The Divergent Spirits

38)

Emily's POV

Against everyone's better judgement, I head over to the Erudite headquarters, the place which the Factionless now called home.

"You ready?" Harrison asked.

"Yeah." I nodded.

"Okay, guys." Zeke says, laying a blueprint of the building across the grass. "We're entering from the storage room, their holding cells are located at the far south from there, that's probably where they're keeping them. We need to disarm their alarms, so we split up. Lynn, you and I will head to the west part of the building." He says, circling that part of the building that was represented in the blueprints with finger, "That's where their control room is. The rest of you will head to the holding cells. We'll give you gives the signal through our coms as soon as they've disarmed it, so listen for the signal."

"As far as we know, there are two guards located outside the main entrance." Uriah sighs.

"Apart from that, we're going in completely blind."

"That's precisely we need to stay alert, stay vigilant. Don't use your guns unless you absolutely have to, they'll draw too much attention. We go in, get Four, Eric, Seth, Ellie, and Maci, and get out there as fast as we can." Zeke instructs and we all nod in reply, "Good. Let's move."

"Guys," I spoke up, making all of their eyes shoot up to look at me. "Thank you for helping."

"Don't sweat it." Uriah smiles, "It's what you do for family, right?" I returned a smile.

"Let's go." he says, softly, that toothy smile of his still plastered on his face.

"Stay close, okay?" Harrison whispers as we ran.

We started towards the building, keeping our noise level to a minimum as we did.

I grabbed hold of the bars of the metal gate separating us from the building. I carefully observed the movements of the others before me as they scaled the metal gate with ease, looking poised, almost. Harrison climbed beside me, he had a gentle hand hovering above my lower back just in case I loose my grip.

I jumped off the metal gate as soon as I was close enough to the ground to do so. I made it over. Not as effortlessly as the others did, but I did it.

We approached a window on the second floor where Zeke skillfully wields a grappling hook. He swings it in circles a couple of times before pitching it towards the window.

It hooks onto the single metal bar that ran across the ledge of the window. He forcefully tugs on it a couple of times to make sure it was secured before he started to climb up the rope. He stops at the top.

Grabbing a knife out of his back pocket, he starts to pick at the lock with it and easily breaks it open in under a minute. He got his gun ready before barging into the room, through the window. Silence followed as we waiting on the ground floor, awaiting his signal.

"Clear." His voice sounded through my ear-piece a couple minutes later.

We each started to make our way up the rope, two at a time. Fearing that the rope won't be able to hold us all at once. Uriah made it in first, followed by Lynn, then me, and Harrison was behind me. I climbed over through the window, my arms were now aching from all this climbing. I huffed out a breath as soon as I reached the top, my eyes scanning the well-equipped room. They had everything, from machine guns to knives to night-vision googles and gas masks. My eyes then landed on two men, their bodies spread across the floor.

"We gotta keep moving." Harrison said from behind me, those strong arms gently leading me forward.

I carefully observed Zeke as he opens the door slightly, careful to not make any noise. He places a finger over his mouth, telling us to be quiet before peering through the crack in the door. He then shoots a 'two' sign. Two guards outside. He whispers something to Uriah, before mouthing the words 'One, two, three' to him.

Before I knew it, they've busted the door open. The guards weren't even given the opportunity to react before the boys had them in a chokehold. Everything happened so quickly, in what felt like a split second, Zeke and Uriah were each carefully setting down the now, limp bodies on the floor as I exited the room.

"Okay," Zeke says softly as we moved down the now empty hallways. "This is it. We need to split up. Lynn, we're going this way. Uriah, you go with Emily and Harrison. You know the way, right?" He asked.

"Of course, we do." I said. "C'mon. This way."

We make our way down the hallway before Uriah spoke up, nervousness lacing his voice, "Um, guys?"

I whipped my head back to see several guards making their way down the hallway towards us. They're going to see us, we don't have time to hide. Then, one of them yells, "Hey! Stop!"

"Oh, shit." Uriah curses as he barely dodges a bullet that landed directly above his head in the wall behind him.

"Go!" Harrison yells as he pushes me in front of him exchanging a couple of shots with the guards before joining us.

"We need to lose them." Uriah says, "Is there any way we can lose them?"

Harrison stops to think for a moment, looking around and scanning through the hallways.

"Harrison, hurry up! They're coming!" I pressed.

I could hear the footsteps of the guards getting louder as they approached us. "Here!" He says as he points to the corner down the hallway.

"Uh, are you sure? Cause I'm pretty sure that's a dead end." Uriah questions, sounding slightly frantic.

"There's a secret pathway in Erudite. It leads to a chamber of some sort." He explains.

He stops at the end of the hallway, running his fingers along the walls of the hallway and finally pushing down onto a hidden button that was as good as invisible to the eye otherwise. It was a tight fit, but all of us managed to fit, although walking sideways was the only way to. We slowly worked our way through the dark and narrow pathway. Harrison's grip tightening around my hand as we did, his breathing growing heavier by the minute.

"Guys," Uriah's filled the space, "There isn't a way out. It's a dead end."

"What?" Harrison asked between breaths, "That's impossible. I've seen people come in here."

"I'm pretty sure this is-" Uriah starts but was cut off as I hear a loud thud as his body hits the floor, he lets out an 'oof' as he does. Light seeps into the hallway which brightens it.

"Woah." Uriah gasp in amazement.

I make my way to the exit, careful not to step on Uriah who was still slowly helping himself to his feet as I stepped out of the hallway. My mouth falls slightly ajar as I looked around the room, "Where are we?"

"I don't know....looks like some sort of vault." Harrison says from behind me.