Chapter Text
There was a bed. Screens. Tubes. Machines. He’d seen them before. Heart monitor. That room was burned into his mind. Steel operation table. Tools. He froze in place. Felt something bump behind him. That room, it was in the video, that video. He gripped the doorknob.
33-1 on the plaque. 33-1 on the tapes. 33-1 on the bed. Strapped to the bed. Wrists and ankles. He was breathless.
Another bump. Harder. He looked this time. Ze. Ze’s mouth moving. Wide eyes. Cap knocked askew. Buzzing. Blue eyed man. Tiny red light on a camera on the opposite wall.
Ze again. Trying to get his hands on his rifle. Ze getting punched in the face. He’d seen him before. Regect on the ground. Two strings attached to him. Glasses. Askew. Short hair.
Ze kneeling. A gun. Not Ze’s. The man from his dream. It aimed at them back and forth. The man from the video. Regect twitching. Markus Anthony Cline.
Ze yelled. He reacted, electric. He jumped at the man. The gun fired. Avery punched him. His glasses went flying. Punched him again. And again. He tried to push him off, slapped a hand on his face, and Avery punched him again. Ze by his side, kicking the gun out of his hand. Red splattered across the white tiles. Gun, bigger gun, aimed at his head. Not his, the other guy’s. Cline. Markus Anthony Cline.
Avery panted. Ze offered him a hand, eyes and gun fixed on Cline. Avery grabbed it and Ze pulled him up with enough strength to tear him out of the daze.
“Sorry- I don’t know what-”
“Go! Just go! I- I’ll keep him here, get him out of there. Hurry!”
“Get- D- Yes. Yes! Thank you- Thank you Ze!”
Avery rushed back into the room. He pushed through the shock to take a look at the man on the bed—at Derek, he was finally realizing it was Derek, right there, in front of him, the man he’d done all of this for, right there on the bed—.
He wished it was like in the movies. That he could say he saw him and he looked peaceful; that he looked asleep and not like he’d been in the torture nexus for months.
Avery wished the first thing he noticed about him wasn’t the thick, stitched gash splayed across his shaved scalp. But to be fair, his features seemed to be all obscured by the grimness of it all. He could look at his hooked nose, but he’d get distracted by his dark eyebags; he could look at the little hairs growing under his nose, but he’d get distracted by his chapped, broken lips; everywhere he looked showed layers upon layers of torture and neglect.
He peeled back the sheets and found Derek’s bony body wearing a gown. He wasn’t sure how to remove any of that equipment properly, so he mentally apologized to him as he started pulling them out, hoping it wouldn’t hurt.
Derek wasn’t awake. Or at least, if he was, whatever they had him on wasn’t letting him do anything. Avery hoped, as he unhooked him from all of that, that he’d wake up and talk to him. He hoped (reaching for one of the knives they bought at the outdoors shop) that this was the last time (as he sawed through the restraints on his wrists and ankles) Derek would have to suffer for other people.
The skin on his joints was bruised and raw, scarred in some places, which told Avery a lot about how much Derek had fought it—them. His eyes watered at the thought he’d been stuck here alone for so long; he was no longer bound to this place, though, which meant he could take him home.
Avery shed his jacket and placed it on Derek’s lap. He brought a hand under his back, pulled him up, put his arms into the sleeves, and zipped it up around him. His other hand dipped under his knees, and with little effort (it concerned him how light he was), he picked him up.
As he left the room, the dissonance hit him. Him, happy to have found Derek, distraught at the state of his body; Ze with the gun, aiming it at that one blonde bastard, with Regect insulting him at the top of his lungs. And kicking him.
“How would you like it if I tased you? Huh?! Huh?!”
“Yeah, tell him, Regect!”
“Huh?! Huh?!”
Oookay.
“Ze. Ze, I got him!”
“Yeah, get him! Get him good!”
“Ze!”
Ze turned his head to look at him, only to yell and shield his eyes from the sight. “Dude! He doesn’t have any pants on! You just- like- I don’t know- Flashed me!”
