What She Thought She Knew (Rachel Moore Mystery Book 1), стр. 56

"Thanks Captain Obvious." I replied sarcastically.

He was about to retort, but we were sprayed with more bullets.

Another set of gunshots went off, however, and then it was quiet.

Fear and I looked at each other before we carefully peaked out of our hiding spots as we heard footsteps.

Once our heads were out of cover, we saw Agent Claire walk towards us. "Morning gentlemen," she said. "I don't suppose you could offer me a cup of coffee?"

My friend and I looked at each other again, before we fully exposed our bodies.

We climbed over the rubble, and walked towards Agent Claire.

"Thanks for saving our asses." I said. "Do you know what's going on?" I asked.

Agent Claire took on a more serious tone. "As you noticed, there was an explosion earlier. A small bomb detonated on one of the observation towers." She paused, and looked at both of us gravely. "It's the Phantoms." She whispered.

My eyes widened and then narrowed as I took in the information. I should have known it was them.

I inconspicuously took a deep breath before I spoke again. "So what do we do now? The main area is on fire, and we're probably overrun by Phantom agents."

Agent Claire nodded in agreement. "We have to evacuate the Shroud. I saw other Seeker agents doing just that. There's nothing that we can do here. Before we can leave though, you both need to get appropriate weapons."

With that, Agent Claire turned around, and hastily crossed the main area.

Immediately, Fear and I fell into step behind her.

It turned out that she led us to the weapons storage area.

She went into the back and took out two black cases and set them in front of us. "This one's yours." She said as she looked at me. "And this is for you." She said rather shyly as she addressed Fear.

Fear opened the case and his eyes widened as he stared at the content in shock. "The new Devil's bow. How did you…?"

"Let's just say a little bird told me." Agent Claire replied and winked.

Fear stared at her in slight amazement before he regained his focus and set up the weapon.

In the meantime, I opened my own case and whistled at the sight of a beautiful serrated shotgun that was made of titanium.

I brought it close to my face, and admired the shine that the metal caught from the distant fires.

"I don't mean to interrupt your personal fantasies, gentlemen, but we are running on a tight schedule." Agent Claire said, which pulled Fear and I out of our admiration.

I secured the shotgun within my grasp.

I turned towards Fear and saw that he too was ready. His hands held onto the beautiful sniper rifle.

We made eye contact and then we looked back at Agent Claire, and nodded.

She also nodded in confirmation, and turned around and sped walked out the door.

Fear and I followed behind her, each of us kept an eye on our six.

Agent Claire walked forwards carefully as she looked around for any enemies.

The sound of a struggle caught all of our attentions, and we may our way towards the source.

We came around a pile of more rubble and saw some Seeker agents battling with Phantom agents.

Horrifyingly, each Seeker agent was slaughtered with no mercy.

I gritted my teeth in anger as rage boiled within me. The desire to kill the Phantoms itched all over.

As if sensing the change in atmosphere, one of the Phantom agents turned around and looked right at us.

He then signaled his buddies and gestured to us.

"They've seen us!" Agent Claire cried out.

Right away, Fear took a defensive position in front of the Combat Specialist, and held out his rifle. "Come and get me bitches!" He challenged.

The Phantom agents sped towards us, yet Fear showed no sign of, well, fear.

He lined the rifle's sight to face the Phantom in the middle.

With a sharp breath, he pulled the trigger.

It was a bull's eye; it hit the Phantom right in the chest, yet the other two still kept on running.

Not one to be distracted by a kill, Fear turned his attention to the agent on the right and fired again.

Like the first one, that agent was also hit, however the last one was awfully close to us.

Fear would not have had enough time to take him out too.

In a last minute effort, I fired at the remaining Phantom's abdomen.

He went down gurgling as blood flew from his mortal wound.

I looked up and realized that Fear was looking at me. "What?" I asked. "Can't let you have all the fun."

He gave me an indifferent look as I smiled at him sheepishly.

Another explosion from above caught our attention.

We all looked up and saw dozens of Phantom agents sliding down ropes and surrounded us.

"Oh crap." I commented.

All three of us formed a triangle with our backs to one another.

I held my shotgun at the ready, Fear had his rifle aimed at the Phantom blocking the exit, and Claire took out her duo pistols.

"Hey Fear," I started. "Just so you know, it was me who stole your computer's CPU. That's why it never worked."

Fear glanced at me in shock. "What the hell John?" He cried out. "Why are you telling me this now?"

I huffed in exasperation. "I don't fricken know!" I shouted back. "Maybe it's because we're about to die, so I wanted to be cleared of anything that was on my conscious?"

"Would you guys just shut the hell up?!" Agent Claire yelled, which caused both Fear and I to stop talking.

We resumed our focus on the coming Phantoms. They consisted of Warriors, Assassins, and some other ranks that I couldn't identify.

I gritted my teeth