"I don't know what to tell you, son," James said quietly. "This all seems impossible. I mean, the CIA would have found these terrorists if they'd escaped..."

"But they weren't looking for them, they should've been dead," Nolan replied grimly. He looked around the car at the confused faces around him...he'd forgotten to put it on speaker. "Is there anything else?"

"That's all we have so far, but I'll keep you updated. You just need to get out of there; about fifty men or so are ten miles away from your current location."

"Got it. I'll talk to you later." Nolan hung up the phone and was given half a second to let it all sink in before everyone started asking what had happened.

"Colossus is sending an army of foot soldiers across the globe," he said, "each group is led by a terrorist that's supposed to have been dead for years. Like Egor."

Shocked silence filled the small car and was only broken by the low hum of the engine as it raced across the pavement.

"Why?" Jim asked.

"I don't know. Unless this is punishment for disabling the EMP chain..." Nolan suddenly straightened. "Or maybe the EMPs are just a tool..."

Collin's brow lowered. "What do you mean?"

"We've always thought that it was odd for Egor to go to all this trouble just to wreak havoc. And these armies were carefully planned and organized—it wasn't just a plan B for if something happened with the EMPs."

Grace's lips parted in surprise. "You mean the EMPs are just clearing the slate for something bigger."

"Not good," Jim murmured. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel and he exhaled what sounded like a prayer.

Nolan looked out the window, his mind a blur. He wasn't as concerned about Egor's deadly intentions as he was about the fact that ghosts were leading his armies.

Every name James had read Nolan remembered. He remembered the clothes they wore, the city they were located in, and the orders given to him as he looked through the crosshairs of his scope. Even though he hadn't always been the one to pull the trigger, he'd been there. He'd seen their bloodied corpses. How could they be alive?

As perplexed as he was, he couldn't help but feel as if he hadn't done his job.

They'd gone after those men for a reason; to eliminate further terror. Now all of them had joined together to pull off the biggest attack in human history.

That lead to the question of who had been responsible for it all? Had Egor deliberately orchestrated for all of these men to fake their deaths? It seemed highly improbable.

Grace shook his arm. "Nolan?"

"Hmm?"

"We're about ten minutes away from the airport."

"Gotcha."

"You okay?" She asked gently, her hand falling over his as she gave it a sympathetic squeeze.

Nolan mustered a half smile in reply.

Dawn was beginning to color the sky and the large store signs were turning on for the day.

Nolan was surprised at the traffic congesting the street, especially in such a small town.

"This is ridiculous," Jim muttered as a long line of cars came to a complete stop on Main Street. He craned his neck to see ahead.

"Was it a wreck?" Collin asked, squinting as well.

Nolan caught sight of a huge semi-truck barreling out from an alleyway three buildings ahead of them.

The truck didn't stop, but pummeled the cars in its way as if they were plastic toys.

Nolan didn't have time to respond as another truck zoomed out of the alleyway directly beside them and pummeled their car.

It flipped to the side and Nolan was thrown against the door with Grace on top of him.

Their car slid across the street and wrecked into a shop on the opposite side.

Glass rained down on Nolan as he gasped for air.

Grace sat up in Nolan's lap with a grimacing expression. Her eyes were wide as blood dripped from her temple.

Gritting his teeth, Nolan scooped her in his arms and crawled out of the broken sunroof and onto the pavement.

He set Grace down and peeked back in to see that Jim and Collin were also trying to recover from the blow.

"Find another car and get to the airport!" Nolan shouted, looking up to see that dozens of men had unloaded from the trucks and swarmed the street, carrying heavy machine guns. They wouldn't have time to escape unnoticed, so Nolan would have to distract them somehow...

"Do you hear me?!" Nolan asked frantically, turning his attention back to Jim and Collin.

Jim groaned. "Yeah."

"Nolan," Grace said, grabbing his shirt, "What are you doing?"

"My guess is something pretty stupid," he said. "Go with Jim and Collin, steal a car, get to the airport."

"We can't steal a car!"

Nolan glanced up at the terrorists filling the streets. "I'm pretty sure that's the least of our felonies, trust me."

He half-crawled into the jewelry story that the car was lying up against and scrambled across the broken glass and scattered gems. He needed a weapon...

The terrorists open fired outside.

People began screaming.

"It'll stop when you show yourself!" A voice shouted through a megaphone.

Nolan did a quick search and grabbed a sturdy piece of glass. He slid it into his sleeve and ran out into the street, raising his arms.

"Hey!" He shouted.

