Beside the Dying Fire

Leo's POV

Savannah leaped off of the hospital bed. I ran to my office with her, Tyler, and Carrie following closely. Inside, I ran to my desk. Inside was a 1911 handgun. I tucked it into the waistline of my khakis and exited. We ran down the hallways, but I halted outside of Antonio's room.

"What's going on?" he asked me.

"Do you think you can move?" I ignored his question.

"Yeah, I think I can walk."

"No, I mean run."

He hesitated, then confidently said, "Yes."

I helped him up. I found him a black hoodie to put over his hospital gown and some tennis shoes to run in. He quickly put it all on and we met the others right outside of the room.

"Kai and Henry are in the lobby. Everyone else is outside of the City College. That's where Jayla has Mary hostage," Savannah informed me.

The 5 of us ran to the lobby as quickly as we could. Kai ran up to Savannah and hugged her.

"I'm so glad you're okay," he told her, staring at the bandages that coated her left forearm. He handed her a .22 revolver.

"We have to go, Kai," Henry said.

"I know. Let's go."

Outside of the hospital was the black Cadillac SUV that Henry constantly took on runs. Henry got up front in the vehicle. I got in the passenger's seat. Everyone else filed in the back. Henry floored the accelerator and we zoomed down the streets of San Diego. Every second that we weren't at the scene, the more worried I got. We spun around a street corner and came across a small crowd of our friends. They all were staring at Jayla. At the top of the stairway to the college, Jayla stood with Mary in front of her. Mary had a box cutter held to her throat, courtesy of Jayla. Kyle stood on her left.

"KAI!" Jayla called out. He got out of the car and made his way through the crowd. The rest of us followed closely behind him. We passed people, like Cameron, Danny, Lea, Bells, and Gavin. Finally, Kai reached the front of the group, near the steps. "Glad you could finally join us."

"Jayla, what are  you doing? I thought you were one of us," Kai tried reasoning with her.

"It's not that," she said, "it's just that you were never one of us."

"What do you mean? I lead this civilization!" he yelled back.

"Not anymore," she stated confidently. "You see, you've been running this place wrong ever since Sarah died. You run this place in a way where only a few people, your friends, do all of the work in maintaining the community. In reward, they get plenty of food and luxury housing. Others, they want to help, but you don't trust them. So those who don't work, they survive off of the bare minimum. They are treated like they are dirt poor, and some of them can actually do some good to this community! I want to change that, but I know that you'd try to stop me because you think that you, and only you, can have power. So I'll be imprisoning you and the friends of yours that remain loyal to you. I did those murders to get your attention. To get you all right here. This college, that's where I'm trapping you."

"You won't get away with this," he told Jayla.

"You and what army? The rest of San Diego is against you! Your policies are shit! Hell, not even all of your friends are loyal to you!" Jayla lowered his self-esteem. "I want Kai and... uhhh... let's take Cameron, too. Bring them up here."

Behind me, I heard a bunch of different guns click. I spun around. 6 different people that I wasn't acquainted with pointed their pistols at some of my friends. 1 more pointed an M4 at Cameron. Bells pointed her maroon painted pistol at Kai. Even a gun was pointed at me. Each and every one of us put our guns of the ground and our hands in the air.