F I N N

For a moment, everyone was still as the realization of what had just happened set in. Senator Harding had never been the target. Mr. Hunt was.

I dropped to the ground next to Mr. Hunt. He was clutching at his chest. Dark blood seeped through his fingers as he tried to stanch the flow.

"Call 911!" someone screamed behind me.

"Mr. Hunt!" I yelled. "Can you hear me?"

His eyes fluttered open. "Yes," he croaked.

"Just hold on," I said frantically, covering the hole in his chest with my hands. "Help is coming, just hold on."

He grabbed my wrist tighter than I was expecting. "Finn."

"Yes," I said desperately, "I'm here."

"Finn, if I die-"

"No!" I practically shouted. "Don't say that, you're going to be fine. You're going to get help."

He was quiet for a moment. Through the chaos, I heard Jaxon yell, "Where is he? I'll kill him!"

I turned to see him, Delphinium, Kane and Jake beginning to push their way through the crowd. I expected that they were going up into one of the buildings to search for the assassin.

"Finn, you need to hear this," Mr. Hunt said, speaking as though every word was hard for him to get out. "If I don't make it, you need to lead the team. The counsel might not act against Imperium in time."

"In time?" I questioned, panicking. "They don't believe us, they're not going to act at all!"

"They might," the ONNT director insisted. "If you capture the assassin who attacked you, they'll have concrete proof."

I shook my head. "He was the one who attacked you. We didn't even see this coming. How can we take him down?"

"You can...you can..."

"It's okay," I stated, my voice still sounding too loud in my ears. I realized what a toll this was taking on him. "Don't talk if you don't need to."

Suddenly, Riley was beside me, her usually playful eyes now wide. "Here," she said, shucking her jacket off. "Press this against the wound."

I obeyed. Mr. Hunt was barely responding now. His eyes were half open and he wasn't moving as much.

"I can hear his heartbeat. It's slowing," Arlo said as he stood over us. "This is a fine time for Gigi to have left us."

"She could have probably stabilized him, at least," Riley agreed nervously. As she spoke, the sound of sirens got closer.

The paramedics surrounded us in no time. They worked Mr. Hunt up on a stretcher as Riley, Arlo and I stood back, watching. My heart pounded in my chest. I couldn't believe this was happening.

"I'll go with him," I told a paramedic. Mr. Hunt couldn't die, I would make sure he didn't.

She nodded. "Get in."

I stepped into the back after they'd loaded him in. The doctors were already beginning to do what they could for him, tearing open his sopping wet shirt to get to the wound.

The ambulance began moving. Everyone was jolted slightly with the sudden movement, but Mr. Hunt's operation wasn't stopped. I could see the wound clearly now. It was deep in his lower chest, ringed with raw red skin. Blood pumped out of it, slower than usual, though still too much for him to be out of danger.

They began to cover the wound, until a male paramedic announced, "His left lung is beginning to collapse." My heart plummeted.

To prevent the lung from collapsing, the doctors began to cover the hole with a plastic wrap instead of bandages. I had no idea what that would do for him, I just hoped that his injuries wouldn't worsen.

I clenched my hands so tightly that my fingernails dug into the skin of my palms. Though Mr. Hunt was the one who'd been shot, I felt dizzy and shell-shocked. I wasn't sure how long I could stand for before my weak legs gave out beneath me.

Mr. Hunt was the closest thing I had to a parent. I knew the others didn't have as good a relationship with him, but he did care for us. He believed that Imperium was truly back, which was more than I could say for the rest of the counsel.

Though he had put us in unsafe situations and practically forced us into joining the team, I knew that when it came down to it, it wasn't all his decision. The counsel voted on what to do, he was just the one who carried their orders out. The ONNT counsel were the ones willing to risk our lives for the nation, not Damien Hunt.

I stared down into the remarkably peaceful-looking face of the ONNT director. The flaws in the ONNT system had made me want to work under Mr. Hunt, even before he'd assembled the team together. I'd been planning to become a soldier for them when he'd taken me in and told me about the team he was assembling.

Now, more than ever, I knew he needed someone to be there for him. I wasn't sure if he had any relatives and he didn't have a ring on his finger. His work, protecting people, was his life. With unrest in the ONNT, as the counsel sided against him and us, he had a decision to make. And especially now that we knew that Imperium was targeting him, I wasn't sure what he'd do next.

