AJ gritted his teeth. â€œFuck if I know.â€ The smell of rotten blood filled his nose and he coughed as he turned and glanced down the alleyway. He could still barely hear gunfire in the distance. But only barely. So when there was a sudden loud explosion of noise, he jumped.<br/><br/>Adrian registered the sound as a breaking building. The resounding crash sent vibrations through the ground. AJ stared at the shaking pavement with wide eyes. They knocked down a building?! What were they thinking?<span style="font-style: italic">Rainie didnâ€™t do that, sheâ€™s not that crazy...</span><br/><br/>It was quiet now. Not even the sound of distant gunshots reached his ears. The abrupt silence left his ears ringing. He shared an incredulous glance with Nathan.<span style="font-style: italic">What the hell?</span>Without preamble, Adrian turned and started down the alley.<br/><br/>Under his breath he muttered, â€œI sure as hell hope so.â€<br/><br/>Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at Nathan. He jerked his head in the universal<span style="font-style: italic">letâ€™s go</span>signal. â€œI hope you remember the way out of here, â€˜cuz I have no effing clue.â€ He admitted brusquely. He thumbed on the safety and threw the strap of his M16 over his shoulder. He tried listening again, a cold feeling in his chest when he continued to hear nothing.<span style="font-style: italic">What the hell is going on out there?</span><br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Rainieâ€™s breath came in short pants as she fired on the mob of Infected. They swarmed from nowhere, unending. She was going to run out of bullets. She couldnâ€™t believe she was actually<span style="font-style: italic">helping</span>Knight Aareagow. She had half a mind to shoot him herself in the middle of all the chaos. Her hood had fallen down a while ago, and she was thankful she had pulled her hair back. The last thing she needed was her hair getting in her face as she fought.<br/><br/>The sound of a large engine permeated her focused mind. A huge hummer was roaring around the street, Infected getting mowed down and crushed under its wheels. An object was thrown out the window and exploded when it struck the building on the corner. Rainie gaped at the blast, her trigger finger slipping from the trigger of her machine gun. It had taken out most of the structure at the base of the structure. She looked up and mentally calculated where the massive structure would land. Looking to the pavement, she saw men with guns in the path.<br/><br/>Her eyes widened. â€œLook out! Clear the way!â€ She shouted over the chaos, her voice hardly carrying. But the menâ€™s heads rose to look at the building, now leering closer and closer to the street, and all of them immediately sought cover. Rainie picked out the child and his brother on the fringe of the fighting, their red hair easy to pick out. As she herself dove behind a car for cover, she swept her hand through the air urgently, signaling them to find cover. They did in a nearby alley.<br/><br/>She heard the building crash into the pavement, and felt the tremors in the ground. Windows and cars were smashed, sending a spray of glass over the battlefield. Rainie strained around to look, and a shard flew and sliced past her cheek, leaving a line of blood on the creamy skin.<br/><br/>Cursing, she clamored to her feet and took damn near most of the remaining Infected. The building had crushed a good number of them, as well as blocked off the wide street completely. She dropped an empty mag and shoved a full clip in, throwing the gun back over her shoulder. Her Berretta was in her hand in a flash, and she shot the face off a zombie which had broken away and come at her.<br/><br/>Silence ensued, and Rainie looked around at the destruction. â€œI must surely be in Bedlam.â€ She declared to the empty air. Bodies littered the street, blood and gore seeping from the flesh and soaking the wet streets. The air shimmered with broken glass, and fire leapt from the base of the knocked down building.<br/><br/>Rainieâ€™s breath came in short pants and blood trickled from the cut on her cheek. The first sign of life her eyes picked out was Knight Aareagow. She recognized him immediately. She had stared at that face for hours at a time...and thrown a couple darts at it upon occasion. His dark brown hair was a bit longer than she remembered it though. And, well, he looked like hell.<br/><br/>Without her discretion, her feet moved forward. She stepped over bodies and around old cars as her eyes were trained on Knight. Her hair in its high ponytail trailed behind her as she walked. A drop of blood dripped off her chin and onto her shirt, leaving a dark maroon dot on the dark blue.<br/><br/>In the corner of her mind she noticed the two brothers from earlier approach Aareagow, the little boy tackling him in a hug and the older boy beaming at him. It was that moment that Knight looked up at her. He smiled a little unsteadily.