Alliance

Chapter Twelve

I gave Wong a meaningful look to stay quiet and to follow me. Slowly, we past the doors on either side of the hallways, waiting for them to open at any moment. The officer I shot only nodded at us as we quietly walked by.

We made it to the staircase without one door opening.

"Well. That's weird," Wong ran a hand through his short black hair.

It was weird. I expected the doors to open to get us.

"What?" Rodriguez asked.

I explained to him what my thoughts were. That I expected an ambush. That the officer was a set up to get us in there. After they shot us, they would go after our team. If our whole team was shot we would be done.

"It just doesn't make sense, why would an officer be in that hallway when there is nothing in there?" I asked out loud.

Rodriguez scratched his chin. "Think outside the box."

I wanted to glare at him too. Ben told me that numerous times while training.

"What if," Wong said slowly, "what if this whole thing is a setup."

"What?" I said.

"What if this was a small distraction to throw us off of the big distraction? Perhaps the real ambush is on the top floor?" Wong said.

Rodriguez and I both stared at Wong who was oblivious to what he just implied.

"Wait, oh." Wong's expression changed to understanding. We all turned to the stairs and climbed as fast as we could.

We only made it a few flights up before Carlos, Bailey, and Rossi was climbing down. They stopped at the landing, waiting for us to reach them.

"Carlos!" I called in surprise, my breath uneven from the god awful stairs. "Are you guys getting chased?"

"Chased?" Carlos asked. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What are you talking about Sparrow? Where have you guys been? We got a view of the city and we have a few ideas of where the flags are."

"Was anyone up there?" I asked.

Carlos rose an eyebrow. "No, there was no one up there."

I turned to Wong and Rodriguez. "This really doesn't make sense."

"What the hell is going on?" snapped Carlos. Honestly, he was acting like a toddler being told no. I spun to him, quickly said what was going on before turning back to Wong.

"None of this makes sense," I said turning back to Wong. "Are you sure the flag wasn't there? That was their base, right? Maybe it was a decoy."

"There was no flag."

It didn't make sense. Maybe they just put the officer there to confuse us all. To make us wonder what the hell was going on. And it was working. But there had to be a reason. Everything had a reason.

There was where some logical explanation. Everything in the world had a logical explanation. Like how the oceans have tides. How leaves turn in autumn. How everything that goes up must go down.

Everything that goes up must go down.

"Shit." I pushed by Wong and raced the stairs without giving an explanation. The men followed behind.

I did not stop until I was on the floor with the officer. Like I had expected, the hallway was empty.

"There were people in those rooms," I turned to Wong. The only way for the officer to get up is if a team member tagged him. "But they didn't ambush us. They waited until after we left, for us to go up so they could go down. Because at some point, we have to go down. They are waiting downstairs to cut us off!"