Not The Same | Nick Clark | FTWD

Part 17

We all sat in the lower level of a parking garage as we waited for Daniel to get back, gunfire and orders from outside echoing off the cement walls.

"Hannah, when Daniel gets back I'm going to need you to stay here with-" Travis began before I quickly cut him off.

"I'm not staying here-- Nick could be in there-" I shook my head, pointing in the direction of the building, "I'm not- Madison, tell him I'm not staying back here!"

"You shouldn't even be up walking right now, you have multiple fractured ribs-" Travis protested before, once again, being cut off.

"She's coming with us." Madison stated simply, "Injured or not, nothing's going to stand in her way."

Travis nodded slowly, "Okay." He shrugged, giving in.

I let out of a sigh of relief, reaching back into the car and pulling out a bottle of ibuprofen, letting two small pills slip into my hand. I let out an anxious sigh, grabbing at the crinkling plastic of my water bottle before taking the pills, hoping that they would kick in soon enough for the pain to subside before we had to go in.

This kind of felt like it was it-- either we go in there and find Nick alive.. or we don't. The odds felt stacked against us because it seemed like there were more bad outcomes than good. I don't know which scared me more, not finding Nick at all or facing the nightmare that had always been in the back of our mind for years.
There were so many times when I was with Nick that we thought we'd never see him again-- so many nights I'd stay up with Madison and Alicia pretending I wasn't on the edge of a mental breakdown as we waited for.. anything, a phone call, a knock on the door, just something that would give us an answer.. good or bad.

"I led them to the North gate, so all the soldiers are distracted." Daniel said as he jogged into the parking garage, appearing out of the darkness, "We can go now-- we should move."

I took another sip of my water, tightening the lid back on before heading over to where the rest of our group stood.

"What did you do?" Daniel asked Travis as he walked closer to the truck.

"He told me where to find them." Travis replied lowly, regarding the soldier we had gotten all of our information from who was nowhere to be seen.

"He told you?" Daniel repeated.

"Yeah," Travis nodded, "And I believe him, ok? Like you believed him."

"It was the right thing to do-" Madison added.

"You'll see what doing the right thing gets you." Daniel cut her off, annoyance and impatience in his voice.

***

I followed behind Madison, Travis, Ofelia, and Daniel as we cut through locked gate after locked gate, a metal rod gripped tightly in my fist as my need for an answer continued to drive me.

"Jesus." Travis breathed as we entered a large room filled with people locked behind chain linked fence like animals, begging to be let out.

"Nick?" Madison called as I separated myself from the group, running down the length of the room, desperately searching for a familiar face.

"Griselda!" Daniel called over the chaos.

"Nick!" Madison called again, "Nick Clark?"