Eren holds the cap up to the light with his freshly healed arm, eyes scanning the text, ‘Property of the United States Government’ over and over and over again, hoping with every pass it will magically disappear. The relief in his once broken body vanishing instantly in the face of those six words.

  The room goes quiet as Colin’s words sink in, the reality of what they are up against bearing down like a giant boot against their necks.

  “Oh god,” Leslie brings her hands to her mouth.

  “This is…pretty bad, yeah.” Cris’s leg bounces up and down, as he runs his hands through his hair.

  “Pretty bad? That's your takeaway?” Colin tosses his head back and laughs. “How about the end of the fucking line? That work better, maybe?”

  “Now isn’t the time—” Tony starts, only to be cut off by Colin’s continued comments.

  “It isn’t? Well shit buddy, when is? You know what this means don’t you? We all got some decent heads on our shoulders, let's not beat around the bush.” Colin wanders back over to the bound and gagged hostages they left in the corner, squeezing one by the face to make her look over at the rest of the group. “It means this facility is government, the guards are government. We know too much, we watched government employees mow down kids like it was nothing. It means they will never let us out alive.”

  “So what, are we just fucked?” Cris gestures around the room, “time to lay down and let them blow our goddamn brains out?”

  “Did I say that?” Colin asks the hostage, forcing her head to shake no. “I didn’t think so.”

  “Get to the point.” Tony crosses his arms. It’s clear he wants to say something about what Colin is doing but he also knows it won’t accomplish anything other than setting him off again.

  “The point is, it changes our approach.” He huffs the words as if it was obvious.

  “Were you born insufferable or is this a special occasion?” Jess snaps.

  “Both?” Colin offers her a smile.

  “He’s right,” Eren admits. As much as he doesn’t like Colin, the fact that this entire facility is likely government changes a lot.

  “How?” Cris shifts uncomfortably, leg still bouncing.

  Eren turns to the group, and nods towards two rolling white boards positioned around the room. Wordlessly Himself, Tony, and Hayden position the white boards in a semicircle, so that the backs are towards the prisoners. Grabbing a marker, Eren drops his voice to a low whisper and begins to draw.

  “We put together what we know first, or what we’ve been able to deduce—all the pieces we have right now. Once we have that, we talk to the prisoners.” he nods off through the small gap in the semicircle of boards. “There is a chance that these nurses and doctors aren’t as in the know. We can’t have them pick up on our data and falsely confirm it or poison the intelligence.”

  The group nods slowly, and Eren can see each of them begin to work through their memories and make their own deductions.

  “I was just going to start cutting until they talked.” Colin shrugs, though even he keeps his voice low.

  “Right, because torture famously works for getting good intelligence. They will say whatever they think we want to hear.”

  Tony nods his agreement. “We can ask, but not with force.”

  Colin rolls his eyes, but doesn’t protest further.

  “Outside of this room the hallway goes north for 500 feet, and south for 200 feet,” Arnold starts as he approaches the group, having just come from taking a look out the medical ward windows.

  Eren nods his thanks and adds the details, along with small fragments of information the others begin whispering, quickly completing his crude map with details about the position of doors and what direction the hallway turns outside this room.

  “We know very little but we made some deductions before the breakout,” he continues, writing down the findings he, Tony, and Cris had figured out back when they still communicated in mores. “I believe we are located somewhere in the Nevada desert, a few hours north of Vegas if we want to be generous.”

  “I thought the same thing, glad I'm not the only one,” Peter gives a self satisfied snort.

  “Shut the fuck up Peter.” Colin throws an eraser at him.

  “Sorry.”

  Eren waits for their eyes to return to him before continuing. “The pipe work is old, the camera’s basically ancient, the lights are all incandescent, and those stims we used were around 5 years expired.”

  “That old? Fuck I'm glad they worked.” Jess lets out a low breath.

  “So am I…” Tony looks a good deal more worried all of a sudden, but Eren brings their focus back to him by tapping at the whiteboard.

