(Emmy's PoV)

I felt my phone vibrate several times in my pocket. I took it out to reveal numerous messages from Trixie, all along the lines of "get on the video chat now" and "it's an emergency."

Matteo's dead. Matteo's dead.

I made my way into the office. Luckily both my parents were out tonight so I was free to use the computer.

Another text from Trixie: Hurry!

Matteo's dead and now no one can protect you.

I replied back through shaking fingers, "sorry, the computer is loading slow."

After several minutes of start up with my brain continuously yelling at me, I was finally able to log on to the online group video chat. Rose, Kierra, and Audrey had already joined too.

Trixie tried to speak, but kept choking on her words.

"I'm assuming you're referring to the incident that's been all over the news for the past hour," Audrey guessed.

You're a horrible girlfriend for not already knowing.

Trixie nodded and my heart started to sink. Normally, I had been trying to stay up to date on current events, but tonight I was swamped with homework after two and a half hours of swim practice.

"I don't have a TV," Rose explained. "What's been on the news?"

Trixie wiped her eyes. "The boys. They've been captured," she sobbed.

"But...but...I thought they were just defense fighting," I stammered.

She shook her head. "That's what I thought too, but apparently not. They were caught sneaking into the emperor's palace in Hong-Kong."

Matteo might not be dead yet, but he will be.

"How could they be so stupid and reckless?" Kierra chided, though her lip quivered as she spoke.

"Shut up," Audrey retorted.

"Hold on," I interrupted, trying to make everything stop spinning. "Are you sure it's them?"

"Yeah," Trixie replied. "Their dog tags were checked and all of them said 63rd platoon."

I let out a broken sob.

You'll be alone forever now. Matteo's going to die. But look on the bright side, at least he doesn't have to put up with you any more.

"One boy, Landon Price, took credit for the whole operation. He's supposed to be executed tomorrow morning—their time." A tear slipped down Trixie's face as she continued. "He was one of Gavin's friends. He has two older sisters who I tried to get a hold of to join this, but they never responded to me."

Kierra crossed her arms and huffed. "Why would those idiots do something so dangerous? It's so stupid!"

"Is this really the time for that?" Audrey exploded.

The two of them proceeded in a screaming match as my thoughts began to eat away at me.

You can't survive without him. Might as well off yourself right now.

"You could have a little bit of sensitivity?" Audrey said through gritted teeth.

"Why?" Kierra retorted. "It's not gonna change anything." She seemed to be fighting back tears too.

Audrey threw her hands up and sighed. "I can't do this."

And she signed off.

Kierra did the same without saying a word.

That left just me, Trixie, and Rose.

Trixie pursed her lips before working up the courage to ask, "the government's gonna send someone in to save them, right? Like really experienced soldiers or something, right?"

Before I could say anything, Rose answered. "Of course not." She clicked her tongue and sighed. "They chose children as soldiers because they're dispensable. They don't give a damn about them. Who knows? Maybe they'll get a fancy monument in D.C. or something..." bitterness clung to her voice. "But they're not getting any help."

I began shaking and tears streamed down my face as reality began to sink in. The boys were all on their own. Nobody who would save them could, and nobody who could save them would.

No one cares about them just like no one cares about you.

The three of us spent all night on that video chat. No talking though. Just crying. It may have been silent for them, but my mind refused to give me any peace.

(Landon's PoV)

I flinched at the sound of my cell door opening. Was it time?

Xang-hao Li entered with a chair and set it down in the middle of the cell, "Settle down, it's not morning yet," he said. "I just thought we should have a chat."

I tried to give my best deadpan expression through my gag.

He gave a fake laugh. "Oh no, I meant I would be the one doing the talking." He sat down in his chair. "I would tell you the execution plans but," he glanced over at the vent, " I have a feeling you already know." He smiled for a moment. "Did you really think you could defeat me? You, a group of a dozen children whose leader holds his glasses together with medical tape. You don't have any power."

Fear was rising in me, but I couldn't let it show.

"You're a pathetic little boy, Landon, who hides his immense insecurity under an aura of fake confidence."

I shifted uncomfortably.

"I know this because I can read people. It helps when you're in a war. I used to know all about the U.S.'s military leaders until they decided to put you runts in combat. Children don't listen. They don't follow orders. They don't think the same way adults do. Your group is the perfect example. Sneaking out on your own to try to save the day. You can't predict what children are going to do. They get these big ideas. Children are dangerous."

He paused for a moment. "Which is why I have to kill you in such an extravagant and painful way," he explained. "If you were an adult I could just shoot you and be done with it, but with kids, it takes a little extra to get things through those thick skulls of theirs." He smacked my head, then momentarily stopped to regain his composure.