“What?” Avery looked down. Just his legs. The gown covered enough, no? “What are you talking about?”
“His ass is out! He- It’s a hospital gown, dude!”
He took another look down, saw the two ends of the gown hanging and went ooohhh…
“Ffffffff- yeah, you’re right. We need to get him pants or something. I’d give him mine, but…”
“We’re going back into the woods, so that’s a no.”
“The way I see it, we have three people here who need pants. Three people WITH pants.” Regect kicked Cline one more time and then pointed at him. “And one who isn’t going to- into the fucking wilderness right after this.”
Avery and Ze looked down at the doctor, who seemed to have a revelation at the same time they did. Ze aimed the gun at him again.
“What are you waiting for? You heard the guy.” Ze narrowed his eyes. “Give us your pants, pal.”
“What?” Ze fired a warning shot next to his head. The tile broke and smouldered for a few seconds.
“Your PANTS!”
-
They moved on from the spot, having locked Markus Anthony Cline in the room, taken his devices, left him in his stupid ducky print boxers, and given Derek some much deserved pants.
Naturally, they started running.
Avery had the DMS’ prized guinea pig in his arms, several stolen entity-things, and several people were dead. The second they were out of the room they were gone.
He told himself it was adrenaline making it easier to carry Derek, not that he was bone-thin. He tucked him close to keep any jostling to a minimum. He had no idea how much pain Derek was in, or if he was even conscious. Kind of hard to tell in the heat of the moment. They moved blindly down the hall, away from the direction they came from.
His arms full, Ze had ownership of the phone. “Assimilation, find where the others are, we are leaving.”
Whatever it said in response was apparently not good, because he skidded to stop himself. Avery was not as quick, stumbling to slow his momentum as he crossed into a junction—
Oh, yay, another armed guard!
Regect grabbed Avery by the hood so harshly he felt claws punch clean through fabric frighteningly close to his neck. He yanked him back, strangling him in the process, but keeping him alive. A bullet cracked the wall where his head once was.
The force of him stumbling knocked Derek’s head uncomfortably against his chest. His eyes might’ve opened slightly, and then he was gone to the world again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he hissed to him under his breath. He backed up as Ze readied his rifle. He almost couldn’t hear footsteps past the blood rushing in his ears. The guard inched closer.
Ze breathed in. At the exhale, he leaned around the corner and fired exactly once. The air cracked. Something heavy hit the ground.
He slipped around the corner. Avery followed, Regect close at his heels. Behind him, he whistled, “That was clean.”
Avery tried not to look at the body as he stepped around it. And the meter-long streak of blood and gore smeared down the hallway tile. One of the doors along the hall rattled as whoever was on the other side tried and failed to force it open.
Ze risked taking a hand off the gun to check the phone. Back in the pocket. Kept moving forward. Cameras shifted to life and then powered down as they passed. The lights flickered. Whatever Assimilation was doing was stretching it thin. It said it could only do so much and it was doing a lot.
When they left the high-security wing, that should’ve made him feel marginally better. They were getting closer to the others. But instead that just made him more nervous. The doors weren’t the fancy, mechanical kind that could be held shut. Anyone could be lying in wait for them to pass by.
(God, Derek felt so fragile in his arms.)
Regect slowed a fraction of a step, and on reflex Avery did the same. Was he alright—?
Another pair of footsteps.
“DUCK!”
He ducked and clutched Derek’s limp body closer. Ze went down like a puppet with its strings cut, no hesitation. A gun went off and a bullet whistled through the air. Regect vanished and he turned just in time to see him vault down the hall, toward a figure some distance behind them.
She raised the gun again just as Regect collided with her. They hit the ground hard. A bullet hit the ceiling. He raised one claw and slammed it down. Something crunched under the impact. The body squeaked and then tried to gasp on reflex. Again. The body went still. (Avery held Derek so close he felt his weak breath against his throat.)
