Blaine continued to run, and was both happy and slightly annoyed at Genevieve's response. He was mostly happy because her reply meant she wasn't dead. Feeling a little bad, he realized he probably should've been checking up on her more often. God knows what the KGB would've done to her corpse. Gross.

And he was mostly annoyed at the fact that they now certainly had no way of getting out.

"Uh yeah?!" he shouted in reply. "Aren't you supposed to be the smart one? You know, thinking in advance?"

He glanced behind him for a second and saw Genevieve right behind him on his left side. Further down the hall, a few men began to turn the corner into the hallway as well.

"Firing!" he called out in warning before turning to face forward again. He pointed his automatic gun behind him and shot blindly, not having the time to afford to point and aim. After reloading, he began to feel the effects of muscle exhaustion and the anxiety about the fact that there was probably some kind of backup force on its way. What could they do?

The hall they were running through opened up into a wide room with a glass atrium high above. The stained glass was pretty, but they had no time to observe. As far as the ARES agents were concerned, this was a literal dead end. Blaine swore under his breath and wondered if they'd "be nice" and take them prisoner, torture them to get information, and [i]then[/i] kill them. Either way didn't seem very favorable.

Finally, just as Blaine was going to bark of useless command at Genevieve, a loud shattering noise exploded from above. Part of the glass room was blown inwards, sending shards of glass pouring down. Thank God this didn't happen directly above them, but—

"Jesus, shit!" Blaine cried out as a few sharp pieces fly by, cutting his face and part of his arms that came up to shield his face.

During all the confusion, a rope ladder had been dropped down through the whole and a figure dressed in black expertly slid down it and ran over to them, gun in hand.

It looked like they were done for. The figure raised its gun and began firing multiple rounds at them. Blaine screwed his eyes shut, but to his surprise, no bullets penetrated his skin. After the sound of bullets firing stopped, everything was quiet. Well, relatively quiet, not including the roar of a helicopter from above the hole in the glass. He tentatively opened his eyes to see a familiar ARES field agent standing in front of them, one hand on his hip, the other hand gripping a smoking gun. Incredulous, Blaine whirled around to see a pile of dead KGB grunts on the tile floor.

They were lucky. Aunt Valerie must've had a panic attack and sent a chopper out because they were taking too long. Thank God.

"I think this merits a thank-you," the agent, named Chris, called over the roar of the helicopter. "But first, let's get the hell out of here."