THE RUN AND GO : JOSHLER

15 : ESCAPADE

"Okay, where the actual fuck is Renegade?" Mr. Benzedrine cursed under his breath, frantically looking around the large room.

He and Missile Kid were currently standing in a dark, unused, and hopefully unnoticed corridor, right on the side of the warehouse room. Their faces, lucky, were hidden in the shadows.

"He was supposed to be right there." Mr. Benzedrine gestured widely to the guards' post by the main entrance. "Right fucking there, dammit!"

"I told you you never should have trusted him," Missile Kid scoffed.

"Well do you have a better idea?" Mr. Benzedrine snapped. "He was the only one that could pass for a Sinner. You said so yourself, he worked with the Green Gentleman!"

"Yeah, exactly," Josh pushed past him to look around the warehouse himself.

Everything was grey. The doors, the walls, the floors, the metal catwalks hanging overhead. Dim yellow lights slowly swung back and forth above them, providing only slivers of light. There was no telling which door was the back door, the one they would be escaping out of. Only Renegade would know.

And Renegade was nowhere to be found.

"He worked with the Green Gentleman," Josh continued. "Who's to say he's not working with him again?"

Josh dared to take a single step out of the hallway, holding his breath. When nothing happened, he took another. And another. He desperately wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible.

He wanted to get back to Tyler.

"Missile Kid, what are you doing?!" Mr. Benzedrine hissed, grabbing the back of Josh's shirt and yanking him back into the hallway.

Josh winced in pain and jolted away from him. "What?!"

"You need to stay out of sight, remember?" Mr. Benzedrine whispered, his eyes locking with Josh's. "If somebody sees you, we're in serious shi—"

"Well, things are shaping up to pretty odd, aren't they?"

Mr. Benzedrine and Josh simultaneously froze and held their breath. It took all Josh had not to pass out, right then and there. He recognized that saying. He recognized that voice.

He recognized that Green Gentleman.

"Missile Kid!" Brendon exclaimed, walking over to Josh and wrapping him in a tight hug. "Haven't seen you in a while!"

The embrace nearly crushed Josh's lungs. He struggled against Brendon, trying to yank out of his grasp. Brendon simply pushed him back by his shoulders, and he fell to the ground.

Josh cried out in pain as his back hit the cement, his wounds screaming with pain all over again. Flashbacks of his torturing raced through his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

"It's so nice to see you again," Brendon gushed sarcastically, hovering over Josh.

"W-Whe-re's...R-R-en...eg-gade?" Josh sputtered, his lungs burning to breathe. Everything hurt. So much.

"Oh, him?" Brendon asked sweetly. "I took care of that bastard. He's with my right hand man. Should be dead any second now. You know a lot about being a right hand man, don't you Missile Kid?"