<br/><br/>Her feet stopped in their gradual advance, coming to a complete hault. She was about ten feet away. Her mind was a blank. What was she doing? Half a beat passed and she did nothing. Then without warning, she flashed forward, almost a blur as she sprinted. Her fist caught Aareagow hard in the cheek.<br/><br/>She fumed at him. â€œYou idiot! You almost squashed those guys!â€ She shouted at him. That wasnâ€™t what sheâ€™d wanted to say at all. She wanted to call him every horrible word in the book. She wanted to beat him until he was just a smear on the sidewalk. She wanted to take every single bullet she had received in her lifetime because of him and shoot them right back at him.<br/><br/>But the thought of â€˜those guysâ€™ brought her attention away from Knight and how much she wanted to hurt him and back to the situation at hand. She looked over her left soldier as the sound of footsteps permeated her anger. Stepping away from Aareagow and the two boys, she turned and faced the four foreboding figures approaching.<br/><br/>Each of them was covered from head to toe in black armor. Rainie recognized the carriage of a soldier in the way each of the men walked. At least she assumed they were men. Their builds were all varying degrees of masculine. They carried weapons wrapped in trash bags, and each had packs that looked far too heavy on their backs. They didnâ€™t say a word as they approached.<br/><br/>Rainie stared at them reproachfully. â€œWho are you?â€ She demanded.<br/><br/>The figure in the lead responded immediately. â€œSierra-India-Tango-One-Alpha. My name is Fallon.â€ His voice was lifeless. â€œAre you injured?â€<br/><br/>Rainie recognized the name of the man on the radio with a start. She shook her head in a negative, stepping further away from Aareagow and the brothers. She slid a glance toward Knight. He didnâ€™t put weight on one of his legs, and he really did look as if he had been through hell. The boys seemed unhurt, thankfully.<br/><br/>She paused a second before saying, â€œHe is.â€ She indicated toward Aareagow.<br/><br/>The one in front nodded once, and one of the men further to the back stepped forward with a pack in his hands. His voice was just as dead as the first ones. â€œSit down and Iâ€™ll fix you up...â€ He proceeded to examine Knightâ€™s injuries. â€œWeâ€™ll need to set this leg, it seems...â€ He reached into his bag and removed a case, putting together a needle.<br/><br/>Rainie watched with rapt interest.<span style="font-style: italic">The Panacea?</span>she wondered. She glanced up when a shadow fell over her. It was Fallon.<br/><br/>It is disconcerting for someone to stare at you when you canâ€™t see their face. It gave Rainie an eerie feeling, and she reflexively stepped away. Fallon indicated to her cheek. â€œThat should be disinfected.â€ He told her.<br/><br/>She reached up and wiped away the line of blood, smearing the redness over her cheek. â€œItâ€™s nothing.â€ She insisted.<span style="font-style: italic">Besides,</span>she thought,<span style="font-style: italic">not much we can do nowadays for disinfecting.</span>The man nodded and turned away even as blood leaked from the cut and replaced the trickle she had wiped away.<br/><br/>Rainie stepped back, trying to distance herself. She glanced anxiously over her shoulder to where she had last seen Nathan and Adrian. With a sigh, she tried to get a handle on the situation. She approached one of the soldiers.<br/><br/>â€œAre any of you injured?â€ She asked.<br/><br/>â€œNo, maâ€™am.â€ The man replied in yet another dead voice.<br/><br/>â€œWhat are you doing here?â€<br/><br/>â€œAssisting survivors.â€<br/><br/>â€œWhy do you have the Panacea?â€<br/><br/>He paused. â€œIt was enroute to the President. It did not arrive in time.â€<br/><br/>Rainie raised her eyebrows at this. They had kept it that long? She stared at the man tending to Knight, whom she had dubbed â€˜the medic.â€™<br/><br/>â€œHow much is left?â€<br/><br/>The medic raised his masked face to her. â€œAfter this...â€ He raised the needle he was prepping for Aareagow. â€œOne.â€<br/><br/>She let out a breath she hadnâ€™t noticed she had been holding. She glanced down at Aareagow, then at the two brothers. She worried at her bottom lip, and thought of her brother and Nathan. Her chest felt tight. Should she ask? What would they say? She knew the Panacea was the Immunity Vaccine. If she could get it...if she could get it for her brother...Or Nathan... She would never have to worry about having to see either of them die like that, then have to pull the trigger to destroy them. But she looked at the little boy and his older brother. What about them?<br/><br/>â€œWe would be willing to give you the immunity if you would be the best candidate.â€<br/><br/>Rainie raised wide eyes to the manâ€™s masked face, disbelieving. There was no way he was offering her the last one. She hadnâ€™t even considered herself to receive it! She would never agree to it. Never would she put herself before anyone else.<br/><br/>She was shaking her head without even realizing she was consciously doing it. â€œNo. Not me... Someone else.â€ Her voice was vague, sort of distant. It didnâ€™t sound like her. The world tilted before her, and she stepped back.