Octagon Project 3: Zachary McHall

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Heavy panting sounded behind him with the sound of leaves rustling and twigs snapping underfoot. He spun around in the dark of the woods and fired a shot in the direction the sounds were coming from.

"It's just me you moron!" Mel hissed, coming up next to him. Zack released a breath and lowered his gun to his side again. "Do you seriously think an Octagon Agent would be that loud if they were tailing us?"

"I wouldn't expect you to be that loud." Zack muttered in reply. Mel only rolled her eyes at him and began attaching a silencer to the nozzle of her gun.

"We need to get moving and get cleaned up so that we can move freely in public. We're safer around people. Your gun shot might have alerted any agents that could be around here."

"Good idea. You do know that the Octagon has snipers trained for public assassinations, right?"

"Just get moving Zack. I'll explain more to you once we're in a vehicle and out of this forest."

"Fine." Zack grumbled, moving quietly in the direction of the main road with Mel following observantly behind.

"You're expecting us to highjack someone's car from them in the middle of the night an hour out of London and God only knows how far from the next city?!" Mel hissed as the black asphalt of the road came into view.

"Of course not!" Zack spat back. "When we are in the woods, we're lost and good as dead. Here we can at least follow the roads into the nearest town and hotwire a car that's unoccupied.

"Right. And how far away is that going to be?"

"About... Fifteen minutes if we run." He replied, his face illuminated by the bright screen of his cellphone.

"You kept your phone?!" Mel silently shrieked. Zack glanced at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah?"

"That's an Octagon phone!"

"Your point?"

"They could be tracking us off of that!" Mel cried, her head spinning to the direction of the forest behind them as a branch snapping sounded nearby. She turned back to Zack with large green eyes and he grabbed her hand, beginning to pull her to run in the direction of the nearest town.

"I'll lose the phone at the next town. In the meantime, we need to outrun those agents before they are able to meet us half way in a car." He told her. Sighing, Mel pulled her wrist out of his tight grip and ran along side him with ease since their stride was about the same.

"I'm going to kill you once we find a place to stay." Mel breathed after a while of silence as they ran. Zack glanced over at her.

"No offense, but I'd take the Octagon Agent's bullet over your slow, excruciating idea of killing." He answered.

"And what do you think your dad will do to you? Offer you a cup of coffee?" She attempted to roll her eyes and slowed down a bit as she saw the road split off to the left where a small town lit up part of the night. A car came by, followed by a motorcycle and they ducked into the shelter of the undergrowth until it was clear. Zack put his hands on his knees to catch his breath as Mel observed the scene before them.

"I thought we agreed to stop calling McHall my dad."

"Then don't piss me off if you don't want to hear it." She retorted. Grumbling, Zack rolled his eyes and crouched next to her. "If we can make it to that old barn, we may have somewhere to stay the night and maybe find a useable vehicle."

"Right, why would we stay somewhere that is right across from where I'd leave a trackable phone?"

"Because that's not what they would expect us to do." She answered, pulling out her blade and taking off her glove. "And in case they think we would," she grunted as she sliced her palm and threw his phone down. "Then we make it look like something else happened." She finished, squeezing her fist to make her blood drip on and around the device. Handing him her knife, he stared at her with wide eyes that were partially covered by his black shaggy hair.