Regect stood and skipped back to them, blood from his claws speckling the floor as he returned. “Keep your ears peeled,” he informed them.
Ze recovered faster. “Yeah, yeah.” He let the rifle drop to help Avery up, quick to get them moving again. The man’s gaze lingered on Derek, unconscious and unmoving, but alive. He was kind of baffled, in a distant way, he didn’t seem bothered by the gunshots and shouting. Was that good? He’d rather hear his voice, maybe, or see him more aware at all—
One of the nearby lights flickered harshly enough to make him blink against it. This was accompanied by the dull echo of footsteps around the corner. Ze reached for his weapon and Regect slipped past him, stretching his claws out.
The phone buzzed. Avery glanced at it, then at Ze. “Wait,” he hissed. Ze shook his head once, mouthing shut up—
The footsteps quickened. “Avery—?” Wifies?
Wifies wheeled around the corner with Brady on his heels, nearly slamming right into Ze’s awaiting gun. He pointed it sharply at the floor, startling back as the other two recoiled. Hands raised and voices overlapped— “Woah, woah!” and “It’s us!” and “Shit, sorry, sorry!”
The light overhead stopped flickering, letting them get a good look at each other. The pair looked exhausted, and Brady’s eyes were red, as if he’d been crying.
“Are—are you both okay?” Avery asked. At first glance he spotted red streaking one of Wifies’ sleeves, and he held his pistol loosely at his side, so he safely assumed it wasn’t his own. Actually, “Where’s your jacket?” he tripped over his words, looking over Brady again. He looked like he’d aged a few years since they parted. But he didn’t look injured.
Brady looked down at his sleeves, like he’d somehow forgotten it. When he looked back at Avery, his expression was impossible to pin. He swallowed, hesitating, then said, “Alex is gone.”
That wasn’t a they-couldn’t-find-him gone. His heart dropped.
Wifies squeezed Brady’s shoulder. Brady ran a hand across his face, finding his words. “We found him. He… he wasn’t leaving that room. He wouldn’t have survived. He was already barely surviving, and he was just in so much pain and he was so afraid, so I…” he swallowed and looked away.
“He did what he had to,” Wifies finished.
Oh. He was at a loss. Brady was the person who started it all, just looking for answers, for his friend, like the rest of them. Avery had… sort of assumed Alex would walk out with them. It felt set in stone. He was human and only human. He was just a kid. Looking at Brady’s expression, and thinking of the papers, the archives, he couldn’t (or rather, didn’t want to) imagine what state he was in, at the end. “I’m sorry.” What else was he supposed to say?
Brady tried to smile, which only accentuated the pain in his eyes. “The DMS can’t hurt him anymore.”
Silver linings. It didn’t make him feel much better. Ze’s eyes softened. “You did what you could,” he said quietly. Even Regect went oddly still.
Brady pressed the heel of his palm into his eyes and breathed. “Yeah. Yeah.”
Derek twitched. It was barely more than a slight kick of a leg, or a shiver, but when he moved Brady nearly jumped out of his skin. “He’s alive?”
Avery opened his mouth. There were a number of responses to that, among which was, you thought I was carrying a corpse? But that stunned him long enough to realize that was… an unfortunately logical conclusion, if he was in Brady’s position. So instead he just croaked, “Yeah, he’s alive.”
He stared at Derek, making no effort to hide his mortification. “Oh.” Brady, who’d faced death, looked at Derek and thought he was dead. Did he look that sick? He’d gone just as limp as before, like movement was a fluke. …yeah, he didn’t look… good.
“Yep, he’s alive,” Regect interrupted. His voice took on a new, nervous twinge to it that clashed uncomfortably with his oddly-rumbly voice. “And I’d like to keep him alive! And all of us alive! So maybe—” He flexed his claws and his body shifted as if glancing over his shoulder. “We get out of here now?”
“God, yeah, get moving. Anywhere that isn’t here. We’re sitting ducks.” Ze led the pack without hesitation. The halls were narrow and felt like they went on forever, but the place had to end eventually, no matter how far in it they were.