"I need to make an example out of you. I need to show you brats what happens to those who go against me. I have to squash the rest of those big ideas out before they're even conceptualized. It's nothing personal. It's just war."

My body grew stiff as he stood up. He wasn't doing this solely because he was evil. He was scared of us. If only Holly could know. My heart ached at the thought of her and I wondered where she and the others could be now.

Xang-hao Li opened the door. "Oh, and Landon," his voice was sickeningly sweet. "See you in the morning."

(Tristan's PoV)

Holly attempted to busy herself by cleaning out Matteo's wound.

"Holly it's fine, really," he tried to tell her. "If you're not feeling up to it..."

"No," she interrupted. "I need to." Her eyes were still bloodshot and her voice was faltering.

I paced around the room. "So what do we do now? Do we try to stop the execution or do we continue with our own?"

Alan huffed. "We came here on a mission and one mission only. Assassinating the emperor."

"But Landon doesn't deserve to die," Trevor interjected.

"I'm just saying every noble cause has casualties," Alan continued.

Matteo winced in pain from the cleaning. "I just don't see why we can't do both."

Holly took out a needle and began cleaning it off. "There is one way we could do both, but it's a bit of a long shot." She looped the surgical suture through the head of the needle. "Both figuratively and literally," she added.

"I'm listening," I stated, though I felt like I wasn't the only one.

She began stitching Matteo's leg together to keep her mind occupied while she spoke, and giving her an excuse to not make eye contact with any of us while doing so.

"He says he wants the execution to be public and judging from what I've seen and read about him before I joined the army, he's gonna want to be the one who performs it. We would have just that little window of time while he's preparing for it to aim while he's unguarded–we did bring an M82 from the weapons storage–a sniper range rifle. We'd have to be far away to go unnoticed though. It's probably too risky," her voice cracked.

"Hey," I tried to calm her down. "Coming here in the first place was risky."

She shrugged. "I suppose if we didn't want to leave the palace yet, we could always try to ambush his office, but that's probably what the other group did that got them captured."

She couldn't even bring herself up to say Landon's name.

Matteo clenched up every time she stuck the needle in him. "I like the other idea though, trying to get him from the outside."

"The problem is," Holly went on, "is that if we fail, we don't reach either of our goals."

"But if we succeed," he finished. "We kill the bad guy and save Landon."

"I say we do it." I declared. Suddenly everyone was looking at me like I was some kind of leader. "I mean it's just my opinion, but we've got no better options. We've gotta try something."

The others voiced their agreement in varying levels of enthusiasm and reluctance.

Holly finished stitching up Matteo and put her materials back in her medical bag. "Let's go then."

It was dark out, so we at least stood less of a chance of being caught exiting. It was already nightfall. It was likely less than twelve hours until Landon's scheduled execution.

We all took turns climbing down the trash chute. A couple of the guys had lost their grip and fell down, but luckily the palace garbage made for a softer landing.

We made our way over to the gates and Holly turned around. "Okay Connor, you know what to do."

There was no response. She scanned us all again and her frown turned to worry.

"Where's Connor?"

(Connor's PoV)

While the rest of my group was going back down the trash chute, I made my way over to the vent. Luckily they were all pretty distracted, so it was relatively easy to sneak away.

I was by far the biggest person in our group, but if the vents could support four smaller people, then it should be able to support me easily. Fitting in was another story. I just barely made it inside the vents. Even while sucking all my air in, both my shoulders brushed against the sides of the vent air duct. I was uncomfortable, but it needed to be done.

The hand crawl I was doing inched me along the air duct path. I didn't have the space to check my watch, but it felt like almost an hour until I found the emperor's office. Luckily from this side of the vent, it was much easier to unscrew the vent cover. I twisted all four of the screws out and let the vent cover drop to the floor. When there was no response, I threw my gun down first. Then I stuck my legs out of the vent and it was a miracle that my shoulders didn't get stuck on the way down.

It was the middle of the night, so I had plenty of time to cover up my tracks, still I got right on it. I stood on Xang-hao Li's desk in order to screw the vent cover back on. I put everything back in place on his desk and proceeded to hide underneath it. I checked my watch: 4:03. I had no idea when he'd be coming in, so I stayed like this for a while.

As time passed, my hands grew clammy. I fidgeted with my gun in an attempt to ease my rising heart rate. I tried to keep my breathing steady.

For hours, I remained curled up under that desk, fighting my own anxiety as night turned into day. I could see the light creeping in through the curtains and I became even more still.

