SAGE
My ears could hardly believe the words Imogen said.
Finn’s dad, in the basement. That meant my dad, in the basement. The man from my dreams, in this very place, within reachable distance. It’s more than I could have let myself hope for.
We found the basement door two hallways down from the others. Beckett kicked it all the way open, and we heard voices carrying up from below.
“I warned you once, old man.” A pause, and then a gunshot. It rang in my ears.
A voice cried out in pain.
No.
No, no, no.
Beckett’s face reflected the same horror I felt in my own body.
“We know you have another location for it,” the voice spoke again. “Where is it? Where?! Do you want another bullet?”
Beckett and I dove down the stairs, and there at the bottom, across the room, beyond the tables, and the papers, and the shelves of science experiments, there, holding his stomach, blood oozing out from between his fingers, was the man from my dreams.
My father.
A guard stood a few feet away from him and another pilfered through sheets of paper on the nearest tabletop. The guy by the table spotted us first and aimed his gun at Beckett, who had already lifted his own gun.
“We’ve got trouble, Charlie.” The man spoke over his shoulder, eying me the whole time. “Finish him up.”
Finish him up.
Finish up my father.
My response was instinctual. I moved before the guy had completed his last word. I leaped before the gunshot even went off.
My mind screamed “NO!” but my throat let out a long, indefinite roar as my body dove across the room, in front of the only man I’d ever known as a father, even if just in my dreams.
The bullet hit me in the torso.
I shrieked—not in pain, but in fury.
The man took aim again, at me this time, but I kicked the gun from his arm, and it skittered across the room. His eyes went wide as my hand came flying down across his face. His head snapped, jerking unnaturally to left, and he dropped to the ground.
My chest heaved. My eyes met Beckett’s.
He breathed heavy too, standing over the body of the other guard.
Within seconds, the adrenaline rolled away, and I felt my injury, a sudden burst of sharp pain in the upper part of my torso, on the right. Beckett grabbed his side at the same time, in the very same spot I felt my pain.
I dropped to my knees. Blood leaking from my wound. My world became dizzy, blurred.
“Sage!” Beckett cried.
But I pushed away his voice and the pain.
I wouldn’t let either consume me, not right now.
I rotated my head slowly, slowly, keeping the white stars in my vision at bay so I could finally look at him without distraction.
So face to face, I could finally see … my dad.