Brady fell into step at Avery’s side. The man held his gun loosely at his side, finger off the trigger and instead drumming against it. He thought about saying something. Offering his condolences again, maybe. He had this startling, far-away look, like he wasn’t really settled in the current situation. If Avery had any arms to spare he’d offer him a hug. Anything. It was something more human for his mind to latch onto, like he was functionally unarmed, relying on the others if something happened—
Emergency lights stationed at long, even intervals along the upper walls blinked. Avery winced as the hall was bathed in red. He hadn’t even processed that the place had emergency lights. They just blended into the rest of the sterile, white-and-gray place, unnoticed until they turned on. Ze raised a hand to one of his earbuds, opening his mouth, and then quickly shut it.
And then the alarm started. Derek flinched in his arms.
“About time,” Ze muttered. “Watch my back. I can’t hear shit. No offense, Moe. We’re fine.”
The corridor turned. There were too many branching paths. Everything looked the same. Avery kept close to Brady, keenly aware of Regect stalking almost uncomfortably close behind him. Hey, he’d take the demon having his back any day over nobody having his back at all.
Indeed, the alarm was loud. He almost didn’t hear the footsteps.
Just the one set, quick, low-grip soles on tile. A gun went off, and everyone flinched, but there was no clear source. It came from ahead, vaguely, down one of the branching paths.
Another gunshot. This time, someone cried out. It wasn’t a voice he recognized. Definitely from past the hall. Ze held out. He peered around the corner and immediately recoiled.
A whole person came skidding out, saw them, and shrieked. Guns were raised.
“Holy shit—holy shit—please don’t shoot me, oh my god, I’m just IT, I didn’t do anything, oh my god—” The stranger lost his footing and nearly fell. Red trickled down his shin. “Let me leave, please, I won’t tell anyone—”
A distant shout. The stranger backed up, both hands in the air. A bullet cracked the wall where his head just was. He backed up faster.
Ze pointed his rifle at the stranger and hesitated. He didn’t look like a guard, he looked like… just some guy. Not a doctor, even. Just in a button-up and khakis, only a lanyard around his neck signalling he was staff at all, and not some random person plucked off the street and dropped into a government lab.
“Do not shoot some random person,” Wifies hissed, gripping Ze by the arm.
“We don’t know if he’s some random person,” he said, all tense nerves. “I don’t know, is everyone in here evil?! Complicit?” He glanced back quickly, and his eyes landed on Brady and Avery. Why was he looking at Avery. Okay, it was because he was holding Derek, maybe he had some opinions about anyone associated with the DMS.
He wanted him to talk. “I don’t—” He swallowed, tense. “I don’t know?! Yes?!”
The person took another step back on unsteady legs, leaving a trail of red. His wide-eyed stare, behind cracked in-rimmed glasses, settled on Derek in his arms. A look of petrified recognition crossed his face and he took another hasty step back. Avery didn’t know what emotion that sparked behind his ribs, but it wasn’t good.
“Please don’t kill me,” the man rasped. “I just want to leave, please. Please.”
“Yes everyone here is complicit—” Brady’s voice cracked and he stopped to breathe. His face flushed with a fresh wave of helpless anger. “He’s—he’s not armed, I don’t know, but I’m not shooting that guy!”
“I would!” Regect snapped, so close to Avery he jumped. Whatever guards were very mad about the runaway were getting very close very quickly. “Just do it!”
Ze jerked the barrel in the stranger’s direction. “Get the fuck out of our way!” he snapped, suddenly sounding very confident and in charge. He sounded older than he actually was, just for a moment. “Go!”
The stranger turned and ran. Ze followed him with his gun, finger hovering over the trigger.
And then he peered around the corner he’d run in from and fired. Something hit. Someone yelped. Regect surged past Avery so fast he felt the wind nipping at where he once was. Claws scrabbled across smooth flooring as he banked hard, clipping the wall before vanishing.