  “Point being this place is old, understaffed, and they are killing witnesses. With the amount of time and money that would have needed to go into this operation I doubt they would simply cull months of work and likely millions of dollars without batting an eye. I would venture to assume that this isn’t some official government operation. Best bet? Some off the books black-site most people don’t know about.”

  “Oh great, love that for us.” Leslie’s shaky words echo the feeling a few others have.

  “It’s a blessing and a curse. It means that if we can make it out of here, and we blow the whistle, we are safe. It also means that this place isn’t linked to any other government sites, right? The entire facility would need to be underground, hardlines operating locally only. They wouldn’t have cell phone communication in or out for risk of being discovered, a black site is black for a reason, it’s totally off record and away from prying eyes.”

  “They won’t be able to get reinforcements here…” Cris snaps his fingers, lips finally breaking into a smile.

  “And the curse part?” Leslie asks.

  “It means if we don’t get out of here, no one will ever know what happened. They can do what ever the fuck they want because this place doesn’t exist.” Colin cracks a smile, miming some manner of torture that makes Leslie shiver and turn away.

  “Let's say we make it out of this facility, we end up, where, in the Nevada desert right?” Jessica asks, desperate to get away from the curse part of the whole situation. “So we wander through the open desert for how many days going towards some direction and hoping we aren’t spotted by what is likely to be swarms of government agents looking for us in, again, the wide open desert?”

  “We can steal a van!” Squirrel suggests, nearly jumping from her spot on the bed, making her curly head of hair jump with her. “We all came here in the back of some SUV or something right? They all gotta park somewhere, if each of us steal one and drive off in different directions then at least a couple will make it.”

  “So the rest who don’t are... what, sacrificial lambs? How very thoughtful,” Colin chuckles with a roll of his eyes.

  “Ironic, coming from you.” Cris scowls, not bothering to hide his displeasure.

  “Do we all know how to drive?” Leslie crosses her arms. “Because I don't.”

  Hayden, Squirrel, and Emmanuel all look down at Leslie’s comment.

  “You don’t know how to drive, and you suggested it?” Colin cocks an eyebrow in disbelief towards Squirrel.

  “It was just an idea!” She protests with a pout, puffing up her cheeks to further cement her nickname in Eren's mind.

  “It's not a bad one though.” Eren examines his map, trying to figure out where the vehicle bay would be. More than likely the spot he was dropped off at. With how close the arrival times were for nearly everyone in this facility it meant that a large number of vehicles would have had to have been parked at the primary entrance, placing the best spot for a garage back at the beginning. “We wouldn’t be able to split up, so some would drive while others are passengers, but once we get above ground it will be a hell of a lot harder for them to do anything about it.”

  “So what, we just gun it towards the nearest garage and hope it all works out?” Michael asks, getting a fist bump from Jacob, their enthusiasm just a little too much for Eren’s liking.

  “I think what Eren was getting at, was that this place is all local, and all underground, we could cut off their eyes and make things a lot harder for them, right?” Tony asks, bringing the conversation back to focus.

  “Exactly. Power would need to be generated somewhere close by, something off grid, either solar panels above ground or local generators down here with us, regardless all that power needs to be routed through the facility, which means if we can find the electrical room we can shut this whole place down, at the very least make sure the guards can’t just track our movements through cameras,” Eren explains.

  The room begins to bubble with what Eren hopes is optimism. At the very least their eyes stop looking so defeated, their backs get a little straighter, and some smiles even graced a few lips.

  Truth be told, Eren feels a little better about things too. If they can get into some vehicle and take off full throttle south towards Vegas, it will put them in a good spot to survive this mess.

  “It will be dangerous, but I think the best shot we have is to exit this room and split up. We managed to grab a few radios and a few of us have weapons too.” Eren looks around the room, his eyes landing on their stash of objects they still have lying around them, before finally landing once more on the prisoners still bound and gagged behind their semicircle of white boards.

  “Time to try and confirm our findings?” Jess asks.

