the few pursuers we did have before tossing the now empty gun to Minhyuk. He turned his face away from me in response, but I was too focused to care. My legs are burning.

After what must've been hours, a familiar town came into view.

"Let's stop here!" How Santiago was able to keep up, I would never understand. As far as I knew, the kitchen didn't necessarily qualify as a gym. Minhyuk made a sound of pain, but I assumed he just rolled his ankle so I looked away to the scene in front of me. The buildings struck something in me, and it took everything to not crumple into a ball right there.

The rise and fall of his chest indicated that the boy was still alive, though the blood on the floor said not for long. Darcy's desperate cries filled the room as her clothes became soaked with blood.

"NO!"

I watched as the woman looked up, right into the barrel of the gun.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Her body fell, one last strangled cry on the tip of her tongue.

"No." Tears were falling down my face as I kept my eyes on the road. It was already dark outside, but I could see Minhyuk taking in my expression.

"She's right, we'd be stupid to stay around other people whose motives we don't know." I silently thanked him before something caught my eye. He had just slightly turned to look at me, but it was enough.

"Oh my god!" The right side of his face was covered in blood and his eye was...missing. I fought the urge to throw up, stopping in my tracks.

"What's wro-" Santiago finally caught on, immediately reaching for the boy's face.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"It's fine. I was gonna deal with it later." My brother ripped off the sleeve of his shirt, trying to make some sort of bandage as I dug around my bag for some sort of first aid kit. How did we forget to pack that?

We did our best to bandage his face up, but neither of us had any experience. I looked around at our barren surroundings, praying for anyone to show up. Maybe we should have stopped in town. How did I not notice this earlier? In the distance, a large object caught my eye, though it was too dark to make it out clearly. As we got closer, I couldn't help but smile.

"It's a truck!" I ran ahead, peering through the window. There was a man inside, but I couldn't tell whether or not he was awake. Knocking on the window, there was no response.

"What are you doing?" Santiago had made it over with Minhyuk, still clutching his eye. Without responding, I flung open the door to the strong stench of beer. The man was obviously breathing, but very drunk.

"Help me get him out."

"What?" My brother had confusion written all over his face.

"We're stealing the truck."

"Steph-" Oh so now he has a conscience.

"Shut up and help me." With a sigh, Santiago joined me as we heaved the man out and laid him off to the side, away from the edge of the road. I quickly got to work on hotwiring the car before getting in the driver's seat. Santiago all but threw Minhyuk into the back before getting in the passenger side. I looked at the odd objects beside me, bewildered.

"Shit."

"Why aren't you driving?" Santiago stared at me with wide eyes.

"I don't know how to drive a manual! My dad taught me on an automatic."

"Fuck." We got so far! What am I supposed to do?

"Feet on the clutch and brake." Minhyuk had sat up and leaned forward, face uncomfortably close to mine.

"What?"

"Just do what I say. There's an emergency brake right next to you, push it down." I tried my best to follow his instructions, but if the grinding indicated anything, I was doing terribly. Luckily the road was pretty empty, saving me some of the embarrassment. I finally got the car into third when we lurched forward and the engine died.

"You fucking killed it! At this point, we'd be better off walking." Minhyuk groaned in pain. I had to remind myself it would do us no good to sock him in the face before returning to the task in front of me.

"Shut up." Slowly, I got the hang of it, at least long enough to pull us into the parking lot of a gas station. "We'll just stop here." I turned off the car, making sure all the doors were locked.

Santiago clambered over me to get into the back. He sat next to Minhyuk, trying to fix the bandages.

"I'm driving tomorrow. You fucking suck." I glared at the boy through the mirror, only to find the two of them had fallen asleep. Closing my eyes, I could only hope that this wasn't all a dream.