I needed those keys.
While he was distracted and his hands were occupied, I allowed my body to numbly operate on cruise control, going through the necessary motions. I slipped through the stairwell door, and sprinted to him on light feet. I was a shadow. He didn’t see me coming until it was too late. He dropped the keys in startled fright, and I dropped him before he could get a hand on the gun.
He was small, easy to lift and move, and he hadn’t finished locking the door. I turned the key, crouched, and peeked in. I perceived no direct light source, only greyish lines of illumination provided by a circular vent in the ceiling of the cell.
I waited.
And as I waited, straining to listen, my muscles and tendons coiled, burning with tension and frustrated inaction. I realized how much I hated waiting. Waiting completely sucked.
And then someone moved within the cell.
And coughed.
And my heart skipped.
Before I could stop myself, his name tumbled from my lips, an urgent hopeful whisper. “Greg?”
Three seconds of stillness met my query, followed by an urgent hopeful whisper. “Fe?”
I wanted to run into the cell, throw my arms around him, and—again—scream at him. That part was key, he was going to be thoroughly screamed at sometime soon.
If we made it out of this alive, I was going to kill him. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
“Are you alone? Is there anyone else in here?” My whisper was barely audible to my own ears.
He didn’t answer. I waited. My heart beat loudly between my ears. I could taste my panic.
I was about to call out to him again when he said, “Am I dead?”
“What? Greg?”
“How can you be here?”
Relief coursed through my system. He was confused, which was understandable. Truthfully, I was just grateful he was lucid enough to talk. I dragged the guard’s body back into the cell, pocketing the keys, and shutting the door as quietly as possible.
I saw Greg at once, a bound heap in the corner, lying on his side with a bag over his head. My stomach lurched, my eyes stung, and suddenly I wished I hadn’t been using anything so benign as Ketamine on my way in.
I quelled the rush of violent emotion and knelt beside him, moving my hands over his body. “Greg, it’s me. I’ll explain everything later. Are you hurt?”
When he spoke it was with obvious hesitation, like he didn’t trust his senses, like he expected me to disappear. “No. Well, not much. Maybe a few bruised ribs. My hands are cuffed, so are my legs.”
I nodded. Seeing this was true and that the handcuffs were standard issue, I quickly picked the lock behind his back.
As soon as my hands were on him, working his restraints, he seemed to gain more confidence that I was real and not a figment of his imagination. “They separated me from the others this morning.” His whisper was gravelly, like he wasn’t used to using his voice. “Do you have any water?”
“Yes.” I finished with his wrists and moved to his legs. “When’s the last time you had water?”
“Earlier today. They ration one cup every twenty-four hours.” He pulled the bag from his head and pushed to an upright sitting position. He began to reach for me, like he wanted to pull me into his arms, but then stopped when I placed the small canteen of water from my belt into his hands.
“Have they fed you?”
“Thank you,” he said, opening the canteen with greedy fingers.
I wanted to both laugh and cry at his ingrained politeness. Even now, starved and thirsty, he’d said thank you.
“No,” he belatedly answered between small sips, drinking slowly. “My Hausa is rusty, but I think they were starting to suspect I’m a US citizen.”
“Okay. Okay . . .” I nodded, sitting back on my heels and drinking in the sight of him. I swallowed past the mixture of relief and fear cinching my throat. Alex had been right. They hadn’t fed him or given him much water. They had no intention of releasing him, not for ransom, not ever.
“Let’s get you out of here. Do you know where the others are being kept?”
“Yes,” he responded immediately, then paused before asking, “why?”
“Because we have to get them.”
Greg abruptly pushed to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall behind him, unfolding his long form. “No. No, we don’t.”
“Yes. I have it all worked out. I came in through the east entrance and it’s clear all the way to the exit. We can get the rest of the hostages and—”
Greg’s long fingers wrapped around my shoulder, his grip much tighter than necessary. “No, Fiona. We’re leaving them. We have to get out.”
“We can’t leave them.”
“They’ll be fine.”
“Fine? Fine? Are you crazy?”
“Only EU citizens are left, I checked when we were housed together. Their countries will negotiate and pay the ransom. We leave them.”
“But you can’t know for sure they’ll all make it. I’m telling you, we can—”
“No.”
“Greg—”
“We’re not arguing about this. We need to move.”