  Eren nods, and in the very same instance Colin parts the whiteboards like the curtains on a stage.

  “Finally,” Colin sighs, which makes Hayden wince.

  “No torture” Tony presses, every muscle in his body tensing to stop a bloodbath.

  “Well that defeats the strategy. I was going to threaten them with torture but you killed that approach.” Colin grumbles, but doesn’t look away. “Now I might actually have to.”

  “Torture? We can't!” Squirrel squeaks.

  “They are slaughtering us and you’re trying to take the moral high road to survival?” The kid made of cords snorts his contempt.

  Tony takes a half step forward. “It’s not about morality.”

  The entire room shifts. The short haired girl, Chloe stands, finally driven to action in in the face of potential torture—evidently siding with torture.

  “We can’t be seriously considering this, can we?” Hayden rings his hands, but to his credit doesn’t try and hide away.

  “We do what we must.” Jerimiah also begins to rise.

  Tony clenches his jaw, and takes a half step back away from Colin as the boy made of cords and boy made of stone slide into place on Collins side as well.

  Eren doesn’t like this, doesn’t like Colin, and especially doesn’t like the look on his face as he comes to squat down in front of the female nurse again now that his opposition is temporarily quelled. But Colin’s right…they need information, or at the very least learn what these doctors and nurses have been told. This is life and death, and if that means putting the prisoners to the knife then so be it.

  “Don’t worry, don't worry. I’ll go easy on them at first.” Colin confirms. Eren doesn’t need to see his face to know he’s smiling as he says it.

  “Get on with it then…” Eren chews the inside of his cheek, but doesn’t look away as Colin grabs the woman by her hair and begins to drag her off into the corner of the room half obscured by curtains.

  Her eyes go wide, her legs kick helplessly at the ground as tears begin to spill from the corners of her eyes as Colin lets her body slam into the wall.

  Hayden turns around, Tony presses his lips into a thin line. Jess Crosses her arms, Cris sighs, and a handful of others pretend not to hear Colin’s low voice and the whimper of the nurse he’s only just started to question.

  It’s another good strategy. Isolate each prisoner so they don’t know what the others already said.

  For what it’s worth, Colin’s good at it—really good at it. He keeps his word, and goes easy on them. What ever methods he’s using isn’t drawing blood or causing physical pain. It makes Eren wonder how the hell Colin even knows how to do something like this, but now isn’t the time to question the method to their potential salvation.

  One by one isolates each prisoner, and when he returns them they are either crying, shivering, or red with fury.

  Eren would have preferred to hear each of their answers personally, just for the data alone, but as much of a piece of shit as Colin is, his methods working and Eren’s not about to throw that effectiveness away for the sake of his own ego.

  It takes the better part of five incredibly slow minutes, but by the time Colin returns to the group and the prisoners are settled back down into their pile in the corner it looks like he has enough information.

  The whiteboards are repositioned into their semicircle and the same small crowd begins to form. Wordlessly, Colin takes the marker and corrects a couple of the passageways, confirms the location of one vehicle bay before finishing with a crude frowny face in red.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jess asks.

  “It means it was mostly useless.” Colin answers casually.

  “Useless? Useless how?”

  “Useless as in they are useless.” Colin snorts. “They gave some good intelligence, a couple of helpful but nonessential tidbits to prove they are in the know before spewing nothing but garbage.”

  “Then we need to compromise.” Cris interjects, his jaw set hard. “We let Colin use a scalpel, some of the tools. We force them to give us the good intel—”

  “Did you not hear me before? Torture isn’t going to work. They’ll say anything—”

  “Shh shh shh.” Colin taps a finger to his lips, which almost sends Jess into a frenzy but Cris stops her by stepping between Colin and her.

  “Colin, I swear to god…” He starts, only to watch as Colin once more brings his hands up.

