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Well, I went to 510 words, but I think it’s worth it. XD Maybe I’ll make a full novel out of this someday.

“You won’t find it here,” I say, my voice raw as I give a final, crazed laugh.

The soldier growls, pressing the point of his gun harder against my head. “I’m not even sure if shooting you in the head will kill you immediately,” he tells me. “You might just bleed to death for who knows how long.”

“Go ahead,” I say with more bravado then I feel.

“Just tell us where it is, and you can go free,” the soldier insists.

“Really? Is that dead world outside something that you call freedom?” I ask. My throat is hurting more with every word I take. “You’ll kill me either way. I’m a rebel scientist.”

“Madam Amelia,” a crisp voice says from behind me. The soldier stiffens to attention at the sound of it. There’s the sound of clicking heels on the hard floor, and then a man in a suit appears in front of me.

“Hello, Rogers,” I reply. “I would nod my head to you, but as you can see, I’m a bit tied up right now.”

Rogers snaps his fingers. The soldier steps back, pointing his gun at the floor. I stand slowly, teetering as a wave of dizziness hits me. “Now,” Rogers tells me, “let’s talk.”

“I won’t say anything you like,” I warn, still trying to hold onto my last dregs of sarcastic courage.

“Come, Amelia,” Rogers replies, “is that what you say to an old friend?”

“We are not friends,” I say coldly. I wish I had a wall to lean against right now. My head and throat both hurt.

“You have something that we need,” Rogers replied, businesslike as always. “And we have something that you need.”

I laugh again at this. “What would I need from you? Besides your defeat, of course.”

Rogers takes a step closer to me, and I resist to urge to step back. “The antidote, of course,” he replies mildly.

“Antidote?”

“Did you really take me to be that stupid?” he says in a tone as if we’re talking about the weather. “About three hours ago, your colleague Veronica brought in some cookies, did she not? And then, one hour ago, she unlocked this base. She let us in. She did very well, I may add.”

The head.

The throat.

As if unlocking the base to let in the enemy hadn’t been enough for my best friend to do. “She poisoned me,” I whisper.

“She poisoned all of you,” Rogers replied. “If anyone survived the gunfire and haven’t died of blood loss, they will from the poison.” He takes another step closer. By this point, he’s only inches away from me. “You need the antidote to survive, Amelia. And we need the girl. Where. Is. She.”

I can feel darkness starting to close in. Three hours. They had taken too long to get here to even think that I’d agree before dying. I let a tired smile flicker across my face. “You’ll never find her.”

And then everything goes black. I just hope that I bought her enough time.