The Final Endgame.

Chapter 2

Fire, rubble and glass rained down on the street. People were screaming, running left and right. The heat and the crackle from the flames beat from the building, blazing up behind the broken windows and blasting out hot smoke. I temporarily spaced out, watching the chaos unfold around me like it was a play in the theatre. It all seemed so surreal.

"Allie, move!" Newham yelled, grabbing my hand and pulling me down behind some fallen rubble, as irregular bangs and cracks rang out over the chaos. It was only when I was lying flat, palm crushed in Newham's, that I realized it was gunfire. Someone was shooting guns.

"Allie!" Newham barked. "Allie!"

He turned my face sharply towards him as we lay flat on the floor.

"Stay here. I have to see if Dr. Scott's in that place. I mean it. Don't move!" he told me firmly,  before kissing the top of my head swiftly and scrambling away into the rising smoke. His brisk, calm manner confused me until I realized who he was. Lieutenant Robert Newham. He was a soldier. He'd done this sort of thing before. He'd been in this situation, under fire. He'd nearly died like we just had-before.

I bit my lip so hard I drew blood, trying desperately to focus my panicking mind. When that didn't work, I dug my nails hard into the soft part of my hand. That did.

I breathed as deeply as I could manage with the smoke, and for the first time in forever I did as I was told. This wasn't my ground. This was Newham's ground, and Broker's. Not mine, and I wasn't going to be stupid and try to help. Not this time.

I lay there, listening to the panic and the gunfire, following Newham's orders so exactly that I didn't even move my head up to look around. The head from the blaze of the practice was still intense, and there were little shards of glass around me from when the windows had blown. But I was a lot calmer than I had been, and probably should have been. Newham was going to come back and get me, I knew he was. The gunfire was still going strong around me, and now I could hear injured screams, mainly women, from the haze. I blocked them out.

"Allie!"

Broker skidded down into the hiding-place next to me.

"We have to go!" he muttered, trying to pull me up. I didn't let him.

"What about everyone else?" I argued, struggling in his grip.

"They're all dead."

I turned to stare at him, but didn't stop resisting his attempts to prise me from my hiding-place.

"You can't be sure of that" I pointed out slowly.

"I saw them fall."

I shook my head quickly, as another wave of bullets forced us to take cover again.

"Do you know why this is happening?" I hissed angrily. "Because someone planted that newspaper in Felicity's house for us to find. And it wasn't Hanson."

"What?" Broker's voice was suddenly strangled. I nodded.

"Of course, you know all about that."

"What do you mean?" Hettie's husband scoffed. I stared solidly at him, shaking my head.

"You think I  planted it?" he realized, speaking out loud.

"I know  you planted it" I corrected. "I also know you sent the letter from Hettie's house to London on the night we arrived. Giving Stephenson time to send word to Hanson and prepare his second plot to kill me."

"Allie..." Broker started.

"Well explain how you got from there to here without them shooting you!" I snapped suddenly.