The Corruption

Chapter 21 - SWFD

Again, Kaleigh and Derek fell asleep cuddling in the back while Liam and Nate were in the front seats, except Liam was driving this time because he desperately wanted to find out where that truck came from. On the sides of the roads were enormous corn fields that spread out on all acres of the land, giving Stillwater a sense of warmth and comfort as the orange painted sky lighted on the grass, making it darker and hotter. Liam exited the park out of the gate when the sun shined down on his face, making pull down the sun blocker. Nate turned around to see his childhood memories slowly fade away as they got farther from the park, which made him feel slightly afraid, which was unusual. Though what he did not accept was that he was actually afraid of rejection, having to do with Kaleigh. This is what Nate thought about the entire car ride while the other three were lost in their own deep thoughts. Liam was of course, focusing on tracking down the source of this bomb while Kaleigh and Derek were having their own private dreams of who knows what, sleeping like logs. About half an hour later they stopped suddenly.

The sound of a car engine turning off awoke Kaleigh as she rubbed her eyes and sat up a little, still resting on Nate. Wait, Nate? Kaleigh quickly got off of Nate who was asleep, sitting where Derek used to be. Kaleigh gave Nate a weird smile because she didn't know what just happened, but she didn't really care because she got out of the car, closed the door and looked for Derek. Derek and Liam were sitting on logs near an abandoned fire station, specifically the SWFD, Still Water Fire Department, looking down at a map that showed the building's details. Nate was never actually asleep, he was only pretending, so when Kaleigh left he got up and looked out the window at Kaleigh's rear end again, a weird smile on his face ran by until he got out of the car and followed. Kaleigh didn't notice Nate spying on her until he walked up to the rest of them. "Thought you were asleep," she said. "I just woke up," Nate lied, trying to yawn on purpose. Kaleigh nodded and sat closer to Derek. "What's this?" she asked, looking up at him, sort of smiling. Nate sat near Liam and looked at the map as well. Derek looked at all three and said, "These are the blueprints to the firestation. We're finding out a good path to enter because we heard banging coming from inside, could be another agent, or corrupted." Kaleigh got a flashback of her pulling the trigger and the suspense, guilt, and horror she felt when she saw Derek fall to the ground. She quickly went back to reality and said, "Smart," nodding. "Yeah, so we could do it the loud way and enter through one of the windows, but then we're exposed to the lobby and the locker room. Or we could go the smart way and enter through the roof, sneak into the vent and exit through the garage." Derek already knew that Kaleigh was all for the smart technique and not so much the loud, and Kaleigh knew too. Liam of course, prefered the loud, being the large redneck that he is, but Nate agreed with Kaleigh, which Derek should've expected. It was all Derek's decision now.

Kaleigh used her rifle to bash the vent hatch open as the three started dropping in like air strikes. Liam got stuck for a while like Santa in a chimney but Kaleigh pushed him down and he slipped through. The vent struggled to keep the three men above, all together they probably weighed four hundred pounds, excluding Kaleigh who didn't add much weight to the vent. They all shimmied to the end of the vent, turning right, then left, then left, then right, just like at the Maze, before dropping down into the garage. There were three firetrucks lined up, and what they hadn't planned before hand was that their van was back on the other side of the firestation, but before they could say anything about that, something screamed on the other side of the wall and ran at Nate.