When I woke up, it was later in the afternoon. There was a sick taste in my mouth and an aching in my limbs. I'd slept through the entire day but still wasn't feeling any better. I wasn't feeling tired anymore, but I still felt the pain. I still felt the sick feeling in my stomach and the worry that was driving me insane. It was like waking up from a nightmare only to discover it was real. 

Eric and Mackenzie were still with the RFI, and I had no way of knowing whether or not they were safe. 

The light that peeked in from outside the tent was growing dimmer and dimmer with each minute I spent lying there. The distant sound of talking caught my attention and I finally got up, desperately wanting to know what was going on. 

I unzipped the tent carefully and stepped out while trying to ignore my pounding head. I was immediately hit with the warmth of a fire and saw Cassie and Turner sitting on a log in front of a fireplace they'd built. Their voices were low murmurs so I could tell they were talking about something serious.

I walked over to them, catching their attention as they turned their heads, the glow from the fire reflecting on their faces. 

"How are you feeling?" Cassie asked, immediately getting up to help me walk over. 

"I'm fine," I leaned on her weight as she guided me to the log, helping me sit down. "What's going on?"

Turner shuffled over, giving me space to sit as Cassie rejoined him. "We're making plans to rescue Eric and Mackenzie," he informed. 

"What have you got so far?" I asked.

"We've located their base not too far from here," he explained in a lower murmur. 

Panic rose in me immediately. "How close are they? Do they know where we are?" 

"Woah, woah," Turner put his hand on my arm, trying to calm me down. "Relax, we're well hidden. But chances are they're going to be looking for you."

I stayed silent, fearing my safety. There was no way the RFI were going to be happy with my escape. If they captured me again, there was going to be no way they'd let me live. There was a whole team of them with weapon machinery more powerful than anything we had. Chances were not looking good.

"What are we going to do?" I asked in anguish.   

Cassie cleared her throat, "We have a plan."

I looked at her in anticipation. 

"We're going to blow up their entire base." 

My brain barely processed her words at first. But when they did, I grew confused. My forehead creased. 

"You can't blow up their base if Eric and Mackenzie are there," I argued. I knew that part seemed pretty self-explanatory, but I felt the need to say it anyway. 

"We'll set off bombs at different locations once we know either of them aren't around those areas." She elaborated. 

I still wasn't understanding her. "What good would that do?" 

"It'll be distraction enough to get Eric and Mackenzie back. " Turner replied. 

I looked at them, feeling stunned. I had expected us to do something, but nothing this extreme. Creating an explosion? That was definitely one way to create a distraction. 

"When exactly were you planning on doing this?" I queried. 

"Tomorrow morning," Cassie answered.

I felt the lump in my throat grow. That meant that Eric and Mackenzie would have to survive another night with the RFI. They just needed to get through the next few hours and we would save them - or at least, I hoped we would. The possibility of us failing was looking a lot higher than us succeeding. But I almost didn't care. I had to get Eric back - and I was willing to do anything I needed to make it happen. 

"We need you to come with us Becca," Turner urged. "You're the only one who knows exactly where Eric and Mackenzie are."

I nodded slowly. I'd already decided I would be coming as soon as they'd announced the idea. There was no way I was going to sit this one out. 

"But..." I spoke out loud, voice trailing off. "I don't know where they're exactly being held." 

Cassie and Turner looked at me with frowns - I could tell I'd put a damper on the plans. 

"Oh," Cassie spoke. 

"I mean, I only saw the inside of the tent that I was being held captive in," I continued to explain. "Eric and Mackenzie were taken away somewhere else. They could be anywhere."

Turner sighed, his chest rising and falling quickly. "I guess we'll just have to look around."

"Yep," Cassie agreed. "At most, let's just hope they're being kept in the same tent." 

I listened to the sound of the fire crackling, taking in her words. A rescue mission. That's what this was going to be. 

I didn't care about the RFI, I didn't care about taking them down or any of their plans anymore. All that mattered was getting Eric and Mackenzie back from them. But everything felt so rushed, making it less reassuring that nothing bad would happen. 

"God, this doesn't sound like the best plan..." I uttered out loud. 

Turner shrugged. "It's the only one we've got. We need to get a move on now. We can't wait for back up or anything else. The window of opportunity rescue them won't be open for long."

I knew exactly what he was inferring. 