An hour or so after sunrise, I heard a click from the door.

I heard a voice call down the hallway. Even though I couldn't understand what the voice was saying, I immediately recognized it as a voice I had only heard in news coverage from two years ago: Xang-hao Li himself. After what seemed like a couple sentences in Chinese, the office door slammed shut. I could hear footsteps coming closer. I took a deep breath and came out from under the desk and stood up.

"Don't move," I demanded with my gun pointed outward.

Xang-hao Li merely laughed. "So there were more of you. Or are you just a different rebellious teenager with big ideas–"

I stepped closer to him. "I'll shoot," I said with the least amount of stuttering I could muster.

He smiled. "No you won't."

I took another step forward and silently chided myself for not having pulled the trigger already.

"You must know that even if you do manage to kill me, it's unlikely that you, yourself, will make it out of this place alive," he went on.

My heart pounded in my chest as I reclaimed my gun. "Do I look like I have anything to live for?"

Xang-hao Li's demeanor changed. He seemed to suddenly slouch and grow paler. He reached in his pocket for a walkie-talkie sort of device. Without thinking, I grabbed his hand so hard that the device fell out of it. I kicked it aside.

"No security is gonna save you."

"You don't want to do this," he pleaded.

"And why wouldn't I?" I said through gritted teeth, positioning myself in between him and the door.

"I'll give you anything," he told me. "Money...power...you can have both–anything you want."

I scoffed. "I want my best friend back." The thought of Aaron was bittersweet. Missing him hurt, but focusing on him helped keep my head somewhat steady throughout all of this.

"Oh, well, then it's not me you're after," he continued. "It's your own government. They're the ones you here as just boys. Even I'm not that heartless. It's their fault he's gone."

The truth of his words made my blood boil. My eyes began to sting as I thought more about Aaron. I nearly lowered my gun, until I remembered what I was here for.

I was honoring the memory of Aaron–sort of, but in order to do that I needed to end the war. I thought of all the other pairs of best friends split up by the war, whether it was by distance or death. The thought made me miss Aaron even more. I bit the inside of my lip to numb the pain.

"Killing me won't bring him back," Xang-hao Li reminded me.

"I know." I felt hollow as I spoke. I gripped my hands tighter around my gun." But I can try to prevent it from happening to anyone else." And those were the words I needed to pull the trigger.

(Holly's PoV)

Without Connor's upper body strength, we had to resort to digging a hole underneath the gate in order to get back out. The time consuming process of digging was risky, but going back to look for him was riskier.

It took several hours of digging before we made a hole big enough for me to get through and another hour or so to attempt to put all of the dirt somewhat back in place. I wanted to feel angry at Connor for getting lost or deserting or whatever, but mostly I just wanted to feel something other than nervous.

After getting outside from underneath the palace gates, we hid in some bushes and remained in those until morning. At that point there was a crowd starting to draw near the front of the palace.

I had been racking my brain all night over what to do, but from our position, it seemed like our only options were sniping, which was likely beyond our experience levels, or try to ambush the execution, which in turn, could lead to the rest of us getting captured.

I wrung my hands and sighed in frustration.

"Just so you know, Holly," Alan pointed out. "When they kill Landon, you shouldn't scream, it will definitely give us away."

"Oh cuz we're so well hidden right now anyway," I remarked.

"He means if Landon gets killed," Daniel tried to cut in, but Alan just went on.

"I'm just saying, if she blows our cover with her female emotions, then we'll all likely die."

"Keep talking like that and I'll make sure the you dying part actually does happen," I threatened.

Matteo and Tristan stepped in front of him.

"We've been thinking about the possibility of interrupting the execution like you mentioned," Tristan mentioned.

"Should we all do it?" Matteo asked. "Like is it more important to have strength in numbers or would it be better to have a few people stay back and hopefully avoid capture if necessary?"

I put my head in my hands. "I don't know."

I looked to the side to see a group of guards ushering in the rest of the boys from Landon's group. They weren't tied up or anything, but they were unarmed, and surrounded by a group of guards who were very well armed.

"What do you think they're gonna do to them?" Matteo asked.

Hopelessness dwelled over me as I had to answer with "I don't know" again.

Suddenly the people of the crowd began to gasp and murmur. I craned my neck to see through the leaves better. Landon was being led to the front of the palace. His arms were tied, but he was able to walk on his own—albeit not very well. He appeared to be in a daze. Not really in fear, but rather, it looked like shock.

Several members of the crowd yelled things at him that neither of us could understand.