  “Did I say they were lying? No. I said it was garbage. They have bad intelligence. They believed every single word they spoke with their whole hearts. Let’s not all act shocked now. If this is black-site then of course they would all be on a need to know basis. Our captors evidently anticipated a reality in which we ended up here and asked questions. Each of these sorry sacks of meat were fed the same lie.”

  “Did you get anything else? Maybe the lies can still be useful?” Eren presses. It's a long shot but depending on what kind of cover they were given, they can make some additional deductions? Maybe if they don’t know the reality. Don’t know the damage, the death. Maybe they can help them?

  Colin either sees the hope in Eren’s eyes, or maybe Colin really was born a piece of shit, because his smile widens as he speaks.

  “They are in on it. They know the details enough to know that we are being slaughtered. They’re real medical staff, but they’re prisoners here as well.”

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  “What does that mean?” Cris urges.

  With a roll of his eyes, Colin continues. “They are criminals. Criminals who were up until recently in federal prisons with very long sentences attached. Your guardian angel?” He adds, looking to Tony who unconsciously brings a hand to his neck. “Criminal negligence, 20 years is prison with a one way ticket out if she agreed to hang out here for a handful of weeks.”

  The room quiets, so much so that Eren can practically hear each individual's brains working through that piece of information.

  “They knew.” Colin confirms with another shrug. “Knew that people would be dying, hence the old stims. Apparently they were briefed on what they were used for but none of them know much beside what they were told coming in here. They each suspect the government is behind it but can’t confirm. Each was brought here with a bag over their head, walked to the medical ward for work. They sleep here in the facility in a bunkhouse located here which contains a bathroom, a couple beds and not much else.” Colin confirms, adding the details to their whiteboard.

  Less useful than Eren would have hopped unfortunately, but it does further confirm their suspicions about the government being behind all this. The stims can be explained through theft or the purchase of old government surplus. The stims alone aren’t the nail in the coffin. Prisoners with a medical background sourced from around the United States and then subsequently brought here? That is the nail.

  No private corporation in the world has the authority to source prisoners and actually remove them from their respective penitentiaries. Not even the William’s or the Jones corporation have that much sway. This of course doesn’t eliminate the possibility of said government being rogue.

  Eren heavily doubts that whatever this is specifically isn’t approved at the highest level. Congress, the senate, the judiciary. There is a high probability that none of this is approved through official channels. At the very least someone somewhere would have blown the whistle. If this is government then it's an unofficial government operation—off the books for everyone. This means their plan of escaping and blowing the whistle themselves still has a probability of success.

  “Sacrificial lambs after all then?” Colin smirks, coming to the same conclusion just as quickly as Eren does.

  Eren scowls, looking over the whiteboard. The prisoners confirmed some pieces, though unfortunately it changes next to nothing regarding the details of their escape plan.

  “Unless you think our chances are better running around as a group…” Eren sighs, hating this even more now but not seeing any other option. “We need to cover more distance as quickly as possible so splitting up is our best bet still.”

  “Sure, sure, whatever you say boss.” Colin spins his scalpel around.

  “Are you just going to sit around and fucking complain—” Jess starts, but her voice fades as Eren’s body comes alight with that familiar cold, prickling sensation against the base of his skull. His skin tingles with it, every hair on the back of his neck standing up as his subconscious picks up on a danger his perception can’t identify yet.

  He must be wearing it on his face, because Jess has her attention turned to him now, brow all knitted up with concern.

  “What's wrong?”

  Eren doesn’t know, but it doesn’t stop his eyes from flicking around the room to try and identify it. He stands, scanning each corner, fists tight at his sides.

  Is it the prisoners? Do any of them have something? He counts the radios and weapons, everything seems in order, did he forget something? Fail to notice something?”

  “Eren, the fucks going on man?” It’s Cris’s turn now, as he approaches Eren and places a hand on his shoulder.

  “Check the room for cameras.” Eren grabs the edge of his sleeve and wipes away the whiteboard.

  “What? There are none here dude.” Cris looks around confused, Jess already trying to comfort Eren.

