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Here’s the raid! Sorry it took me so long to finish. I hope this works for everyone. 🙂

 

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11:55 pm common time, 11 minutes before the raid on the Knot House

thump thump thump thump thump  

The rhythmic sound of the men marching quietly down the streets filled the tense silence of the night in South-East Outopía.

Rin Amber marched down the street, a grim expression set on his face.

It was five minutes to midnight. The moon was bright, and the light dusting of snow reflected the light incredibly. The air was brisk, but not really cold, and it was completely still and silent, save for the sound of boots hitting pavement.

There wasn’t any talking, which only meant more time to think about the dark. Rin tried to focus on the sound instead, and pushed forward.

________________________________________________________________________

 

When they arrived at the four-story building, it seemed vacant, but there were no signs of a rush to escape anywhere. A single rusty porchlight flickered in the shadows of the building’s awning.

Rin sent a couple of hand signals, directing a group of men to go around the back of the building.

A younger teen recruit walked stiffly up to Rin and stood at attention.

“Report.” Rin commanded, keeping his voice low.

“There are three exits leading out of the building, including the front entrance here. There are footprints going to and from the building in the back, maybe two or three sets, and there seem to be at least two people in a room on the third floor from what we can tell from here.” The recruit told him quietly.

“Alright.” Rin said. “We’re going in in twenty seconds. Tell the others.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rin nodded his head toward a group and straightened himself up, flicking back the safety on his rifle. He really hated the gun, but it was standard regulation for an official to carry one on investigations like these.

Rin tapped the steel tip of his combat boots on the ground twice.

The seconds ticked away, too quickly for Rin’s liking.

five… 

four… 

three… 

two… 

one… 

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11:48 pm common time,  18 minutes before the raid on the Knot House

Kenma helped the last few people into the tunnel entrance as quietly as he could.

Just to be safe, they had been sending all of the people who were well enough down the tunnels to one of the other safehouses, where they would spend the night before departing to set up the Nest in another sector of the city.

He’d said a hurried goodbye to Sunmi and her friend Ahli, before they’d been ushered away by one of the nurses.

The Nest was quiet now. It was actually pretty disturbing, since the Nest was always bustling with activity, whether it was the nurses changing shifts, another supply of medicine being delivered from another sector, or even just some of the teens who had spare time on their hands helping out the younger children with their school or play.

Kenma walked back into the common room to wait. What he was waiting for, he didn’t really know. He’d stayed back with a few others to make sure that if the government somehow found the Nest, they could possibly pass it off as a quarantine of some sort.

There wasn’t a huge possibility of the government finding the Nest, since there wasn’t a direct entrance from the Knot House itself, that being too risky. But if the men somehow did find the main entrance from the house three doors down, the chance of arrest was high.

Kenma was on high alert, and unable to sit still. Two of their group had gone up to check on the Knot House ten minutes ago. Taja and… Singkae? They still hadn’t come back yet.

There were two sharp ringing sounds above him.

Kenma froze. That was Rin’s signal. They were going in.

The other two were still up there.

There was nothing Kenma could do now but hope and pray that they escaped.

_______________________________________________________

12:06 am common time 

The street was no longer silent and dark, harsh light illuminating the wood and stone facility.

There were loud shouts as the men searched the rooms, and torches wavered menacingly through the windows and down the street. Luckily nothing was on fire. That would be one mountain of explaining and paperwork that Rin did not want to handle.

He turned his attention to a group of men who appeared from the front entrance. They were dragging two people with them.

Rin frowned. “What is this?”

“We found these two upstairs. They weren’t doing anything obviously suspicious, but they did try to run, and they put up a pretty fair fight. They also have clear symbols of the sparrow on them” They shifted the people to reveal the sparrow embroidered on their jackets. There was a shortish light brunette girl with a ponytail, and a guy with chin length reddish hair who seemed to be in his late teens. Rin winced as the girl’s head lolled to the side limply.

Rin sighed. “Take them to the main building. I’ll have someone question them in a couple hours, before they’ll probably be sent to the tower.”

“Yes, Sir.”

A woman walked up to Rin and stood at attention.

“Update please.”

“Other than those two, the whole place has been cleared out. There are no signs of a quick escape, so it’s hard to say how recently the place has been used. There’s a possibility that the tip was a fraud, but we’re assuming not, by the presence of the two sparrows. It’s possible that the meeting got called off unexpectedly.”

Rin blew out a breath. He reset the safety on his rifle and slipped it into its holster.

“Okay. We’re done for tonight then, Sierra. Station sentries on all sides of the building for a couple days. If there isn’t any suspicious activity, we’ll close off this facility to the public.”

“Shouldn’t we leave a warning for the sparrows?” Sierra asked venomously. “No matter how many times we capture one of their people, they move on like they don’t care. The sparrows are heartless threats. We need to set an example-”

The woman wavered as Rin glared at her.

“Just do your job.” He snapped. “Send everyone home after the perimeter is secured and leave.”

“Y-yes, Sir.”

Rin groaned. Why did his job have to be so hard?

He tapped his boot tip on the ground four times, then turned to leave. He trusted his group to follow his orders.

In the meantime, he had a huge pile of paperwork to do.