“Um, hi,” I said stupidly.
He blinked a few times and stood up. He was dressed in the same clothes I had last seen him in, complete with small bloodstains on them. My fists clenched in fury. His hair was a tangled mess, and there was a dark shadow along his face. I had never seen him with facial hair before. I noticed that it made him look older, much older. There were deep purple bags beneath his eyes, and his blue eyes had lost a little of the luster that I was so used to seeing.
But he was Ash. He was alive. He was standing in front of me, alive, and I had never seen anything so perfect and incredible in my life. He was alive.
“Zoey?” he asked, sounding unsure of himself. I was so relieved to hear him sound so normal. There was no hint of a cough anymore.
I nodded, suddenly feeling nervous. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said, his voice low. “Why?”
I shifted back and forth, glancing at the open door. There was a camera inside his room, which was no larger than a closet, and I knew it wouldn’t be long until someone found us in here. “Well, I’m breaking out. And I came to get you. We should probably leave though. Now.”
To my surprise, he looked angry. “Are you crazy?” he said, his voice rising slightly. “Zoey Valentine, what the hell were you thinking?” He stepped closer to me, his fists clenched at his side.
I flinched, backing up. “Wait…what…”
“Zoey, you had a way to get out of here, and you came here to get me? Why would you do that?”
“I…I…” I faltered, speechless in my shock. His eyes were trained on mine, and he was angry. “Ash, I…”
He cut me off, pulling me to him and crushing me in his arms. My arms came up automatically to wrap around him, and we stood like that for a moment, just holding each other. I felt myself relax for the first time in weeks, feeling safe in his arms. He pulled back and pressed his lips tightly to mine. “You’re so stupid,” he whispered to me.
“Thanks,” I said, laughing slightly under my breath.
“You’re alive, Zoey,” was his reply. “You’re alive.”
“Yeah, I am,” I said, pulling back. “But I won’t be much longer if we don’t go. Now.”
“Right,” he said, and he was back to business. I grabbed his hand and started pulling him out the door and into the hallway. “Do you have a plan to get out of here?”
I glanced over my shoulder at him as we made our way back to the stairwell. “Mostly.”
“Mostly,” he scoffed, but he continued to follow me. I pushed the door open to the stairs and was immediately met with a gun in my face. The three men that had chased me to this level were standing in front of me.
“Run!” I screamed, and we both turned around and went tearing through the hallways. I followed Ash as he weaved his way, turning left then right and then left again. We had no destination, and I could hear the hard fall of boots against the floor just right behind us. I felt a pain in my side, and I remembered that I hadn’t really eaten today, and I was feeling it.
“Come on, Zoey, come on, baby,” he yelled back to me as we sprinted down a long corridor.
“Wait,” I said, looking around me. I recognized the hallways that I had come in earlier and knew there was another stairwell just around the corner. I ran past Ash and found it. I reached for the handle, praying that there would be no one behind it.
The stairwell was open, but it wouldn’t be for long. “Come on,” I said to Ash, and we started running up the stairs. I could see the strain in Ash’s face, and I felt it in my own body. Even all the running I had done on the treadmill the past few weeks hadn’t prepared me for this. There was a difference between running on a treadmill, not going anywhere, and running up the stairs, your heart pounding in fear as you ran for your life.
“Here,” I told him, as we reached a door that read the letters “AG.”
“What does that mean?” Ash panted, indicating the AG.
“Tommy said it was the above ground level, the only one that’s above ground. It houses all the vehicles that Sekhmet keeps,” I explained, my voice lowered. I raised myself on the tips of my toes to peek out the window and saw the level looked abandoned. Tommy had explained that most vehicles were used at night, where they had the cover of darkness as an advantage. The vehicles sat unused during the day, perfect for stealing a car, not so perfect for getting away. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Tommy?” Ash asked, his eyebrows rose as we made our way down a long hallway that led to a door.