Page 7 of His Witness To Save

As Mack and Dave climbed higher up the staircase, Stan volunteered to stay in the middle of the staircase to ward off anybody suspicious, and they continued their ascent.

The building was dark and had this chilling feeling to it as though they were in a horror movie. The walls were a faded shade of seaweed green color and covered in what appeared to be dried blood. The air smelt like death and acid – something sulfuric they assumed as it was burning their nostrils down to their chest – and Dave had to hold himself as the mere sight of this place made him want to throw up.

The building seemed empty, and Mack was scared that the suspects were not here, or worse, that they were being led into a trap, but all those thoughts immediately vanished as he heard the muffled sobs of a woman coming from the room at the end of the hallway.

Mack signaled to Dave as they slowly approached the room, guns cocked and ready to shoot at any attacker. As soon as Mack turned the doorknob, he saw a woman with her brunette hair allover her face, concealing her identity, dressed in rags and sobbing profusely as she tried futilely to untie the ropes around her hands and legs. She seemed exhausted as she didn't even bother to look up even when Mack and Dave entered the small, dimly-lit room.

Dave stood by the door while Mack kept taking steps toward the woman who desperately just wanted to get out of there. As soon as he got close enough to slightly raise her head up, he got hit with a mixture of feelings he didn't even know was possible.

There he was face to face with a swollen and exhausted Rachel who started crying as soon as she realized he had recognized her. She was in the worst shape possible; her soft plush lips were swollen with what looked like bite marks, she had a black eye in her right eye, which seemed swollen shut as she struggled to focus on the teary-eyed Mack in front of her.

Her beautiful skin had lots of bruises, especially down her neck and thighs, and Mack couldn't help but break down and cry at the horrible sight of Rachel sitting on the floor in front of him. He was so caught up with untying Rachel that he didn't notice Dave was being dragged away from the room's entrance by an unidentified person.

As soon as Mack untied Rachel, he pulled her into a tight hug, and a rush of relief flowed through his veins as if expecting her to get healed by his touch. He scanned around the room for any sight of Brie, but there was none, which killed the spirit of relief he had. Then he pulled himself back together and instructed Rachel to stay close behind him while he made his way out the door, protecting her.

Dave wasn't there anymore, and there was no sight of him in the hallway either. Mack wondered where he disappeared until he heard noises coming from the staircase that sounded like a tussle. Mack rushed toward the staircase with Rachel following closely behind, and he could see Dave struggling with his gun in the hands of an unidentified man in a black ski mask.

Mack fumbled with his gun and didn't seem to have a good grip on it. He was preparing to shoot, but before he could pull the trigger, a loudBANG!shook the walls of the stairway, and Dave fell to the bottom of the stairs.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mack and Rachel were left speechless until Rachel startedscreaming at the top of her lungs and crying uncontrollably. Dave had just been shot by this unidentified man, and before they could think of anything else, the man in the ski mask had pointed Dave's gun at them, ready to shoot again, but Mack shot first, the bullet lodging in between his eyes as the unidentified man lost his footing and fell down the staircase too, landing on top of Dave, who appeared to be motionless.

Mack was heartbroken. Dave was dead because of him, and even though he wore a bulletproof vest, the tussle had planted a bullet under his chin before he fell down about three flights of stairs. Mack tried so hard to hold back his tears as he led Rachel down the staircase, and while stepping over Dave's dead body, he performed a salute to him as a final tribute.

Stan, who claimed he would stand guard in the middle of the stairway, was nowhere to be found. Mack worried that he, too, had been killed by some suspects of the Brotherhood of Blood who had been hiding out in the building all along.

As soon as he safely got Rachel out of the building and into the bullion van, he realized that as soon as the other team members saw Dave drop lifeless to the bottom of the staircase, they retreated to the van and requested backup from headquarters. They were waiting in the van until help arrived, which they advised Mack to do as well, but he wasn’t listening. He charged back in, in search of Brie, who he prayed wasn't dead yet. He wasn't sure he would be able to handle it if he found Brie in an equally horrible state as he had found Rachel.

As soon as he re-entered the building, he could hear voices ashe ascended the staircase. Voices that weren't there when he entered initially, and he felt extremely uncomfortable thinking about Brie being in the midst of them. The voices seemed to be coming from the room a few steps away from where he found Rachel, and the door was locked from the inside.

Mack peeped through the peephole, and he could make out the voice of a woman buried under the thick voices of the men in the room with her. He couldn't make out her face through the peephole, but he was sure she was kneeling in the middle of the men, who all had black ski masks on.

In a sudden burst of anger, he kicked down the door and tossed a smoke bomb into the room, which sent every single person in the room coughing while he made his way through the smoke and struck down every male in the room.

When the smoke cleared down, he could now see the motionless and unconscious bodies of the men he struck down in the room but not one sight of a woman. Mack was confused as he was sure he saw a woman in the room with the men, and he ran out to see the shadow of a woman being held by the neck and dragged down the staircase by a huge guy.

He followed the shadow and ended up in one of the rooms on the ground floor, face to face with a woman who had a sack over her head struggling to free herself from the grip of a man with a ski mask on. He had a tiny pistol in his hand, and it was pointed directly at him.

"Let go of her!" Mack shouted, but the man remained silent while the woman kept on in her struggle for freedom.

Cocking his gun at the guy, he didn't plan to shoot so he wouldn't hurt the woman in his grip, but he needed to find a way to set her free.

A few seconds later and the entire environs of the building were covered with police cars blaring their sirens, and a voice over the megaphone was heard.

"Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up in the air!" the police officer said.

Mack kept staring at the man in the mask who had the physique that reminded him a lot of Kamal, and then, he suddenly let go of the woman, who quickly pulled off the sack from her head and ran as fast as she could toward the door.

Mack's eyes followed the woman right from the moment she pulled the sack off her head. It was Brie, and he felt that pool of relief again, but as Brie tried running out the door, the man shot her in the leg, and she fell to the ground, letting out a loud cry as she held on to her bleeding leg. Mack was shocked at the suddenattack, and in a wave of defense, he shot back at the man, the bullet piercing his left shoulder, and he fell to the ground also, groaning in pain.

The voice from the megaphone came again, amidst the loud sirens, "You have 10 seconds to drop your weapons, or we will be forced to resort to violent means."

Mack dropped his gun and ran toward Brie, pushing his hand down on her wound, trying to stop the bleeding coming from her leg, but Brie couldn't move.

As soon as Mack stood up and went to help Brie up, she screamed as the man got up and used the back of Mack's gun to hit him on the back of his head.

Mack fell to the floor and couldn't move as he watched the man lift Brie by her hair, pointing the gun at her. That was the last thing he saw before he slowly closed his eyes and blacked out.

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