The black-masked men all turned to look at him. People were fleeing the streets, most wailing out loud, and some were on their knees begging for mercy. There were at least a dozen bodies littering the ground. From the corner of his eye, Nolan saw Grace helping Jim and Collin out of the car.

Nolan gulped and decided to ignore them. "You gonna stop shooting now? Because I had a nice, cozy spot in the car you crashed into, but I came out here just for you."

A man holding a riot shield stepped forward and wrenched one of Nolan's arms to his side in order to cuff it.

Nolan lowered his other arm voluntarily and allowed the piece of glass he'd hidden to slide down. He wrenched his body around and sliced through the soldier's throat in one motion.

The man gave a gurgling wail as Nolan grabbed his riot shield and held it in front of himself.

The other soldiers let loose a torrent of bullets that pelted the shield and Nolan wasted no time in backing up as fast as his feet could take him.

He dodged behind a building, slung the shield around to cover his back, and took off at a sprint through the alleyway.

He heard dozens of boots pounding the ground behind him.

This was stupid... he thought. Hopefully the rest of the team would make it to the airport...

He came to the end of the alley, where the buildings split off on either side to form a T. He knew they'd trap him from both ends.

Nolan's hands fidgeted at his sides as he tried to think of what to do.

He spotted a fire escape.

It was old and rusted, but he barely thought twice before he was halfway up.

Shouts from down below echoed through the narrow alley, but Nolan didn't look down. Three bullets pelted his riot shield just as he swung himself over a roof ledge and started running again.

"Crap..."

He was hoping for adjoining rooftops that he could cross over, but unfortunately each building stood at least fifty feet apart.

This was really stupid.

He heard the metal ladder groaning below as the soldiers began to climb.

Nolan spun in a circle, looking for a way out. His heart hammered in his chest. There wasn't another fire escape or a door that would lead to the building below.

He was trapped.

The first head popped up from the ladder and Nolan knelt at the furthest corner, making sure his entire body was tucked behind the shield.

The polycarbonate material that the shield was made out of wouldn't hold for long against such close range, but it was the only thing Nolan had.

The first man planted his feet on the concrete and began firing.

The bullets pelted the shield, some managing to penetrate through the weaker corners.

Nolan had to do something or get killed.

He lifted himself up and rushed at them, pumping his legs as fast as they would go.

He flipped his shield longways and rammed into the cluster of soldiers, using his momentum to knock everyone off the roof...including himself.

He plummeted to the ground and landed on top of three soldiers with brutal force. He tried to suck in a breath that wouldn't come and clenched his fists.

He stumbled to his feet when his lungs opened up again. Most of the soldiers were already moving, so Nolan clenched his jaw and made his way down the alley.

His ribs ached from where they had been healing, but nothing seemed to be broken. He picked up speed and spotted a back door into one of the buildings.

He tried the handle.

Locked.

He dashed around a corner and entered into an empty deli.

Nolan crouched behind the meat counter and closed his eyes as the soreness in his body throbbed along his skin. He was tired of running all the time...

He needed answers.

He peered through the glass of the counter and saw the Colossus soldiers passing by. Nolan looked around the deli and grabbed a kitchen knife and a roll of receipt paper.

Standing up, he inched towards the door, waiting for the last soldier to pass. They were all sweeping the area at a fast pace.

Nolan unraveled about a foot of receipt paper and held it ready. He didn't want to alert the rest of the team...

Finally, a lone straggler passed by, scanning the area.

Nolan skirted out the door noiselessly, snuck up behind the soldier, lifted the strip of paper, and yanked it around the soldier's mouth, using the excess to wrap it three more times so that the man's yells couldn't be heard.

The soldier thrashed around, giving muffled shouts, but Nolan hooked his arm around his torso and dragged him into the deli and inside the back storage room.

He shut the door quickly behind him and grabbed a spool of meat string and tied it around the man's wrists.

After Nolan had secured his feet, he retrieved the gun the man had been holding and knelt next to him, unwrapping the receipt paper from his mouth.

The man acted like he was about to shout, but Nolan held up a hand.

"You know the drill," he said, "If you run, I'll shoot. If you try to punch, kick, bite, hit, scratch or try to harm me in any way, just remember...I have a gun. You do not."

The man breathed heavily, his brown eyes wide. He tried to yank free of his bonds, but, of course, they held fast. "What do you want? You've already knocked me off a roof already..."

Nolan smiled to himself. "I apologize for that. Actually, I'm not sorry at all. Anyway, I need some information about your organized military groups popping up around the world. Can you do that for me?"

The man eyed the knife Nolan was holding. He was so young—probably in his early twenties, if not nineteen— with a solid build and twitchy features. "No—never. Please..."