Two guards started opening the gates, but there were too many people for us to escape safely. I doubt the people who attended public executions were the same ones as the radical farmers and poor mothers that Jai-ying had told us about.

One guard pushed Landon to the middle of the front entrance and my heart began racing at the thought of losing him.

The other guard up front prodded him with a baton, while the first one pulled out a small, sharp knife.

"They're not gonna shoot him," I realized.

Daniel cocked an eyebrow. "You don't think they're gonna go through with the execution?"

"They will," I corrected. "It's just gonna be more personal than we anticipated."

Up front, they only had close range weapons. Given our distance and variety of weapons, including snipers and other longer range guns, we had a bit of an upper-hand in that respect. Even still, I realized the element of surprise could be a better option.

I looked at Matteo and Tristan, who may not have understood what I just realized, but understood what needed to be done.

One guard pulled out a walkie-talkie device and I nodded. The three of us ran out of the bushes, wielding out guns. Just like Landon had come to me that night, I was desperate to try anything, no matter how reckless.

The civilians in the crowd screamed and gasped. As I got closer to the palace steps, I aimed my gun at the guard with the knife.

Landon broke out into a smile, and I tried not to lose my focus.

"The guard pulled the walkie-talkie device up to his mouth, but at that moment, gunshots rang out from inside the palace.

Landon turned around puzzled. I didn't dare lose my focus.

I shot at the guard as he reached for his own gun with his other hand.

More shots fired, but they didn't come from us. Or them.

"Xang-hao Li," the other guard said into his walkie-talkie device followed by several Chinese words. After a few moments, he repeated the emperor's name in a more frantic tone.

The front doors of the palace swung open and Connor of all people came stumbling out. He was bleeding from his stomach and collapsed after taking two steps outside.

A voice screamed a hysterical Chinese sentence from the walkie-talkie device causing the crowd to rise to a panic.

Connor coughed. "I think I can translate that one for you guys." He winced from his stomach pain, but then continued. "I'm guessing they just found out that Xang-hao Li is dead."

Upon learning the good news, I immediately grabbed Landon's wrists and pulled him along. Amidst all the chaos might have been our only ticket out.

The people in the crowd began running in all sorts of directions, wailing. It made it hard to tell who was who despite how different we looked. I looked behind to see that the rest of the guys–even the ones in Landon's group–were following us. Tristan and Matteo were dragging Connor along. They were all coming from several different directions, but following nonetheless.

It was weird. The Chinese guards and soldiers seemed to be in a panic, but only a few of them were actually shooting at us. Most didn't know what to do. That, or I wondered, did they no longer care? I wondered how many of the army's soldiers would know what to do if the president died and how many of them would keep fighting in the war if no one was there to force them to.

I didn't look back the entire rest of the way until we returned to rural land again. It sounded like a few people were chasing us, but it might have just been our guys. I had heard gunshots, but those might have come from our guys too.

As we ventured away from the city lights and skyscrapers and further into the forests. I heard someone call from behind. "That's everyone who was chasing us."

I stopped abruptly and Landon tripped, cracking the frame of his glasses again. I helped him up and untied his hands.

I started digging around in my medical bag. "I think I've got some medical tape..."

"You've probably got more pressing matters to deal with," Landon replied, resorting to simply holding the broken glasses up to his eyes with his hand.

I looked back to see a handful of the guys bleeding. Connor had been shot somewhere in the stomach, although all the blood made it difficult to tell exactly where. Marcus got hit in the arm, and Trevor in his leg. Several others had been grazed by bullets, but were overall okay.

I rushed down to help Connor first. He seemed to be exhausted and in pain, but remained mostly conscious.

"You really killed him?" I asked as I pulled antiseptic out of my bag.

"Yeah," he replied weakly. "I got shot by a guard while trying to escape." He winced in pain.

After cleaning out his wound, I began applying gauze pads since the bullet didn't appear to be lodged in there. I mentally reminded myself to give him some of my limited stash of antibiotics once I was through with this.

As I tended to Connor, Peter ran up to John. "I never thought I'd see you again." He embraced John and kissed him on the lips.

Within seconds, John pulled away, blushing. "Not now," he hissed.

"Dude," Tristan laughed. "We don't actually care...like at all."

John looked over at Landon, expecting some sort of joke or sarcastic comment, but Landon just grinned. "Nah, we really don't, John."

In the next instant, John wrapped his hands around Peter and began kissing him.

I applied more pressure and added another gauze pad.

"So did we do it?" Sean asked. "Did we really end the war?"

I shrugged. "I'm hopeful. All I know is we did what we set out to do. Now we just have to wait and see if it was enough."