Ze turned hot on his trail, snapping something about Regect being careful, and Avery’s legs were moving before his brain, on the blind reflex to stay close to his friends.
That was a lot of guards.
-
Avery was useless in that situation, something he was both grateful for and dreading.
With his arms full of Derek, he couldn’t do anything other than shelter him. The gun in his holster was useless without a hand to wield it. Thankfully, his friends had him covered.
Ze and Regect led their parade of carnage; Regect could get hurt, but the guards were more scared of him than they were of Ze. The few people Regect had yet to slaughter turned to retreat, which was when Ze picked them off. Whoever Ze missed, Brady and Wifies cleaned up. For a good few minutes, Ze felt unstoppable. They all did, running through the cacophony of noise, one after another, so close to their cracked out, impossible, crazy plan working. It was a dizzying feeling.
Ze and Regect moved in near perfect tandem, and Avery felt mesmerized watching them work. Despite the fact they’d only been together in person for a few hours, they seemed as if they’d been synced their entire lives. Avery did his best not to slip on the crimson trail they left behind.
It only took them 10 minutes to clear the hall. What looked like a lot of guards didn’t seem like such a large number when they were on the floor.
“Is anyone hit?” Ze called out, checking over his shoulder. There was a chorus of affirmation that everyone was fine, and he urged them onward in response.
The blinking lights stopped. Ze stopped, causing Brady and Wifies to stop just behind him. Regect, being their line leader, didn’t seem to notice, continued to trot happily forward like he didn’t just maim 4 or 5 people. Avery fully checked out when Regect started singing.
A pair of lights on either side of Avery turned on. Off. The pair just ahead of him, sandwiching Wifies and Brady, blinked on. Off. Then, the next ahead of those. Slowly, the lights began to flash them forward and to the right.
Derek made a soft noise against Avery’s chest, which only served to make him all the more antsy.
“Assimilation, is this you?” Avery called upwards, glancing towards the nearest wall-mounted camera. There was a slight pause as Ze dug his phone out and read off Assimilation’s response.
“Yea, it’s doing this. It says it found a closer exit than the one we came in from.”
“This guy is great,” Wifies said, smiling.
“Regect! Get your ass back here! We’re following lights!” Ze yelled into the darkened section of the hallway where Regect had wandered.
“Mimimi get your assbackhere mimimiii,” Regect’s warbly voice came from the darkness before anyone could pinpoint where he actually was. Ze laughed at him, waving him in the direction they were meant to go.
Brady and Wifies made idle chatter at one another as they walked down the dimly lit hallway. Ahead, Regect and Ze were doing the same. Avery stared at them, taking notice of how closely the entity walked to him. He wondered how long they’d known each other. If Ze had ever thought something like this could be possible. He looked down at Derek, still too light in his arms.
Avery didn’t think it was possible for him. He hadn’t gotten much of a chance to stare at Derek; it felt wrong, in retrospect, staring for so long, but he wanted to see how fragile he was. The photo of Derek from his mother’s Facebook page seemed so distant, so alien to the wheezing body pressed against his chest.
He was pale and gaunt, cheekbones protruding unnaturally. Dark circles encompassed his eyes. His lips were dry, and bloodied in the deeper cracks. Derek’s exposed arms were already a patchwork mess of bruises and pinpricks from the IVs, and Avery didn’t want to guess what was hidden by the gown. And, god, his head. Shaved nearly down to his skin, with a large incision held together with staples. It was hard to look at. Avery couldn’t imagine what it was like for Derek. He wondered if he even knew it was there.
“Hoooly shit, that must be the door.” Ze sounded genuinely astounded.
“Yea, no fucking duh, that’s the door. There’s a big exit sign above it??”
Ze sputtered in response to Regect, and the rest of them laughed. The door led straight to the outside, and Avery could see the early morning sun bathing the forest in a pale yellow light. He adjusted his grip on Derek and stepped out.
