Elijah looks above the chaos of running men, trying to spot his teammates, but it's no use. Even if they were in his same corridor, there would be no way for him to know. There's too many people, all of a sudden. It's suffocating. He's never seen anything like it before.

Someone grabs him from behind. He elbows them in the face, trips them with a swipe of his leg and shoots. The person lets him go, but several heads turn towards him at the bang. Elijah takes a step back, then another. His back hits someone and he whirls around just in time to avoid their blow to his head. He shoots twice more, and two people fall. It's a small win against the dozens around him.

Their hands fly to their weapons. He dips through an open door and hides behind a sofa, reloading his gun. He's breathing heavily, but tries to steel his nerves. He has to focus if he wants to get out of here alive. He points his gun at the door and shoots the first three people that walk through.

In the corridor, screams ring out. A rise in gunshots tells him more of the Revolution has arrived. He makes to go out, but a man steps through the door. It's too late to avoid him—Elijah points his gun at him and shoots.

And misses. The man strikes him across the face and he plummets to the ground. Elijah rolls around—avoiding his kick to the jaw by a thread—and grabs his ankle. He pulls, and the man falls on top of him hard enough to take his breath away. He shoves him away and tries to get back to his feet, but the man swipes his leg out and Elijah falls again.

His gun slips out of his grasp and skitters down the floor. Elijah crawls towards it but the grabs his legs and pulls him back. Fingers nestle into his hair. Elijah's hands fly to his face just in time to keep his nose from being smashed into the cement. He flails, but the man is on top of him now, too heavy for him to get free. He strikes him across the back of his head, hard. His vision sinks, but he blinks away the sensation. Elijah turns his head and tries to hit him, only for his wrist to get grabbed. His hand turns and grabs the man's wrist. The man's hold is released. Elijah grabs the man's wrist harder and twists. A scream comes from behind him. The man bends forward, and Elijah takes it as his chance to shove him off. He kicks him back, hard, and stalks to his gun.

He picks it up.

The man laughs. "I'd be careful with that if I were you."

Elijah hesitates. "What?"

The other smirks. "What, don't tell me you haven't already figured it out?" He coughs, blood splattering against his hand. "After the upper floors went off just a while ago?"

Cold trickles down Elijah's spine.

"After our attack on Dacran? Are you really this dumb?" Another laugh. "My, you aren't smart, aren't you? Does the Palace not have standards anymore?" He looks him up and down. "You're not wearing a uniform, though—"

"I'm not from the Palace." Elijah nearly spits the word out. The man is staring him down, waiting for him to lower his weapon, but he doesn't. "I'm Revolution."

"You're Revolution?" the man chortles out. "How the Palace has fallen. This is hilarious." He glares at him. "Get out of here. This isn't your fight."

"You've set cities on fire. This is my fight."

"You have no idea—"

Elijah makes a show of taking the safety off. Shouts are still coming from the corridor, but neither of them miss the subtle click. "You're wasting my time."

The man smiles. "So we blew a few cities up and were ready to move in on the capital. Where do you think all that explosive is?"

Elijah halts.

"Ah, now you're getting it." His eyes narrow. "Did your friends like the present we left upstairs? We have plenty more," a dark, twisted smile, "all over this building."

Elijah's eyes widen.

"So, what now?"

Elijah takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

And shoots.

The man falls back into the couch without a sound. Elijah runs out in the corridor. It's even fuller than before—familiar faces mix with unfamiliar ones.

"Jesse, where are you?!" he hisses into his watch, but gets no reply. Their line has been silent for far too long—he can only hope his watch is broken and nothing more serious has happened. "Al?!" Again, no reply. He mutters a curse under his breath and shoots a man coming at him. He jolts in the moment he does, but he's lucky. He opens the magazine of his gun and lets the last rounds fall to the ground not to risk shooting again.

A man grabs him, and Elijah punches him on the face and kicks him back. He falls back, taking a couple people down with him. Elijah sees a familiar face and runs into the crowd, striking a couple more people that try to stop him.

"Owl!"

The man turns around. "You're here. Where's everyone else?" There's crusted blood on his left brow and a bruise forming on his cheekbone, but he seems to be mostly alright.

Elijah shakes his head, his hands tighten around Owl's shoulders. "This place is riddled with explosives!"