  “You’re having another panic attack, it’s alright, remember in the vents? Deep breaths—”

  “It’s not, this is different, I swear I can feel it in my gut something's off,” Eren cuts her off.

  It is then that he notices Jerimiah and Emmanuel both have been turned away from the window to the medical room, a window that has remained unobstructed the entire time.

  Eren’s eyes go wide as he looks beyond the glass, to see human shaped shadows moving against the hallway outside.

  His words fail him, mouth unable to make the right sounds to alert the others, but his body moves regardless. Eren practically throws himself towards the kitchen knife he has nearly all but forgotten about, and tosses the broken pool stick at Cris, who follows his line of sight to the window.

  “Fuck!” Cris curses, and in a rush of movement the room divides. Those with weapons half slam themselves into the barricaded door, while those without press hard against the back wall—Squirrel even going so far as to try and climb back into the vent they had come from.

  Shapes smear past the window, bodies slam into the door, shifting the barricade as screams rise up from beyond it.

  “It’s us! It’s us, let us in!” a voice cries, and suddenly the smearing shapes turn into people—kids, in bloody clothes wielding makeshift weapons, all pounding against the window and door to be let in.

  “Oh shit, let them in!” Cris calls out, already trying to shift the barricade.

  Jerimiah and Emmanuel tear at the beds they had placed there moments ago, joined by Arnold and Eren.

  Distant pops sound through the hall, echoing off the walls, and Eren’s vision tunnels as the adrenaline floods him once more..

  The guards are coming.

  His nerve wracked hands fumble with the mess of metal and mattresses until the force of the slamming door is enough to break away the remaining barricade, sending him stumbling backwards under the wave of bodies that floor through the narrow opening.

  A foot cracks his skull against the ground, another person falls on top of him and drives the air

  from his lungs. For a brief moment he feels he might even die under the crush, until two firm hands pull him up from the tidal wave of bodies and drag him to safety.

  The room fills almost shoulder to shoulder as two dozen teens try to escape the crack of rifle rounds that cut down anyone who doesn’t make it inside fast enough.

  Eren presses himself hard against the wall, breath catching as black uniformed guards try to open fire through the window, their rounds crunching into the glass and luckily not penetrating.

  The relief Eren feels wash over him lasts seconds, before a boot starts kicking the door Jerimiah and Emmanuel struggle to keep shut.

  “Get the door!” Tony shouts, adding his own mass to the effort, followed by Michael and Colin, but they are just a little too late.

  A barrel makes its way through the crack in the door, though before it can open fire, Jerimiah grabs Emmanuel and shoves him in front of the muzzle.

  “No!” Someone shouts, but it’s too late

  Jerimiah winces as blood splatters, as he uses Emmanuel as a human shield, his screams and whimpers barely audible over the gunshots that end his life.

  Shock ripples like a wave through them, and the door is forced open enough for one guard to bring his rifle around to aim at the pressed masses inside.

  Tony grabs the barrel of the rifle with his hands and drives it upwards. Rounds punch into the ceiling, showering them in concrete. Tony screams, pins the man's arms above his head, while Colin punches the scalpel into the man's throat over and over and over again, until blood sprays from him like a broken hose line.

  Jerimiah rips the rifle from the guard's hand as he gurgles, landing it at Michaels feet.

  More shots ring out as Michael fires the weapon back through the door, sending guards staggering away from the entrance as bullets tear through them like a hot knife through butter.

  Jerimiah damn near tears the door from its hinges as he pulls it open, grabbing the next guard he sees and lifting him up off the ground, only to slam him back down inside the medical room with a sickening crack. He roars, face contorted into something manic as his fists crunch into the guards face, each connection making a wet thud followed by the odd crack and gurgle.

  Michaels' stolen gun runs dry, so instead he uses it as a blunt weapon, joining Jerimiah in turning the guard into a paste on the ground.

  Four more guards struggle outside, groaning, falling over each other as they slip in their own blood, one’s flailing legs kicking the door open the rest of the way.

