299 Days IX: The Restoration Read Online Free Page B

Limas or armed, scared kids waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Pow yelled out for the two who were closest to him to stay down on the first floor while the remaining four went up the stairs. The two staying on the first floor turned out to be Bobby and Scotty.
    Pow, Grant, Ryan, and Wes ran toward the staircase. They could see they were chasing lots of kids and a few teenagers toward the stairs. The kids were still screaming and crying. Grant thought it was unfortunate that they had to terrify these children even more than they already were, but they had to see if there were any armed threats in the building.
    Grant looked around as they were running toward the stairs. He was so proud. Ryan and Wes were running behind him and sweeping the area with their rifles. The lights showed the sweeping. These two were protecting Grant and Pow as they went forward. It was automatic, instinctual. It looked smooth and choreographed, in sharp contrast to all the kids running around and screaming.
    As they got to the staircase, Grant realized that they’d never actually practiced this. Going up a staircase with guns was tricky, and the Team had never had a two-story place to practice such a maneuver. No shooting range had this, and the meth house was only one story.
    Grant found himself just doing what he’d seen in the movies – hugging every bit of cover and sweeping his rifle up the stairs. It was terrifying because there were so many places up that staircase for someone to hide and shoot them, or even drop things on them. They didn’t have helmets. Like body armor, helmets were one of those “it’d be great to have” items that they never got around to acquiring.
    But, somehow, they managed to get up the dark staircase to the second floor. By now, the screaming had stopped. The kids seemed to be hiding. It was quiet except for faint footsteps of running kids above them and the familiar voices of the Team shouting instructions to each other.
    Pow tried the door to the second floor room, but it was locked. There was no noise from this floor. Maybe people were inside and had locked it to keep them out.
    “I really want to clear this room,” Ryan whispered to Pow, referring to the second floor, “before we go up to the third floor.” Ryan looked around to make sure he was whispering softly enough so that no one other than Pow could hear him. “That way, anyone in the second floor room can’t come out and cut us off from Bobby and Scotty on the first floor.”
    Pow nodded. “That’ll have to wait, bro,” he said, “’till we’ve assessed the whole building.” Ryan nodded. They had to find where the kids went and whether there were any threats in the building.
    They went to the third floor and also found it locked with no noises coming from inside it. They carefully moved up the staircase to the fourth floor.
    The door to the room on the fourth and final floor was unlocked. Pow opened it and Grant went bursting through, sweeping the room with his weapon light.
    He saw a sea of little faces. Dirty, frightened, crying little faces. Most had their hands up and then they started screaming. It was obvious that they thought Grant was going to shoot them.
    Good, Grant thought. As evil as that sounded, he wanted everyone in that building to be scared of the Team so they would do cooperate and no one would get hurt. Then, if there was no threat in there and things calmed down, the Team could assure the kids that they were good army men, not bad ones.
    A weapon light came through the door. It was Pow, who was followed quickly by Ryan and Wes. All four of them were sweeping the room and it looked like it was full of kids.
    “Shut up!” Pow yelled. In broad daylight, he was an imposing enough figure, but in the dark, with kit and a rifle, he was positively terrifying. A round of startled screams went up.
    “All of you, shut up!” Wes yelled, with an authoritative edge to his voice. “Now! Hands up!”
    Most of the