Nolan leaned back against a rack of cheese cloths and paper products. "What's your name, son?"

"W—what?"

"Name. You have one?"

"Vin Gressau."

"Vin...interesting," Nolan ran his thumb along the blade of the knife. "I'm assuming you know mine?"

Vin snorted. "Is this some sort of game to get me to acknowledge the threat you pose to Colossus?"

"I was just curious, but I'm assuming the answer is yes?"

Vin glared.

Nolan leaned against his knees. "These dastardly little EMPs weren't the entire plan, were they?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. You joined Colossus for a reason."

"You act like I did it willingly."

Nolan stopped. "What do you mean?"

Vin's eyes darted around every corner of the room. Nolan could tell that the boy had said too much already. "Just let me go." He pleaded.

"Not until you tell me why you're still with Colossus."

Vin sighed in defeat. "I didn't want to stay..." he said quietly, almost in a whisper as if someone could hear him, "Egor came to my town in Germany, secretly recruiting for Colossus. He promised world reform...and money, of course." His composure grew defensive. "My family is poor...my father left years ago and I have no care for the government. It sounded more promising than joining the military, I didn't have a choice...so I joined. And then Egor wouldn't let us leave."

"How did he keep you there?"

Vin chuckled in disgust, shaking his head. "He threatened us, of course...our families. My commander already killed several people in my squadron."

Nolan blinked. He'd expected this boy to be another enemy he'd eventually eliminate. But Egor had lured his soldiers in and would use them until his work was complete. These men were prisoners.

"Please, Mr. Clay," Vin said, sounding more like the young boy he was instead of a calloused soldier, "My commander's going to kill me if he finds out I'm alive."

"I need information first."

Vin hesitated, but then nodded slowly.

"The EMPs are a bridge to something bigger," Nolan said frankly, "Back in Kavala, Egor told me that this was a revenge attack because some people killed his family. Social chaos was his way of getting back at the government for what they did. We both know that me and my team pose the largest threat to that operation, so it would make sense for Egor to pull out everything he's got to stop us," Nolan tilted forward, his brow serious, "but what doesn't make sense is for him to pull out an entire army made up of terrorists that have been crossed out of the government's kill list." He squinted at Vin. "A whole military...just for me?"

Vin licked his lips, his eyes flickering from the gun back to Nolan as if he still didn't trust him. "Egor's plan is to overthrow the world's powers," he said, "Colossus has been around longer than you might've expected...almost twenty years." He swallowed hard. "Back then, all of the terrorists gathered and made a plan. They would each stage their own deaths, live underground, and plant these EMPs. Egor, of course, was the leader. The EMPs are going to strip the world of any control and send it into a frenzy. Each terrorist has a designated province, if you will, to take over. They'll all be heroes because people will be seeking leadership of some sort."

Nolan sighed heavily, then took in a deep breath of the cold air that smelled of processed meat. "Okay...okay, okay, okay...we can figure this out."

"We?"

"Sorry, I was talking to myself."

"Are you going to let me go?" Vin asked skeptically, his gaze tentatively on the gun and knife.

Nolan weighed his options. "I'm not going to kill you," he said slowly, "But I can't have you going back to your commander telling him about this conversation."

Vin paled.

Nolan stood up, slung the gun onto his shoulder, and picked up the knife. "So I'm going to untie you...but you're going to stay in this storage room for four hours after I leave this room, do you understand?"

"Four hours?"

"You heard me." Nolan pointed to the clock overhead. "240 minutes. Count them."

Vin nodded. "Okay. Deal."

Nolan sawed away the string around the boy's wrists and paused to kneel in front of him.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he said, "But you need to be careful. You have two options here; you can get out of this city and away from Colossus or expose me to your commander and gain a reward." Nolan scanned Vin's anxious face. "I've made a lot of mistakes...I have a lot of regrets about things that I've done. But the decision you make four hours from now will determine what those mistakes and regrets are. Got it?"

"Yes sir."

Nolan stood again and made his way out of the storage room, closing the door behind him. He let out a sharp exhale. Now all he had to do was get out of here alive...

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Hi everyone!  So sorry for missing last week's post, I was going through some dreaded writer's block, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm not too sure about it, it feels kind of off? I'm always open to opinions/critiques!

~Do you think Grace, Jim, and Collin made it out safely?

~What do you think Vin decided once he left the storage room?

~Will Nolan scrape by again this time?

~What are your thoughts on this chapter?

Thank you so much for reading! {Don't forget to comment. vote, and share!}