Chapter 23

"Ahh... Give me a break already. You all have been chasing me for the past two days. Don't you ever get tired?" Josh pressed his back against the cold stone wall. He was trapped. Well, this wasn't the first time though. He had been cornered and trapped more times he can count but somehow he always finds a way to get out. But this didn't appear to be the case this time as he was completely surrounded. His luck wasn't going to pull for him on this one. The only way he'd get out is if a miracle happened.

Three men appeared from around the corner. All of them were wearing suits and had sunglasses or other accessories to mask their faces. Two of them stood back and blocked the exit while the third one slowly inched closer.

"Heh, it looks like you guys learned your lesson from last time. A shame that I can't do the same trick again." The last time they cornered him in an alleyway like this, Josh managed to slide underneath the feet of one of the men while they were walking towards him and get out. They weren't going to let him do that a second time.

Man, where was his way out this time. Josh glanced around at his surroundings. The alleyway was very narrow. There was no way for him to run past him, and even if he did manage to do that, there was definitely no way that he would be able to make it past the two that were guarding the exit. Why were there so many d*mn dead ends in the city anyway? Josh couldn't figure it out. Every single other route he took, he was met with a dead end.

"Master Bailey, please come back with us," the man approaching him very politely asked him.

"Hm... A tempting offer, but how about no?" Josh ran up to the man, sweep his foot under his feet, and knocked him onto his bum.

"Hey! Grab him!"

Josh ran past the man and ran at the two blocking the exit. They both had their arms outstretched, ready to catch him if he tried to run through them. "Ugh, I really hope this will work..." If he couldn't go through or under then he will have to go over. Josh sprinted through the narrow alley and when he just about to run into one of the agents, he jumped with all the strength he could muster to the wall on his left and kicked off it.

The agent in front of him not wanting to get hit in the face, panicked and ducked. Josh barely made it over the agent without kicking him in the face. His foot brushed the agent's hair and he hit the ground rolling. Josh quickly got back up, steadied himself, and continued running.

"What?! How did he get past!? What are you two doing!?"

Josh heard as the three agents started chasing after him again. Wow, he was never doing that again. If it weren't for that agent ducking, he would've hit him square in the face and they both would have wound up hurt. But that wasn't really his main concern. His main concern was that if that had happened then he would have been caught. He was doing something too far important to get caught right now.

Josh looked around again at his surroundings. He was in a rather empty part of the city where there weren't many people. "Ah... I should've chosen someplace with more people," he muttered to himself. Since this place had practically no one outside on the streets, it was really hard for him to lose the agents.

The chase went on for a couple of minutes and when Josh thought that he finally managed to get the agents off his tail, he heard their footsteps right behind them. At this point, he was completely out of breath. *Huff Huff* "D*mn, they're persistent."

"Yo Mike, over here now!" a voice called out to him in a loud whisper. Josh looked to where the voice came from and saw someone next to a door entrance waving at him.

Josh ran over to the entrance and entered through. Right after he made it in, the guy helping him closed the door. It was a good thing that he managed to get out of the agent's sight for just a moment or otherwise he wouldn't have been able to enter the building like this.

Josh took a few seconds to catch his breath before thanking the person that saved him from being caught. "Thanks, Kev. And also, didn't I tell you to not call me Michael or Mike?"

"Well, that's your real name ain't it?" Kevin pointed out.

"Yes, but I hate being called by that name. The last thing I want is for someone to recognize me and drag me back to that h*llhole."

"Yeah yeah, whatever. You owe for this alright?"

"I know. Anyway, do you have that 'thing' ready?" Josh asked him.

"What thing?"

"You know, that 'thing.' The 'thing' you and everyone else were working on."

"Oh that." Kevin walked to a large box that was lying in the corner of the room and opened it. Josh walked to Kevin's side and peeked inside the box. What was inside of it was exactly what he wanted to see.

"Yep, this will do."

Kevin closed the box again and dragged Josh by the arm and sat him down on a chair. "Hm?" Josh looked at Kevin with a confused expression.

"Don't hmm me. I'm pretty sure that I don't need to tell you how much work it was to get that thing. We have done our part for all of this. It's time for you to put up that d*mned show of yours. You better not mess up alright? We're all counting on you."

"Oh, you mean that? Yeah, don't sweat it. I got it all planned out Kev," Josh assured Kevin that he didn't need to worry about a thing but Kevin wasn't convinced by Josh's words.

"Planned out? Do you mean the last-second plans that you come up with on the spot?"

"Ahh... You know me well. Yep, it's all part of the plan that I never came up with. Well, at least not yet anyway. I'll figure something out soon enough," Josh said to Kevin with a grin on his face. Kevin sighed and walked away disappointedly.

"But we have a slight problem..." Josh suddenly said in a serious tone.

Kevin stopped and turned around. "And what is that?"

"What? Have you not heard the news?"

"Oh yeah, that..."

"Mhm. We're not the only ones. It'd be a pain if all the blame gets pushed onto us?"

"Well, you're the one in charge of all this, so you're the one that will have to figure something out. Don't ask any of us to do the thinking for you."

Josh got up from the chair and walked over to the window. He pushed the curtain aside very slightly and peeked outside. The three agents were still out there, searching for him. "How did he disappear like that? He was to be hiding somewhere near here. There's no way that he escaped us."

Well, they weren't wrong. He was hiding somewhere nearby. The last place they probably expect him to be is inside of a house. Josh doubted that they would even think to search the buildings in the vicinity.

"You're so lucky that I happened to be in this safe house as you ran by," said Kevin.

"Well, I didn't get my nickname, lucky star for no reason. There's no one else in the world luckier than me."

"Yeah sure, you can expect me to be laughing my lungs out the day that lady luck stops smiling upon you."

"Hopefully that won't happen any time soon, since if that does happen, aren't all of you guys are practically screwed? Anyhow-"

"Uh hey, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I think you need to take a look at this." Kevin held up his phone for Josh to look. Josh went over to Kevin and took the phone and looked at what was on the screen. His eyes widened when he saw what was going on.

"Well, this will delay things even further now..."

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