chapter 12 | no lights

"you've got something they don't"

- unknown



Aria's POV

I woke up.

Fuck.

Everything hurts.

I don't know how much time passed. It could have been a few minutes, it could have been hours. The sleep didn't help. I still feel as miserable as I felt before crying myself to sleep. But there is a new dryness in the back of my throat which means I did sleep for quite some time.

I couldn't feel my right hand at all. I must have slept on it. So it's settled, sleeping on the floor is not a good thing.

Another groan escaped me when I stretched. My whole back cracked. Holy shit. If I wouldn't be so young I would actually be worried for my health. But I'm sure that my body can hold me for another 30 years, or at least that's what my doctor said at our last appointment.

Shit.

My throat really is a problem. It even hurts to swallow. This happened to me at my last hangover as well. I just need a ton of water and I'm good to go. But since I dumped the glass of potable water on the toilet paper ball I had no other choice than to drink from the tap. I know, it's not the best water source out there but isn't London supposed to have cleaner pipes?

Don't answer that question. It was rhetorical.

I slowly got to my feet and made my way to the bathroom. Which was harder than expected because the room was pitch black.

With this detail in mind I stopped. Before I went to sleep there was light coming from underneath the door, from the hallway, I guess. But now everything was dark.

Maybe it is night outside? But shouldn't this building have artificial lighting? Everything was very weird and I had this gut feeling that something was not right. But I brushed it aside blaming it on the lack of food.

I slowly made my way to the bathroom, by touching the wall with one hand and navigating like a blind person: small steps. I finally reached the door to the bathroom. I slowly opened it and with my other hand found the light switch.

I pressed it.

Nothing happened.

I pressed it again.

Nothing happened again.

"What the fuck" I mumbled under my breath. I swear I didn't play with the lightbulbs from the bathroom because:

I couldn't figure how the fuck to open the lamps next to the bathroom mirror to remove the lightbulbs.

After a lot of frustrations I gave up thinking that I'll need light to pee in the future.

But now there were no lights. This whole situation is so fucking weird. I have to rely on my memory now. I remembered that the toilet was on the right side of the bathroom behind the open door. And the sink was exactly in front of the door. So it took about 5 very small steps and I reached it.

I'm not proud to announce that I drank at least 2 liters of water, from a tap, in the middle of London.

Just when I closed the tap and started fumbling for a towel, I heard a gunshot.

I yelped, immediately covered my mouth and almost myself to the floor. Because I know my legs wouldn't be able to hold for long. I could feel the echo of the gun in the air and the sound still reverberating through my brain and bones. I crawled behind the door, next to the toilet and was glued to the wall. Unable to move from fear I would make a sound.

Holy shit. Holy shit. I started hyperventilating.

My mind was producing 1000 thoughts per second and all of them were bad. But the most prominent one was: I'M GOING TO DIE, I'M GOING TO DIE.

Exactly like on the plane with Blake but this situation was worse.

Much much worse.

I remain on the bathroom floor unable to move and trying to calm my breathing. And when I finally got a hold of myself I hear noises in front of the door to my room. Very faint noises but compared to the silence around me they sounded like my one way ticket to death.

Somebody was trying to break in my room.

I'm so fucked.

I had no weapons. Everything was glued to the walls or to the floor in this stupid room.

There was a small click and the door to my room opened. Now like the dumas I was, I didn't fully close the bathroom door and I could see small lights coming from my room. Flashlights?

And there were a lot of footsteps, I would approximate to 5 people at least. And they were moving fast, producing minimal noises but nonetheless it was clear they were searching for something.

And that something was probably me.

Scratch "probably", it was definitely me.

When one of them shined the flashlight exactly towards the bathroom and I started to hear footsteps approaching I accepted my death, but like a ray of salvation I also saw the toilet brush, sitting relatively close to me and it wasn't glued to the floor. Yes suckers.

Well now I have a weapon, because I sure as hell won't make those people's life's easy if they want to take me.

Blake POV

I looked at my watch, 9 pm most of the people at the office must have already left, so it would be easier for me to get in without much questioning. I can't believe where I am right now, sneaking into my own office building. I packed a few necessities, took some clothes for Aria, poor girl, she's dressed in the same things for 3 days now. I mean I don't complain, that Dumbo T-shirt looks hot as fuck on her. After everything, I might actually watch the movie to have something to talk to her about.

I make my way to the car. I got in, started the engine and when I was about to leave the underground parking lot I received an alert on my phone. The power in the MI6 headquarters got shut down. I looked at the phone for exactly 1 second before I pressed the gas so hard, the tires left a mark on the ground, I had to get there fast.

You might be wondering why I started hurrying. Well you see, the MI6 building is connected to the city's network of electricity and when the city's power goes out, because it happens, you know, nothing extraordinary, our building is backed up by 6 generators. And those 6 generators could power our facilities for days, even weeks without having problems. They could power half of London for 2 days. Which is a lot. Like a whole lot. And when we have an attack, it can be cybernetic, it can be with people actually storming our building, one of the first things they do is cut the power. Especially now that it's night outside. And since I worked for the MI6, this happened twice. And in both those times we were expecting an attack because we were holding important prisoners in our building, we had extra guards and everything. But now there was almost no one there.

And I am 100% sure that whoever cut our power is there for Aria.