The ambulance lurched as we pulled into the hospital driveway. The back doors banged open and they wheeled Mr. Hunt out without a second of hesitation. Doctors swarmed around as they pushed him swiftly down the hallway. People shouted out orders and got their tools ready as they rushed towards the Emergency Room.

"You came in the ambulance with him, didn't you?" a nurse asked me.

I nodded, feeling like I wouldn't even be able to get the words out if I tried. She responded, "You can sit in the waiting room. They're going to take him straight in to be operated on. I'll update you periodically."

I nodded again and immediately wondered if it was the only thing I could do. Walking shakily forward, I pushed open the door the nurse had directed me towards. Inside, rows of empty chairs sat. Only two of them were occupied by two devastated women who looked like they'd been crying. I wondered if that would be me when the nurse came back with an update on Mr. Hunt's condition.

I sat there in the cold room for an hour a half. Mr. Hunt was still being operated on. No one had come to tell me about how he was doing.

That familiar sick, panicking feeling was rising up in me. My heart began to pound so hard I was afraid it would burst in my chest. I could feel it everywhere in my body; it was in my fingertips, in my head, everywhere.

Calm down, I commanded myself. It wasn't going to do any good for me to have a panic attack here, out of all places.

But it did nothing to calm my nerves. I was so deep into it that I had to grip my seat to remind myself of where I was. My body felt so weak that I felt that I might die. This couldn't be healthy. Was I dying?

I tried to force myself to be positive. Mr. Hunt was going to be alright. He hadn't been hit through the heart. The doctors were doing everything they could to save his life.

But what if they didn't? What if he did die? What would we do? What would I do? My thoughts bounced around in my head, none of them fully making sense. I felt as if my mind wasn't working right.

My hands sparked with pain from digging my fingernails into them so hard. I immediately uncurled them and saw blood underneath my nails. I let out a shaky breath; I couldn't be doing this, not now. There were more important things to deal with.

So I sat there, trapped in my own mind until the panic eventually died down. My heart rate returned to its normal pace and my hands didn't shake anymore. My thoughts became more rational and less scattered, though the dread of Mr. Hunt's fate stayed in my mind.

Then the tiredness set in. It always did after I had an episode. My eyelids began to droop and all I could think about was how I wanted to sleep but shouldn't. Eventually, I decided that shutting my eyes and sleeping was better than staying awake and risking another panic attack.

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"Finn!"

I awoke with a start. My team stood above me, staring at me with varying degrees of worry.

"I told you he wasn't dead," Jaxon muttered to a shrugging Arlo. I frowned.

"Have you heard anything about Hunt?" Riley asked me, her dark brows knitting together.

I shook my head. "The nurse said she'd come by and let me know when his condition changed. She hasn't come back."

"Huh," Arlo said, looking vaguely surprised. "I wonder if the poor bastard died."

As Riley gave him a dirty look, Kane inquired, "How long has he been in there?"

Glancing up at the clock on the wall, I answered, "A little over three hours. Where have you all been this whole time?"

"We were combing the place for any sign of the assassin," Delphinium spoke. "We didn't find anything. He vanished without a trace."

"At least we know who the new target is," Jaxon stated gravely. "Hunt."

"You're right," Delphinium said, looking thoughtful. "You know, we might be able to use that."

"I might actually agree with you for once," Jake replied. "If they want Hunt, then maybe that's exactly what we should give them."

"What? No," I shook my head vigorously. "No, that is a horrible idea."

"All my plans have worked thus far," Jake said with cold arrogance.

"Even so, we still can't put Mr. Hunt's life even further in danger."

"If he even lives through this operation," said Kane, who was always the pessimist.

Before anyone else could get another word in, the door opened and the nurse walked out. "He's out of surgery," she announced as we hung on her every word. "As of now, his condition is stabilizing. We're closely monitoring him to see if it will stay that way."

"Do you think he'll make it through the night?" Jaxon asked her. I didn't want to hear the answer.

"We hope so. He made it out of surgery, which is a good sign, but it's too early to tell if he'll stay stable." With that, she turned around and disappeared through the same door she'd entered through.

After hearing the news, everyone sat down. They knew we'd be here for a long time. And I continued hoping, praying, that Mr. Hunt would stay alive through the night. Who knew what we'd do without him?