FIRE [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 10: Kill the Messenger

 "Well, isn't that adorable!"

Aimee and Stefan broke off from their hug, grabbed and aimed their weapons in one motion. They were skittish, – recalling that they were on battlegrounds after all – but their fingers didn't touch their triggers; they recognised that voice.

"Whoa, lovebirds! Weapons down," he said with his hands up submissively and a gun in each. "Going up?"

The two of them sighed in relief and carefully let their guns fall to their sides. It was Finn. He hopped into the elevator with them, and they headed up again. At the spreading of the doors, Finn rolled acrobatically into the room and spread his arms out beside him, shooting left and right and never missing, not once. Aimee and Stefan rushed out and took care of the shooters up ahead, their aim equally on-point.

"Port and starboard, clear!" Finn uttered, before standing up and firing and flipping all over the floor. He moved so gracefully, it was almost poetic. "I'll be fine here. Luna and Kimiko are on the next floor and ten more RDAs are on the others, with GINM agents. Go after Abba before Domino Doomsday begins."

He was right: in that building of fighting and carnage, GINM was the winning team, but that actually meant nothing. They ducked into the elevator and were sealed in by its doors. Aimee dropped to the floor and looked at Stefan exhaustedly. She clicked on her earpiece.

"Valerie, how are Gavin and Dominick doing?" she asked, fearfully, in anticipation of the worst.

"Did Finn tell you?" she responded, heated.

"Tell me what?"

There was noise in the background – gunfire and grunts and groans, and clanks of boots meeting steel.

"You're with them?" Stefan inquired in faint alarm, having switched on his earpiece to join the conversation.

"Yeah," she sounded like she'd been punched in the stomach. "We'll be okay; don't let this mission be in vain! I told Finn to tell you –"

"He did, we'll get Abba," he uttered. "I promise." He turned off his communicator and helped Aimee up, the very second the elevator came to a stop. "We can do this."

Aimee nodded with a breath, trying to get her head back in the game. It was soccer: she just had to keep the opposing team from scoring the winning goal.

Stefan stepped out into the penthouse, or barely, before a four-knuckled force hit his face. He fell to his knees and Aimee acted quickly, shooting the heavy in his shin, but then she was pulled into the arms of another man, who then disarmed her. Stefan got up from the ground and held his opponent hostage.

"Put her down," he warned the second soldier.

Without flinching, the soldier sent two bullets into the other's chest – he fell to the ground. Stefan rushed forward, poised his gun to the shooter's forehead. He heard the soldier's gun click and had to shoot him first. Aimee twitched at the blast of his pistol. The soldier, with his gun at Stefan's abdomen, dropped to the floor like an anchor, releasing Aimee. Stefan caught her in his arm, and the two of them glimpsed, shocked, at the cadaver on the ground. But they could not waste time.

Stefan searched the penthouse – the kitchen, bedroom and en suite bathroom – and found nothing and no one. He came back to the main room, the study. On Abba's desk, sunlight bounced off a white note and caught Stefan's eye.

"Aimee, come look at this," – she was double-checking the bedroom for any secret passages – "Maybe if it was in neater handwriting..."

"It's French," she took it from his hands.

"Yeah, I may not speak it, but reading and understand-ing I can do pretty well."

She nudged him playfully with her elbow, "Of course you can. It says: I'm glad you made it this far, Aimee. Maybe you can make it to the place where you and your mother had tea. Benjamin."

"Tea?"

"We had tea the morning after she kidnapped me from my house. It was underground." Aimee dropped the letter and returned to the elevator, Stefan behind her.

"That's where she is?"

"I think so."

But the second Aimee's finger pushed the unobvious button she believed went to the underground tunnels, there was a loud and unknown sound, and something must have broken because they descended faster than any elevator should. The doors would not close.

"It's a trap. Get out!" Aimee commanded.

"What?"

"Now, before this thing gets too fast. Please," she begged. "I have this chip, but you could die!"

"Aimee, there's no way I'll make that," he watched the floors flash past and heard the sound they made, similar to the sporadic buzz of cars passing on a racetrack.

Aimee's heart was locked in her stomach; he couldn't die, she would not accept this as his fate! Feeling helpless and terrified beyond description, she hugged him, told herself not to let go for anything. And slowly, in realisation of what this was – an inexorable, unexpected goodbye – he hugged her in return. Overwhelmed by fear, they refused to open their eyes, their stomachs were twisted in knots and their legs were flaccid, without feeling. And then...