It took me a moment before I realized what he said. I nodded slightly, watching Razi out of the corner of my eye, just a short length of space away from me. She was completely unprepared.
“Now!” he urged, and I moved. I whipped around, catching Razi around the waist, spinning her to face me. I caught a quick look at the surprise in her eyes before kneeing her in the gut and sending an elbow to her throat and then her head. She collapsed quickly, slumping to the ground.
“God, I always forget how fast you are,” Ash said, staring at her body on the ground. “Get me out of here, will you?”
I raced back to his side, yanking the needle out of his hand and the wires pasted to his chest. I fumbled at the metal cuffs around his wrist unable to find a clasp. I thought of Razi’s fingers, gentle on the cuffs that had released me earlier. “Hold on.”
I went back to her body and lifted her up, buckling a bit under her weight. I lifted her hand and pressed her fingertips to one of the cuffs. It sprang open at the touch. “Perfect.” I reached over, pressing her fingertips to the other cuff, and Ash sat up, pushing her off his lap and back onto the ground. She flopped back, smacking her head on one of the machines that surrounded the chair. I had hit her hard.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, grabbing my hand and heading for the door. He looked left, and right, both leading into long hallways. “So, uh, any idea on how to get out of this place?”
“No idea,” I answered, promptly. “Come on, let’s go. We’ll figure it out.”
“Make it up as we go along,” Ash said as we went left and headed quickly up the hallway. “That’s always my favorite kind of plan.”
“Shut up,” I said mildly as we came up to another fork. I immediately turned right and was relieved when I saw the door to the stairs. We had to make our way upstairs. We could only find a way outside the facility if we made our way upstairs. We moved quickly up the stairs, careful to keep our steps as quiet as possible.
We finally reached a door that led to an actual floor. I peeked through the window and saw no one around, so I pushed the door open slowly. I motioned for Ash to follow me and we crept through the empty hallways, peeking in doors. There were a lot of empty rooms just like the one I had found myself waking up in, but none of them led to an exit. None of them even had windows.
“We have to find a way out of here,” I said as we continued hopelessly down the hallway. Ash squeezed my hand in response, and I immediately felt calm. It felt silly that a simple hand squeeze could make me feel better, but there it was. The warmth of his palm was the perfect comfort.
“There they are!”
We whirled around and saw several people at the end of the hallway, pointing at us. I looked up at Ash. “Run!”
We took off, running as fast as we could, skirting around a corner into another endless hallway. There were no other sounds except the falls of our footsteps and the heavy breathing as we sped through the hallways. I could hear them behind us, and I flashed back to us running through the woods, away from the Awakened.
We hadn’t made it more than a few feet before I went flying into a wall, landing with a smack. I fell to the floor and rolled onto my side. I saw a pair of heels clicking down the hallway toward us and felt a sense of dread.
“Did you honestly think that you would be able to get away?” Razi’s voice sounded annoyed but also a bit amused. “Someone pick her up.”
I was yanked to my feet, my arms held by two overgrown goons. I glared at both of them and saw Ash held up in between another two goons, both of whom seemed to be even larger than the ones holding me. Where did they get guys like this? Was there some sort of “evil company lackey” school that these guys went to? Was there a Craigslist ad that read, “Need ginormous men to work for evil genius”?
Ash coughed loudly, and I met his eyes, wincing at the blood dripping from his nose.
“You were foolish, both of you,” Razi said, looking back and forth between us. “Trying to escape from Sekhmet was bold, almost worth admiration but very idiotic. I’m only trying to help you.”
I met her eyes and noticed the bruises that were already forming on her face. Rich stood just behind her, and I had to suppress the smirk that was threatening to burst out onto my face at the bandage that was across his nose. I did that, and I was damn proud of it.
“We don’t want your help,” I said, firmly.
She pressed her fingertips to her temple as if I was giving her a headache. Good. I wanted to give her a headache, and stomachache, and all sorts of things that were massively unpleasant. “Don’t make me regret choosing you, Zoey, to be part of this new world. You are one of the strongest I’ve seen. You’re a survivor. You just proved that again, by attempting to escape. Let me help you,” she pleaded.
“No. Definitely not,” I answered again.
“Very well.” Razi shrugged and motioned to her minions.