Annihilation

Instinct

We left before first light. The ground was still wet and we were weary, but we needed to get to the others without Gideon or his men finding us. We traveled along side a road, headed in the general direction of the main highway in the city.

I estimated the miles by the amount of time we ran, a count of seconds that built into minutes in my head with the pace of our footsteps. We had anywhere from one to three more before we'd likely run into the city limits. We held on to each other's hand as we trekked through the high grass.

"Wait." My body jerked at Jungkook's declaration as he halted at the edge of the treeline we made it to. He held us against the side of a large tree, peering over my shoulder and past the trunk. There was laughing in the distance, a boisterous mutter of men's voices.

Stealth wasn't their strength, their conversation carrying through the thirty foot span of land that separated us. Jungkook's lips pressed together seriously as he focused on listening, the wheels that turned in his head visible in his facial expression.

"They're smart so I'm sure they'll avoid the city. They'll most likely be on foot in the woods or looking for a car further up the highway." One of them spoke.

Jungkook's instinct was instant. With my attention on the men who spoke I'd just registered the sound of the undead man who approached us with a drag when he reacted. The weight of his body left mine as he hurriedly stepped into the visible space between trees, tackling it to the ground and depending on a heavy rock that he grabbed to smash through the corpse's skull.

The last sound I heard after the intense crunch of bone was a hushing in the distance. I stilled, completely frozen with the ground crunching as their footsteps approached. Jungkook lay flat on the grass, inching quietly toward the next tree over so that he was hidden.

I held my breath with every second that passed, keeping my eyes locked on his. He held up a finger so that I would wait and moved with enough sound that I knew it was purposeful, pushing up from the ground and sprinting in the opposite direction. He was the fastest of us all, the three men calling out after spotting his blurry figure speed through the brush.

They followed him without thought, lagging behind but keeping with his path. I waited another moment before heading after them, keeping my feet light. I knew one of them would tire and that Jungkook could likely run farther and longer than any of them, waiting for an opportunity when one of them slowed.

There's something that happens sometimes in your body, a reaction to threat that is automatic. When the first gunshot one of them aimed toward Jungkook sounded I could only hope that they'd miss. One of them fell out of pace and stumbled as he came to a stop, out of breath and with his hands on his knees. He heaved as if he would vomit from running and with sound no longer a factor in my caution I ran up to him, raising my gun toward his temple. That part, the instinctual reaction, lay in the single second that lay between the tip of the barrell against his head and the pull of my finger against the trigger.

I didn't have time for it to affect me, the two men ahead of me registering the gunshot and realizing they were being chased. I kept after them, running in a near zig zag to avoid bumping into any trees.

One kept running, picking up his speed while the other stopped in his tracks. It gave me another second where without a thought I raised my gun again, aiming through the trees to the man just as he turned back to check on his friend. I couldn't see where the bullet hit him, but I knew it did when he fell to his knees. He raised his rifle, pointing it toward me as blood spread through his shirt below his chest.

I dashed behind the nearest tree. Based on one of the first lessons Yoongi and Jin taught me I knew the placement and quick span of blood that pooled around the wound meant that he would die quickly. Two gunshots sounded closer to me, from my left. My eyes squinted in the direction of the noise, looking through the trees before checking the other way, the man I shot face down on the ground with little movement. I crept to the first body, tugging the strap to his rifle over his shoulder and patting him down for any knives.

After retrieving the hatchet from the waistband of his pants and a pocketknife tucked into his shoe I moved on to the next, my heart hammering from adrenaline. I whipped around at the crack of a stick behind me, the glock that now held only a couple of bullets clicking as I turned it up to the person across from me.

"It's me." Jungkook's voice led me to lower my weapon. He grabbed my hand and I hadn't noticed that it started trembling, his other hand reaching out so that his fingers lifted my chin to look at him. "Hey, hold on for a little bit longer. We need to move fast and get to the restaurant before anyone else comes." He moved from his squatted position, helping me up before leaning back down to gather weapons from the second man I killed and driving a blade through his skull before he could reanimate.

With no sign of others we crossed the small stretch of grass that led to the back of an old strip of businesses. Around the front there were only a few letters of the large grocery store sign left, the paint on the few cars in the parking lot peeling from sitting so long.

I looked around at the restaurants on the next street over, recognizing a few chain establishments and a smaller Mexican restaurant that I remembered being packed whenever I visited. My mind drifted to the owners as we crossed the pavement in a quickened walk between buildings. A banner hung below the name, identifying the business as family owned. It only took a split second of wondering about the family, parents, probably kids and where they were for Jungkook to step in to stop my glum train of thought.

"Stay with me." He muttered, putting a hand on my shoulder to turn me so that I faced him. It felt like everything was coming down on me. I could see the restaurant we needed to reach just across the highway, but the eight lane road between still made it feel far away.

"That's it." I pointed, Jungkook turning around to face the building. We were only accompanied by the sound of light wind in the air until Jungkook suddenly cried out, a call that resembled a squawking bird.

We waited, a few seconds passing before there was one in return. I grabbed his hand, the dive of dejection I'd been taking erased by the small figure we could make out on the roof.

We rushed toward the building, our destination and the view of two heads through the window clear as we approached.

I skipped over the trap set at the front door and pulled at the heavy wood. Jungkook and I dropped each other's hands, tugged into the arms of Jin and Jimin as soon as we were through the threshold.

I was startled by back to back slamming sounds from the rear of the building and reached for my weapon. Jin turned toward the metal doors that would have led to the kitchen, covering my gun with his hand to assure me it was safe.

"It's Namjoon and Yoongi. They were on the roof and around the back on lookout." He explained as the doors swung back and forth with their entrance.

Yoongi embraced me, keeping one arm wrapped tight around me as he reached out to put a hand on Jungkook's shoulder. When he released me Namjoon grabbed my arms, his thumbs smearing at the mix of mud and blood that splattered my skin.

"We're both fine." I nodded, taking in the coating of red that belonged to one of the people I'd killed over the last twenty-four hours. I diverted my attention to one of the large windows by the waiting area, peering out to the street with my question. "Taehyung and Shelby?"

"Did they get out together?" Namjoon asked as he shook his head. They weren't here yet.

I nodded despite some uncertainty. "We got pushed in opposite directions. I don't know if they got out." There was a shakiness in my tone and as we moved to sit at one of the large tables that would have been used to seat large groups, a feeling I was too familiar with and tired of creeping in. The ache of waiting lingered through all of us, and we resisted adding up every second that passed or leaning into questioning the appropriate amount of time to wait for someone before accepting that they wouldn't come.