We needed to act now. There was no time to wait. The RFI were ruthless and we knew exactly what they were capable. After all, how long did it take to torture a person for information?

I went back to sleep a few hours after we'd talked through the plan to get ready in the morning. I'd barely gotten more than a full hours rest after all the time I'd spent lying awake just in worry. How could I sleep peacefully knowing that Eric was still in that horrible place? 

Every fiber of my being was screaming for morning to hurry up so we could begin our plan. The seconds ticking away were agonizing and as I laid down looking at the roof of the tent, all I could do was study its material with the light from the moon. It felt torturous just lying there and not being able to do something. But I knew I had to be patient.  

Finally, Cassie and Turner were awake and daylight had returned to the sky again. The second I'd seen light hit the sky, I snapped into alert. 

I was ready. 

For the life of me, I could not understand how Turner was planning on causing this explosion. He'd spent a good hour the previous night installing things I didn't know about and using chemicals I couldn't name to make some weird kind of portable bomb. The process had been a weird yet interesting one to watch. He'd told me it was something he'd picked up from working for the RUA which left me wondering if one day I'd know how to do something that complicated. 

There was a solemn mood in the air as we all got dressed and ready. The silence was almost eerie but I guess that was because we all knew what was going to happen and there wasn't much else to say.

When we finally left our base to enact the plan, chatter began again - but it was deadly serious.

"There are two rows of tents," I told them between breaths. The uphill trek was affecting me already, but I was doing my best to forget about it. "If I take the left side and Cassie takes the right, it'll save us a heap of time."

"Splitting up is definitely the best option," Turner agreed. 

"Are you going to be okay setting off the explosion?" Cassie asked him, a look of concern on her face. 

He looked at her for a moment, something tender in his eyes. "I'll be fine," he reassured. 

I felt sorry for them. Cassie had told me how hard it was being in love with someone in this line of work. There was so much worry for each other's safety. But now, I knew exactly what she was talking about - because I had the same thing with Eric. 

Turner split up from us, going to a location further away from where we would be to cause the distraction. Cassie and I had continued walking, hoping to get a little closer to the base to optimize the time we had to find Eric and Mackenzie. We had five minutes until Turner would cause the explosion. 

"The second you hear that bomb go off, you get a move on," Cassie informed me as the two of us walked at our fast pace. 

I nodded. I'd heard the plan more than once and gone over it millions of times in my head. If the RFI thought their abduction of us had been a shocking ambush, then boy, were they in for a surprise. 

We stopped at where I would be left, only a few meters from the RFI campsite. Cassie would go around to the other side so she could check the opposite row of tents. 

"I can't believe we're doing this," I breathed as I took in the sight. Things were starting to become a whole heap more real than just the simple plan in my head. 

Cassie gave me a knowing look. "Good luck agent," she sighed. 

I smirked. The last time she had said those words to me was before I'd hopped in a limo to Kennedy High for the first time. It was crazy to think about how much things had changed. 

"You too," I told her before she walked off, giving me one last smile. I watched her as she disappeared through the trees, the only trace left of her being her footprints on the ground. 

The only thing I had now was myself - and a gun I was really hoping I wouldn't have to use. During my Summer of training at the RUA, I'd taken gun practice multiple time, getting better and better at hitting targets. But I was still nowhere near pro status. It seemed illogical to think that I would do any better in a gunfight with an RFI agent with years of experience. Therefore, I was really depending on Turner to cause the biggest distraction in history. 

I crouched down in the green bushes, hiding as much as I could as I peered forward. I could see the white tents a short distance away and I froze at the sight of RFI agents. They hadn't detected me but if they did, I'd be done for. From this point on, it was a waiting game. 

Part of me kept searching, hoping I would gain sight of Eric. I wanted to see him okay so the agonizing worry I had could fade a little but as long as I didn't know how he was, it would remain. I needed to get him back more than anything. 

Then it happened. 

I heard the sound of the bomb detonate as the ground shook with it. I hadn't expected the explosion to be so loud, startling me too. It had felt like an earthquake had just happened. 

The environment grew chaotic as I heard RFI members calling out to each other and exit the rows of white tents. There was so much going on that it would have been easy for me to be swept up in it. But not this time. I had a job to do, and I was going to do it now. 

For Eric. 

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A/N: Comment below who your favorite character in this series is and why and I'll dedicate the next chapter to my favorite answer! 

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