  “Are there any more out there?!” Cris shouts, raising his voice above the screams of the panicking teens still trying to get as far away from the carnage as possible.

  “I think that’s it,” Arnold gasps.

  Eren struggles to gather himself, to make sense of it all. The sight of the corpses makes him sick, and it's a battle to not let everything come up all at once. He needs to calm himself, he needs to fight through this.

  The guard on the ground below Jerimiah and Michaels feet makes a squelch, his hand gripped around a sidearm aimed up at Jerimiah

  A flash of silver arcs through the air as kitchen knife thuds into the guards throat with a wet slap.

  The gun drops to the ground, the guard grabs at their throat, eyes wide, staring at Chloe who walks over, retrieves the blade from the guards neck and hands it back to Eren, who didn’t even realize she had taken it from him.

  “Nice throw.” Colin wipes the blood from his mouth with a thumb, giving Chloe a smile she doesn’t return, or even acknowledge.

  Vomit rises in Eren's stomach, and he is helpless to stop it as it sputters from his lips, forcing him to prop against a wall as he spews sick onto the floor.

  A hand rests on his back, Cris’s, he realizes, as he spots the rest of him from the corner of his eye. It looks like Cris is sick too, just holding it in better.

  “Hang in there, alright?” He squeezes Eren's shoulder, and he nods in response, bringing up his own hand to pat Cris on the back.

  “Thanks.”

  “I got you man.” Cris smiles, and helps Eren steady himself, offering a paper towel to wipe the bile away.

  Eren turns to examine the slowly calming crowd of people, eyes hunting for someone who looks like they know what’s going on.

  He spots a rather androgynous looking person calming a few others down nearby, eyes set hard in a pretty face, guiding people down from the walls to prevent them from trying to climb back through the vents. They were one of the people in the back of the mob, one of the last to enter before the remainder got shot in the hall. They were handling it better than Eren was, or at the very least disguised it better.

  Eren approaches them, waving them down for their attention.

  “Thank you for letting us in,” They offer a smile, relief in their hard set eyes.

  “Of course…” Eren coughs, and decides the best course of action is to stop wasting time.

  “The direction you came from, what was over there?”

  They shake their head, and Eren’s heart drops. “Nothing really… I don’t recognize you, what wing were you in?”

  “Third.” Eren grimaces

  They nod. “We were the 2nd wing. When all the guards left their post to deal with you guys, we came in behind them.”

  “How’d you escape in the first place?”

  “The person to the left of me ripped the camera off the ceiling and pulled apart the components to make a lockpick after all the chaos started, he’s good.” They nod over to a young boy with ratty features, who is busy stuffing his cargo pants with supplies from the room.

  “I take it there was another door in the guards room that routed you this way then?”

  “Right, there was door to the north but it was locked, one to the east was open though and it sent us in a pretty roundabout way, just south of here was the armory actually, we tried breaking in but the noise brought them right too us, and we ran before we could get anything.”

  “Alright, we have a plan to try and get out of here. With these guards dealt with we might be able to make a return trip to that armory even, maybe the guards have keys on them?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.” Colin’s voice from so close by almost sends Eren out of his own skin.

  “We still need to find the electrical room to drop power in this place, and then route back to the vehicle bay…” Eren tries to lower his voice, but Colin seems intent on talking at his normal level regardless.

  “Then let's split, but there are only two ways to go, some will have to head south to the armory, and others will have to go north.

  “The first wing didn’t look like they escaped yet, we should go back for them.” The androgynous second wing survivor adds.

  “No need, the north path is what leads us to another vehicle bay,” Colin says nonchalantly.

  “How could you possibly know that?” Eren furrows his brows, both at the notion of leaving people behind, and at the conclusion Colin has come to.

  “Think about it.” He motions over to where Eren had drawn his map of the facility. “When you were brought here how many cars did you hear?”

  “A dozen or so, but what does that matter?”