The scents of cleaning supplies and the tang of copper were left behind in the building, replaced with aromatic fir and dirt. He hoped Derek could smell it too. He checked over his shoulder, and the next thing he saw made his throat close and heart drop.
There was a guard, his gun trained on the back of Ze’s head. Ze was saying something to Brady. He missed one.
“Ze-” Avery said, cut off by the black shape that shoved past him. Regect.
Regect shoved Ze out of the way as the gun went off, darting forward at an impossible speed. The gun went off again, just as Regect reached the guard. His claws raised and the guard screamed and it was over.
Regect didn’t get up.
For a second, he vanished. He reappeared, still hunched over the body of the guard. It looked like he was glitching out of existence as his body flickered and his hand clutched at his thigh.
(Ze was at his side as fast as his legs could carry him, his rifle discarded at the door. He was on the floor, hands gripping Regect’s shoulders, squeezing him, asking him what was wrong, what happened?
Regect’s hand lifted off his thigh and Ze saw it. A chunk was taken out of the device.
You’re okay, you’re okay, he said.
Regect called him a chud. Repeated what Ze told him. He’s okay. Regect vanished. The device that kept him there, in Ze’s arms, by his side, clattered to the ground.
Ze’s hand found it, closed around it.)
Avery didn’t think Ze was capable of making a sound like that. The broken noise he let out was tailed by rage. Avery flinched as Ze hit the mangled body of the guard. He screamed at the unmoving body, yelling at who it used to be. Why? He begged the question, among others. Why couldn’t he have just let them go? They were so close. They were so close.
Brady put his gun down and reentered the building, crouching next to Ze’s trembling form. He wrapped an arm around the kneeling man, and Ze hunched further over. Wifies was making a point to look anywhere but at Ze, and Avery gave him that same dignity. He pressed his back against the outer wall and crouched down, laying Derek in his lap and giving his arms a much needed break.
A few minutes passed. Quiet chatter from just across the building’s threshold echoed out into the morning. Ze and Brady appeared soon after, picking up their abandoned guns. Avery climbed to his feet, Derek settled in his arms—they burned like hell—and approached Ze.
“We need to go,” was all the shorter man had to say.
As if to punctuate his sentence, there was a shout from inside the building.
-
They flinched. Avery, looking back at the doorway, stepped blindly away, into the woods. The ground was barely paved beyond the porch, like the entry point was an afterthought, maybe a fire escape, scarcely-used.
His breath fogged the air in front of him. It was still freezing, even as he looked up and squinted at the dim sun filtering through the overcast sky. The cold nipped the back of his neck. He looked around and very, very quickly realized this was not where they’d come in from. The woods all looked the same, all fir and cottonwood trees that blotted out the sky. The understory, wet with morning dew, scratched at him.
Ze bounded past him, gripping him by the shoulder deathly tight, urging him to just move. The thick trees cut down on the soft early morning light filtering through the clouds, darkening the forest floor. Avery adjusted Derek in his arms, too light, shivering—god, the hospital gown wasn’t enough, his jacket draped over him wasn’t enough, it was too cold.
A narrow, bright beam of light cut between the foliage, sharper than their own lights, coming from a little too close for comfort. Ze, not far ahead, twisted back, raised the gun, and fired. Wood cracked behind Avery’s shoulder.
“Just run.” If Ze was any further, Avery wouldn’t have heard him. He caught Brady vanishing into the dark and tore after him, keeping Derek close. They couldn’t risk getting separated. Faint light chased him. Gunfire popped and he couldn’t tell if it was Ze’s or not. God, he hoped it was Ze’s—
Another shot, punctuated by a feeling akin to someone taking a hammer to his left shoulder. It knocked the breath from him in a wheezy shriek and he lost his footing in the underbrush.