Owl blanches. "What?"

"Explosives! Fucking explosives, my—"

He shoves Owl to the side as a blade pierces the air where he was standing until a moment ago. His hand closes around the man's wrists and he twists his arm until he's forced to let go of the knife. Owl picks it up, and Elijah shoves their attacker into the crowd.

"Tell everyone!"

Elijah runs off. He has to find Al, and everyone else, and the leader of the Shade. The Revolution is counting on them to uphold their part of the plan. The plan has long since derailed, but he can't let it all go to waste. He's one of the best fighters in the Revolution for a reason—he has to show them his worth, prove this is where he belongs. He can't let them all down. He can't fail.

"Eli, wait," Owl says, coming after him. "We shouldn't get separated—"

Elijah turns back. "You need to warn everyone else! I'll search for Al and the leader." He waves him off and dashes down the corridor, quick enough to avoid the blows the Shade sends his way. Now he knows why hardly anyone was shooting. Explosives, everywhere. This place could go up at any second. He needs to get Al to safety.

A sudden shout splits the air.

"Lark!"

Elijah's hard drops. He whirls around. Al?

A hand closes around his wrist. Owl has followed him, he's holding him back. "I said we need to—"

Elijah shoves him off.

"Elijah!"

He ignores Owl calling for him and runs off towards the source of the sound. His heart's hammering so violently he feels it in his throat. "Al!" He can't let anything happen to her. If it's her, if it's her—

Nausea comes over him. The shout came from the nearing corridor, where he was until a few minutes ago. He can't let anything happen to her. He won't allow it.

He turns into the corridor. The fight has moved elsewhere, but the signs of it are all over it. He slips on a puddle and falls, but pulls himself up and keeps running. "Alouette!"

There's a sudden explosion.

The ceiling collapses on top of him.

• • •

The taste of lemon in Alouette's mouth has given way to the bitter one of blood from the way she bit into her tongue when she was slammed against the wall. She pulls herself up, her ribs ache with every breath. Her gun has clattered to the ground and she scrambles for it.

The man tugs her back by her ankle, but not before her fingers close around her weapon. She spins around and kicks him in the face. He groans and his hand swipes out, hitting hers. She nearly lets the gun drop again.

Alouette jumps at him without giving him time to recover, like she did earlier. His hands reach out and close around her shoulders. She can only let out a surprised yelp before she's thrown through a doorway.

She trips over a stool and crashes to the ground. Her gun slides across the ground, too far away for her to reach. Her sides hurt, and her heartbeat feels like it's in pain. Her gaze shoots up.

Her attacker is standing in the doorway, staring down at her. Alouette gasps at the sight of him—his eyes, of a deep, dark brown, suddenly familiar.

It's the leader of the Shade—the man she was sent to retrieve. She's stared at his picture for too long not to instantly recognise him. He's the man that started this whole mess, that she's been desperately looking for since she's entered the building. And he's standing in front of her at last, looking at her as if she's no threat to him. Chills run down her spine.

She skitters back, and he takes a step into the room. "You're Robert Clarke," she hisses out, heart thundering in her ears. She feels the ground behind her, desperately looking for her gun, or anything else she can use to protect herself. "The leader of the Shade."

He stares her up and down, as if he's trying to decide whether he should be concerned she knows his name or not. In the end, he seems to decide it doesn't matter—she doesn't matter. She's not enough to be a threat to him.

Alouette's back hits the desk on the other side of the room. An object clatters to the floor at her side, and she holds it up in defence. Her heart drops when she sees it's a mere pen. She throws it at him and runs for her gun.

The man runs towards her, and his hand pins her wrist to the ground. "Oh you don't."

She tries to free her arm, but he doesn't let her go. She kicks him with one leg and swipes the gun towards her with the other, picking it up with her free arm. He tips over the desk, and she has to jump to the side to avoid being crushed by it.

She gets to her feet, heaving, and points her gun at him. Her hands tremble, and she has to make sure the safety is on so she won't accidentally shoot him. Harry wants him alive, he won't forgive her if she kills his most coveted prey.

The man takes the stool and swipes at her. She gasps and jumps back. Her heel catches one of the chairs strewn across the room and she clatters to the ground. Her head hits the desk, and she hisses in pain. The leader of the Shade has got closer in the meantime, but she only notices it when he swipes the gun out of her hold with a foot.