  “Oh come on Eren, aren’t you the smart one?” He taps his temple with a knuckle, smearing some blood in his hair. “This facility had 228 children in it assuming each cell in each row in each wing was filled, yeah? Most if not everyone was brought here at around the same time, yeah? I saw on your board you drew the entrance you arrived in as coming in from the first wing entrance.”

  “Colin, please, let's speed this up.”

  His voice drops finally, as he brings himself close into a conspiratorial whisper. “Oh so when you want to flex, sparing no detail is fine?” He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “You didn’t bother asking the rest of us where we came in from. I came from the north, a straight line down. All those smarts sure are fucking useless when you don’t have all the information. There are three wings, three vehicle bays. How else would they possibly load this many kids in here with so little engine noise per bay? You might have come in alone but I was crammed in with 6 other kids. If the rest of you solos came in from wing one, then all the rest of us came packed like sardines from wing 2 or 3.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “And make the others lose faith in their valiant hero? Please, I have a vested interest in getting out of this shit alive and that means not sending my fodder into a panic.”

  Eren narrows his eyes, but Colin just shrugs, his voice rising back up, much louder now over the quieting crowd.

  “We need the cameras down if we wanna escape through the vehicle bay, we need weapons if we want to fight and we need all the seats we can get our hands on. We stick together we have a better chance at fucking it all up and dying like dogs. We split up? Who’s to say there are cars remaining?”

  Eren felt like an idiot for not considering asking the others where they came from, then again it wasn’t though he had a lot of time to ask questions before erasing the board in a panic.

  Once again, Colin is right, and something about that pisses Eren off, but he isn’t about to let his ego get in the way of their survival.

  “So what are you suggesting then?”

  “If you send people to get the first wing, we won't have enough cars. Fuck em, leave em to rot. They couldn’t figure out a way to escape? Too bad, so sad, more for the rest of us.” Colin snaps his fingers.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “Deadly serious.” Colin cocks his head. “Count the guards Eren, how many guards have we encountered? Lets guesstimate that on average they forced 6 people per vehicle, that means there should be 38 drivers, and we all know that each vehicle had at least one other in there. Look around, if there were 76 people in this facility they wouldn’t run guards on 12 hour shifts and take over 30 minutes to get to the medical wing during a damn damn breakout. Not all the cars are here bud, they left weeks ago after initial drop off.”

  Colin pats Eren on the chest. His voice carries now, intentionally so Eren realizes. A good number of the other kids trapped here watch the exchange. Colin is trying to get people on his side, the selfish asshole.

  “I'm headed up to get to the vehicles so I can make sure we get the fuck out of here, and you know damn well that someone you trust, or hell even you, is gunna have to make sure electrical gets taken care of for any of us to escape. If you waste time trying to free the first wing, we might just be gone, so make sure you get it done quick and head back, yeah?”

  Eren’s chest burns with rage, but he can’t do or say anything else. The room already starts to split, some taking up positions behind Colin, while others shuffle their way behind Eren instead.

  Eren chews at the inside of his lip, watching Jerimiah, Chloe, Peter, Michael, Jacob, and Leslie add to Colin’s ranks of people eager to think only about themselves.

  Turning behind him, he's relieved to see Cris, Tony, Jess, Hayden, Arnold, and Squirrel sticking behind him.

  “We aren’t about to leave people behind Colin, don’t do this…”

  “I'm not about to die for the sake of people I don’t know. We have a way out, you’re welcome to fuck around and play hero, but I'm making sure I make it out alive.”

  Eren clicks his tongue, and storms over to the door and rips a radio off one of the dead guards, and throws it to Colin, who takes it with a faint smile.

  “Cameras are on a 4 minute delay, and chances are the vehicle bay doors are powered. We will cut power to cameras and find a way to open those doors in four minutes, so you’re stuck for at least that long no matter what.”

  Eren switches his radio channel to a new frequency and shows it to Colin. “I’ll keep you informed on our progress on the power, and you keep those engines running until we get back.”

  “Unless we find a way to get those doors open sooner, better be quick.” Colin winks.