Next

Ms. Croft came back with some food to prepare for dinner. They all gathered in Ms. Croft's and Ms. Carter's room, except for Ren.

They all ate quietly, then Ms. Carter looked over the information again.

After they had all finished, they gathered in the room Ren was in. He had stopped groaning, but was breathing very hard, gasping for air now and then.

"We need to move out of here as soon as possible. We should rent a small house so that we don't have to worry as much about Ren's face being seen," suggested Ms. Croft.

"That's a good idea," agreed Ms. Carter.

"Where are the other facilities?" Eric asked.

"There are a total of five. So taking into account that Ren took care of one, then the one we just took down, that just leaves the ones located in Texas, Virginia, and South Dakota," answered Ms. Carter.

"So what's are next move?" Lorraine questioned.

"We'll figure that out once we move out of here and into a rental," stated Ms. Croft.

After this conversation, Ms. Croft went to work on finding a rental in a nearby state. Ms. Carter decided to turn in as did Eric. Lorraine decided to look after Ren a little longer before she would go to sleep.

Lorraine looked at his face which was still twisted in pain. She put another wet towel on his forehead.

Ren's eyes suddenly opened wide and his body started to shutter.

"Ren! Are you there? Are you ok?" Lorraine asked worriedly.

Ren's eyes just stared blankly at the ceiling as his breathing got faster and faster.

"Ren! Look at me!"

His eyes slowly shifted to look at her.

"Ren, I'm here. Try to calm down. Don't think of the pain. Think about when this is all over." Lorraine spoke softly to try and calm him down some more.

Lorraine took hold of Ren's hand and used her other hand to push away the towel and then placed her hand on his forehand. Ren's forehead was hot to the touch. She began to use her own hand to cool Ren's forehead with her ability.

"It's ok Ren. You'll make it." Lorraine smiled at him.

Ren's body slowly stopped trembling as he looked into Lorraine's blue eyes.

"That's it, Ren."

Ren's body stopped trembling all together and his breathing relaxed, but Lorraine could still tell he was in extreme pain. She decided to stay as long as she could before she fell asleep.

The next day, Lorraine woke up with half her body laying on Ren's body. She sat up and realized that Ren was still breathing hard.

"Was he like that all night?" she wondered.

Ms. Croft walked in, "Lorraine we are moving out soon. I'd get ready."

They all packed what they had brought into the hotel, then carried Ren slowly out of the hotel and into the van. Ms. Carter stayed behind to check them out.

They got onto the road with Ren lying on the floor.

"So where are we headed?" asked Lorraine.

"I rented a house on the east side of Utah. I figured that would be a good place to stop." answered Ms. Croft.

They drove for a very long time. The only stops they made were to use the restroom and refill the van with gas. Half a day had passed before they made it to the house in Utah. Ren was surprisingly silent the entire way there.

"Well, we're here," Ms. Croft stated.

They all slowly climbed out of the van and carried Ren inside.

The house had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen. The bedrooms sat in a cube formation with a hallway splitting them apart. Two bedrooms on either side with a bathroom in between the rooms. The bedrooms were on the west end of the house while the kitchen and living room were on the east end.

Ms. Croft went out with Ms. Carter to buy groceries while Eric and Lorraine took everything they had out of the van and into the house. After that Eric decided to go outside.

"Where are you going?" Lorraine asked.

"I need to do something so I can relax," Eric answered simply. After Eric had went outside, Lorraine heard a couple of crackles and booms from Eric.

Lorraine turned on the television while Ren laid on the couch. The channel the television was on was the news and what they were talking about was familiar to Lorraine as she listened to the news reporter.

"Just a couple hours ago we received a report that over a thousand people who were missing turned up at the doorsteps of their friends or family. It is reported that these were all people that had gone missing after a gas attack. Here is one of them as he explained what happened to them," the reporter reported.

"After the attack I woke up in a facility where they put these things called cores in our body. I was stuck in there for a couple months until a masked man showed up," explained a man that was captured. "The officers called him the Core Soldier. He was the sole reason we were all able to escape that hell hole."

They put up a picture of Ren with the mask on.

"When was that taken?" wondered Lorraine.

"It turns out that they are all reporting the same thing," the reporter continued. "Who is the Core Soldier? No one really seems to care about that detail. They just want him to bring back the rest of those that were reported missing. Kind of makes you wonder what the AAA is doing if a single man was able to pull this off with only a couple others."

"It looks like the whole United States knows what you're doing now." Lorraine whispered to Ren who looked to be asleep.

She looked at the media on her phone and saw that a lot of people were talking about what was just reported on the news. There was also speculation.

'How did a random guy just randomly find where this place was?'

'They said he's called Core Soldier. It sounds like he used to be in one of them.'

'What about the others in the facility. There were more than just those thousand right?'

'Why does he wear a mask? Does he have something to hide?'

Lorraine decided to ignore these posts and shut her phone off.