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He sat on top of Maverick. One hand on his throat and the other pinning his shoulder down. “Let me go Alex!” He shouted as he tried to kick the younger off of him. But that wasn’t happening, not in a million years. ‘Over my cold, dead body.” He grunted, squeezing Mavericks throat more.
“Come on baby, let me go and I’ll forgive you for doing this to me..” Maverick spoke in that sweet tone he always used with Alex, though this time Alex was able to see right through it, pretty little words that used to get him to listen now just encouraged him to do the opposite of what he was told. “Do this to you?! You’re going to kill those kids! They aren’t puppets for your sick experiments!”
Alex could feel himself getting dizzy from the amounts of smoke he was inhaling as it filled the room, but by the glossy look in Maverick’s eyes and how even more desperate he was getting, he wasn’t going to hold out much longer either.
Cmon just.. a little.. Longer-
The next thing he remembered was his vision going black, then nothing.
When Alex woke up, he wasn’t expecting it. He fully thought he would be dead, even embraced the idea. Instead he was met with his throat feeling like he hadn’t drank water in years and his head killing him. He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the area around him and when he couldn’t find who he was looking for his breath caught in his throat and his whole body tensed. Right as he was about to get up, a hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Hey, calm down. We can’t have you straining yourself..” Alex snapped his head towards the noise, Charlie. The other was standing over him, the slightest look of worry in his eyes. “Take a minute to calm down, but when you’re ready take a look at him?” Charlie pointed towards Ryan, passed out on a mat and a bandage sloppily wrapped around his middle.
“What- What happened? Where’s Maverick?” He coughed out, but couldn’t find himself able to take his eyes off the bandage. At this point it was soaked with blood, clearly whoever did it hadn’t known what they were doing. “Jasmine shot him, and we found you in the room alone.”
That gets Alex to look at Charlie again, “He was gone? What about the kids? DId they-” Charlie sighed, cutting him off. “Well, they aren’t here anymore, if that’s what you're asking, now calm down. I really don’t need you passing out.”
He nodded, trying to breathe as he went into a coughing fit. They got out, that’s what mattered. Alex began to get up so he could get the stuff for Ryan, but as he did his head started spinning and he would have fallen if not for Charlie catching his arm. “Alright, you go over to him, tell me what you need and I'll find it.” Alex wanted to complain, but when his head started to spin again he nodded and slowly slid down the wall beside Ryan.
“I need gauze and disinfectant” He spoke before coughing. Alex slowly got lost in thought before the things were dropped on his lap. “We’ll have to stay here for a bit,” Charlie spoke while looking out a window. “There’s too many police surrounding the area, and I’m guessing we’re all on Mavericks hit list right now.”
Alex nodded as he sanitized his hands with a little pocket hand sanitizer he carried around and began to unwrap the bandage around Ryan, making sure to apply pressure when able to. He wasn’t able to get his hands to stop shaking, but right now he had an idea that it wasn’t the smoke inhalation messing with him, not that he’d admit it.
The two were quiet as Alex worked. He cleaned and rewrapped the wound, before slumping against the wall again, his hands were covered in blood because there hadn’t been any gloves in the room. He hated it, hated the warmth it brought, hated the fact that it was from someone he cared about.
Now all they could do was wait, which gave Alex time to think. He wondered how Maverick would react, definitely not well in any way. How Alex was supposed to get his things from their apartment was beyond him. Though, truthfully, he didn't own much in the first place.. maybe it was worth it to just leave it there, rather than risk seeing Maverick.. Either way, that wasn’t important right now, what was important, is making sure Ryan didn’t bleed out before they could get out of here.
Now that things had calmed down, he went to grab his phones to see if the kids tried to reach him. Alex sighed when he pulled it out, it was broken beyond repair.. He hoped none of them tried to contact him, they’d be worried. Gods above this situation was fucked..
Alex tried not to let his thoughts wander as he wiped the blood onto his scrub pants, it wasn’t ideal but it was better than covering his hands. He wanted nothing more than to be out of this building, too many bad memories filling his head. As exhaustion began to fill him, he let it take over, bringing him into sleep's gentle embrace.
The next thing Alex remembered was being woken up by someone weakly shoving him over. He groaned and looked at the direction of the attack, seeing Ryan awake, pain crossing his face. Alex looked at his wound quickly, just to make sure it wasn’t bleeding through the bandages, before noticing Charlie was also awake.
“What’s going on?” he asked groggily, rubbing his incredibly dry eyes. He guesses this is what he gets for sleeping in his contacts (twice, even if the first was unintentional).
“Charlie said we could probably leave now, though we’re going to have to be careful, we don’t know what's going on out there.” Ryan spoke, voice quieter than Alex had ever heard it. “Right..” He mumbled, trying to figure out what time it was based off of the outside. Well he couldn’t exactly tell, it was decently dark out, so night or very early morning.
He began to get up, turning to help the other up after he had steadied himself. “How exactly are we getting out of here? I gave my car to the kids and Charlie's been here for so long I doubt we’d be able to find his keys.” Alex asks as he supports Ryan on his shoulder. “We can use my car, the keys are in my pocket.” Ryan speaks as he grabs his keys, gesturing for Charlie to go ahead of them.
The three start walking down the halls being as quiet as possible. Alex pretended not to jump at every little noise, and the others pretended not to notice. It was clear that they were all exhausted and just wanted to be out of there.
After a close call with one of the infected, the group made it down to the parking area and into Ryan’s car. Charlie was driving with Alex in the passenger seat and Ryan in the back. Once they were semi safe, Alex took his contacts out, exhausted and wanting to sleep again.
“Hey, where exactly am I driving us again?” Charlie asked, starting up the car. “Motel- make sure they take cash..” Ryan grunted from the back of the car. The two started bickering about something that Alex didn’t care much about, instead he focused on the facility slowly getting smaller as they drove away.
It was a little funny, that building held the man that was once his everything, now it was yet another thing Alex was desperate to leave in the past. The car slowly grew silent and he was secretly grateful for that. He so desperately wanted to sleep, but right as he was about to, Ryan spoke up again.
“Y’know, the kid with glasses shot Jasmine..” He spoke absent mindedly to Alex, getting Charlie to hum in acknowledgement. “Oh that’s right he did, great shot as well, kid must have experience.” he added and Alex wanted to sigh.
It made sense that Logan would have gun experience, both from the phantom dimension and whatever syndicate his grandparents were in before. Still though it still slightly upset him, hearing about how one of his the kids had needed to know how to use one.
“Yeah he was a great shot.. You know why?” Ryan asked at the same time that Alex had started to feel sleep grasping at him and began to find keeping his eyes open was a difficult task. “Syndicate” he muttered before falling asleep once more.