Winning His War

55

Pretty severe trigger warnings for this chapter. Gun violence, violence just in general, talk of suicide, blood and gore. I'll give another warning when the parts are about to start so you can either prepare yourself or know when to skip.

 Jem's POV

The night was cold. With our shirts being torn apart the cold basement floor was almost unbearable meaning Patrick and I were sleeping as close together as possible while keeping our cuts as far away from each other as possible to keep us from accidentally hurting each other in our sleep.

Andrew, despite having a shirt was shivering just as bad as we were but his refusal to join us seemed to be lasting more than just last night. Everything in me wanting to pull him into my chest and hold him there until the fear in his eyes dimmed but every time I held my hand to him a look flashed in his eyes before he looked away and scooted back an inch.

'He's in shock', I kept telling myself, 'give him time to get back to normal when we leave and he'll be fine.'

When Mateo came back this morning he had his eyes set on Andrew with a sick smile. His hand was only inches away from his cuffs when I forced out a stupid comment about him picking on the weak ones, which was thankfully enough for him to forget about either of them for the day.

I felt like one big raw open wound. I don't think there's a place on my back that hasn't bled these past few days.

The lack of food has made all of us weak and the little bit of water has us unable to talk more than a few sentences at a time. We were on the decline and everyone knows it at this point. Patrick didn't have the strength to react to the sounds above us like he had ever since we got here. Andrew's shock had worn off and left him even more exhausted than before. I just felt like shit. Every move I made seemed to crack open the healing scabs so I tried to keep as still as possible but the constant shivering didn't help that.

Still, despite the exhaustion and my reluctance to move, a sick smile covered my face when the first shot rang out from upstairs.

"Patrick," I said barely above a whisper because that's all I could manage. "Patrick get up, Dev's here." He hummed but stayed deadly still.

My back screamed in protest when I forced him to turn around to face me. His eyes were shut while his face showed his pain.

"Patrick look at me, I need you awake for this." His eyes peaked open but he clearly wasn't happy that his nap was interrupted. "Dev's here and he's going to need us to help him in order for this to go how they planned."

"How can we help them? We're kinda chained to a wall at the moment."

"We won't be for long. When Dev gets us out of here he's going to give you a gun, leave your bullshit cop morals behind and use it if you need it. Get ready to run, don't stop for anything, the second you get you're opening run, steal one of our cars and get back to the house. Okay? Let me worry about Andrew." He nodded wordlessly but sat up regardless.

My attention turned to Andrew, who very clearly heard me over the sound of gunfire above us. He was already sitting up; the panic that hasn't left his eyes since we got here was plastered over his face.

"Andrew you're job is simple, just stay behind me okay? Don't look at anything; it will make it worse. I know you're tired but run as fast as you can, I'll match your speed. We don't stop moving until we're in a car, do you understand?"

"Okay," he said barely above a whisper as tears began gathering in his eyes.

"None of that," I sighed as I kneeled in front of him, for the first time in days he didn't flinch away when my arm wrapped around his back to pull him into my chest. "Everything's going to be alright. We just need to stay calm and keep moving. Dev's doing the hard work for us anyway."

When the gunshots got louder I forced myself to pull away and turned my attention back to the only door in this godforsaken basement while positioning myself in front of Andrew.

It felt like hours before the door began to move but the second it cracked open my heart soared ten feet in the air. Dev looked like shit but his steps didn't falter as he ran into the room.