His left arm stopped responding. He lurched to not drop Derek and the burst of adrenaline kicked his body back into cooperation. His brain refused to let him think beyond don’t drop Derek, it’s way too cold, they needed to stop and warm him because it was literally below freezing and he was just skin and bones—
The pain came in a slow wave, radiating out from his shoulder and pooling down his bones. It simmered under the rush of not dying. He slowed, chest tight as he tried to manage his breathing, to not make too loud a sound. Derek was shivering. He couldn’t tell if he was awake or not.
Brady ducked low into the overgrowth and Avery followed. His legs felt weak. He spotted the light blur of Wifies a short distance away, doubled over, hands on his knees, catching his breath.
A single far-away pop startled a bird out of the trees. The noise made the three flinch. Avery knelt, shoulder burning under the adrenaline, and listened. His left arm trembled, but that didn’t matter because Derek was freezing cold.
The woods stayed quiet.
“Help me out,” he mouthed, not risking speaking when they could still be hunted. But he had a spare jacket and socks in his pack and Derek couldn’t be out in the cold for so long, not when he was so starved, when he wasn’t holding onto heat.
Brady knelt with him, pale and shaky. He passed Derek to him, and the man shifted, as if stirring. His eyes flicked open but he didn’t, or couldn’t, focus on anything.
Avery started to shrug his backpack off, and winced at the white-hot pain stabbing through him. Brady followed his flinch and his expression changed to one of such petrified worry that his first thought was he could somehow hear his heart beating out of his chest.
He forced his bag off his shoulders and set it down. One of the straps was deep red, almost black, and he stared blearily at it. His brain just refused to acknowledge it as his blood, even as he mechanically felt the front of his chest, his collar, his shoulder. Dry. The bullet went into him and hadn’t come out.
As he worked the bag open, he pretended not to notice Brady staring at the stain soaking the fabric. Moving his arm hurt. His body’s well of adrenaline was running dry and without it, nothing was stopping the pain from turning into a constant throb.
Didn’t matter. He wasn’t dying (probably, hopefully) so he could focus on getting his jacket on Derek, and throwing on another one over that. He didn’t like how limp the man was, so completely surrendered to being manhandled. How many drugs did they pump into his system? Was he even processing where he was, right now? At least he got socks on him, in the end, so frostbite wouldn’t eat through him. His extremities were freezing cold.
“Over here.” Wifies spoke so quietly Avery almost didn’t recognize his voice. He picked his way toward them carefully, a little shaky but alive.
Movement. Brady and Avery reached for their guns.
“Ze,” Wifies hissed at them. Avery relaxed.
Ze stumbled through the trees, looking significantly more haggard. His knees were streaked with grass and dirt, and his earbuds hung loosely around his neck. Red speckled the front of his chest, a spray from a source that wasn’t him. Very, very delicately, he whispered, “I think we’re good.”
For a moment, nobody moved, like speaking at all would summon the DMS’ security team to descend upon them. But that didn’t happen. The forest stayed quiet, the wind still wound through the canopy, and somewhere far-away, morning birds resumed chirping.
Ze swallowed and steadied his voice. “I think we should keep moving. Now.”
Agreed. Wherever they were, he wanted to get further from the DMS. So he started to lift Derek back into his arms, but before he could stand, Brady made a frustrated motion at him. “You’ve been shot.”
Wifies and Ze looked at him, and Avery sheepishly focused on standing. His shoulder still ached like someone had kicked him really hard. His blood stained his shirt warmly against the chilled morning air. “I’m fine.”
Brady stood and mimed strangling him in the air. “You’ve been shot,” he repeated in a whisper-shout that made him wince. “I feel like we should address that.”
“We need to keep moving,” he insisted. He was fine, and his shoulder felt like it was on fire, and it was steadily becoming very hard to ignore, and that was fine. If they stopped to take stock of the bullet still lodged in his shoulder, they could be found. Derek had been through unimaginably worse pain. He could tolerate a little blood loss.
Ze nodded once. “Yeah, no, not sticking around,” he said under his breath. “We just need to…”
He looked around, and Avery did the same even though that did absolutely nothing to clarify where they were. Just trees, trees, and more trees in every direction.
They were lost.