He picks it up and lets the remaining bullets fall out before throwing it out of the room. "Don't get in my way."

Alouette's eyes widen. She jumps to her feet and grabs the first thing she can get a hold of on the desk—a glass. She shatters it against the wall. Shards fall to the ground and crack under her feet when she steps over them.

The leader rolls his eyes. He grabs her arms and throws her over the desk.

• • •

Harry is in the meeting room of the Revolution, pacing back and forth. He doesn't like this sensation—the not knowing. He halts. "So?"

Jayden, sitting at the table, shakes his head. "I can't get in contact with her, I don't know why." He sounds worried, but Harry has no time to waste on other people's feelings. He looks at the door. Mr. Larson ran off to make plans in the moment things turned south, no doubt sending more people out to save his own. Harry is feeling oddly on edge, for his part. He hasn't felt like this in a long time.

"How long has it been since she got in contact with anyone?" There's the semblance of calm in his question, but that's all it is—a mere semblance. He's not feeling calm at the moment, not that he'll ever show it.

Jayden debates the answer for a moment. "Forty minutes? Maybe fifty?"

Too long. This won't do. He shouldn't have let things slip out of his control this way—that's what he gets for allowing people to make their own choices. Now he remembers why he's always found it pointless. He shouldn't have let her go. Normally he wouldn't have, but he felt like he had to give her at least something, and she wanted to, so badly it nearly made him laugh. She thinks in odd ways, at times.

Still, he gave this one to her. He shouldn't have. There was no objective reason for her to go. He should've kept her at his side and dealt with her anger instead. What could she do, anyway? He's known his birds are to be kept safe his whole life—this isn't new, nor unexpected. He shouldn't have given in. And he wouldn't have, normally. The situation simply made it look so... unfair. Not right. If that means anything at all, at this point.

Jayden's voice snaps him out of the swirl of dark thoughts his mind has fallen in. "Sir? What now?"

"Contact the people on her team directly."

Jayden starts on the endeavour, and Harry tunes his voice out.

He shouldn't have let her go. He doesn't regret his past choices often—or at all. Regret is a peculiar little thing he's not familiar with anymore—he's had to shove it deep, deep down long ago. There's something of ironic in it coming out now, of all times. It feels like a malfunction of some kind.

"Jesse and Elijah aren't answering, I'll try with one of the others," Jayden announces. He barks away into the watch, and Harry resumes his pacing, barely paying attention to what he's saying. His thoughts are going at a thousand miles per hour. This isn't going how he expected, and he doesn't like it. He doesn't like the feeling of not having control over what happens next, nor understands why he has to feel this way. His plan was foolproof, in a way only few people could understand. He was certain it would work out. What went wrong? Did he trust the wrong people?

A new voice rings through the room. It's one of the men on her team he knows little about—normally he wouldn't have trusted them with keeping Alouette safe, but Elijah and Jesse trust them, so it felt pointless not to. They'd never let her get in harm's way, and he has to play his part if he wants everything to work out.

"She's not here. I haven't seen her since we got in a while ago. Elijah, he... he just—"

Jayden shuts off the communication. His eyes fly to Harry, as if he expects him to do something. "Sir...?" he calls him quietly when he doesn't say a word.

Harry turns his back to him. Think clearly, he instructs himself, but he's finding it remarkably hard. He doesn't feel fine. He doesn't like it. Think—

"Go get her." The words are out before he can stop them.

Jayden balks. "Sir, I can't—"

Harry snaps towards him. "I said, go get her."

"I can't. I need to stay—"

Harry's hands slam on the table. "It wasn't a request." His voice is low, heated. "You'll go get her now and you'll do it without a single word of complaint if you don't want to lose everything you hold dear. Don't try me—I will ruin your fucking life. Is that clear?"

Jayden's eyes widen, and Harry's narrow.

"I said, is that clear?"

Jayden nods and jumps to his feet. "I'll go get Alouette. I'll notify the Palace you're on your own as I go."

He runs out of the door.

Harry goes back to pacing the room back and forth. The sharp, cold hint of a feeling slithers into his chest, but he pushes it down where it came from. This isn't like him.

He must get her back—his lark.

I apologise—again.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter x
Miki