The next day, a group of armed soldiers stormed up the skyscraper's steps, sweeping through every room to search for people who didn't belong. People like Tess and Kyle. But the couple had been forewarned, and they had a plan.

First, they checked the building's security cameras. They had already smashed all of the memory cards that stored the footage, erasing evidence that they'd been there, but the live feeds were still running on a set of monitors. Tess could see soldiers sweeping the eighth floor, carrying the same wanted posters from when they'd first been hunted four years ago. The soldiers presented the posters to employees and residents, questioning if anyone had spotted the fugitives. Then they entered each apartment and thoroughly searched every individual room of the building.

This was going to take hours, Tess thought, biting at her bottom lip.

Kyle grabbed her hand, and they tore down the hall. Tess hit the button to call an elevator, then sent it to the floor below them. Then they used a maintenance key to open the elevator doors, slipped on top of the unmoving elevator, and sat together. This would be their hiding spot until they were certain the building had been cleared.

Jade was elsewhere. They'd been ordered to hide separately and not tell each other where, but Tess figured they could bend the rules.

When the maintenance door closed, the elevator shaft was entirely devoid of light. Tess felt insidious anxiety crawling up her spine. But she was in contact with Kyle the entire time, their knees touching as they sat cross-legged on the elevator's cold metal. This soothed her nerves.

They tried to make as little noise as possible in the echoey space, only whispering occasionally. Time passed uncertainly in absolute blackness. Tess could only measure it by the timing of her rapid heartbeats. The machinery around them was cold and indifferent, sitting idle.

After a long time, there was noise. Voices. The kind of booming voices that stirred past memories of being chased by soldiers, stoking the blaze of fear in Tess's veins. She tried to look at Kyle for reassurance, but could only gaze into the void where she thought his face might be.

The voices were directly beneath them. Without warning, the elevator began to move. Tess's stomach plummeted as it dropped underneath them, rushing through the blackness. She planted her hands against the cold metal to steady herself, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming. It felt like absolute freefall, as if they would certainly splat against the invisible ground at any moment.

Suddenly, the machine came to a gentle but dizzying halt. Tess could feel the stomp of footsteps calmly exiting the elevator, totally unaware of the terror they had caused.

For the next hour or so, things were totally silent, except for her increasingly panicked breathing. She didn't realize she was hyperventilating until Kyle reached out and traced his fingertips gently down her back. It was embarrassing that she still couldn't control her body's parasympathetic responses. She clenched her fists, determined to restrain herself.

Minutes later, a jangling of keys above them nearly halted her heart. She heard Kyle stifle his breath, and held her own, listening. Someone was trying various keys to open a door into the elevator shaft. The soldiers were being far more thorough than they'd expected.

Kyle found her hand and gripped it tightly. "I think we should move." His voice was a barely audible whisper in her ear. She bit her lip again, unsure of the best action.

Kyle carefully pried the hatch into the elevator open. Light flooded into the blackness.

He lowered his legs into the compartment, then dropped, dangling by his arms, and landed with a small thud. Tess followed suit, but when Kyle tried to replace the hatch door after her, there was a loud metal clang, and the soldiers' noise above went silent. Tess met Kyle's eyes, both of their faces flooded with fear.

Kyle slammed the emergency button to open the elevator door. They skidded out into a long, empty hallway, Tess's pulse pounding in her ears as they took off at full speed. The only sounds were their rapid breaths and the scuff of shoes against the thin carpet.

At the end of the hall, they came to a stop. "Any ideas?" Kyle panted.

Tess picked an apartment at random and knocked quietly. A middle-aged woman opened the door and answered, "Can I help you?"

"Yes," Tess said with a smile. "We need to come in. Don't tell anyone you saw us—or anything out of the ordinary."

The woman shot a motherly, warm smile back and allowed them inside, closing the door quietly behind her.

"Act completely normally, like we're not here," Kyle added as they rushed deeper into the apartment. He told Tess, "You've got to be careful what you say to them, or they might misinterpret it. Like a genie twisting the meaning of your wishes."

He marched around the apartment, peering into each room, then motioned for Tess to follow him into a bedroom. She glanced nervously back at the woman, who was casually chopping carrots for dinner, then followed.

In the bedroom, Tess could fit under the bed to hide, while Kyle crouched under a pile of clothes in the closet. Then it was silent again, apart from the woman's clanging cooking pots and a soft hum of jazzy music through the wall. Tess breathed as slowly as possible, the aroma of fried vegetables wafting into the room.

Soon, they heard stomps and shouting voices moving up and down the halls. The soldiers knew they were there in the building, and she feared they had called for reinforcements to secure and search every inch.

It wasn't long before there was a knock on the woman's apartment door. She greeted them kindly, only for the soldiers to rudely stomp inside and demand that she tell them if she'd seen or heard anything. There was a crash, and the music cut off.

"How dare you!" the woman cried. "I told you, I didn't see anything."

"Is there anyone else in the apartment right now?"

The woman paused. "I didn't see anything out of the ordinary." Her voice sounded uncertain.

"You can tell this one's following some orders," another soldier with a higher voice said. "It's so creepy the way they act. Mindless drones."

The deep-voiced soldier spoke again; he stressed each word as if he were talking to a child. "Is there anyone here besides you, me, and him?" He was persistent, trying to ask just the right question.

They hadn't told the woman specifically to deny that they were there, just to act like they weren't. Tess wondered if it would be enough. The tension was burning Tess's veins as she waited for the woman's answer. She peered at the closet, unsure if she should make a move.

"I never saw anything," the woman repeated.

"Yeah, yeah, we get it. You're a broken record."

"Should we call for backup?" The tenor-voiced solder said.

"No," the bass replied. "Check all the rooms first."

Time passed like the slow drip of thick molasses, but Tess's heart only beat faster. With her ear against the floor, she could hear the agonizing approach of stomping boots. She could hardly bear it, but she forced herself to stay still and silent.

The steps reached their room. The soldier entered and didn't hesitate in throwing open the closet doors. Tess couldn't breathe, her body paralyzed.

Tess could see the soldier's boots as he inspected the closet's interior. She could also see Kyle's motionless form, well hidden under a pile of clothes. She bit her fist to keep quiet. She wished she could communicate with Kyle somehow, even just a comforting glance.

The soldier's boots turned toward the bed, seeming satisfied that the closet was empty. Then his knee was suddenly on the ground, and his face appeared before Tess. His lips stretched into a smile as their eyes met.

In a mocking voice, he said, "Look what we have here. You're—"

There was a whoosh as the air was forced from the man's lungs. Kyle had burst from under the clothes and pinned the soldier to the floor with his knee within seconds. Before Tess had time to gasp with shock, he emptied a needle filled with tranquilizer into the man's veins.

Tess wriggled out from under the bed to embrace him, arms thrown over his shoulders. "Thank you," she said, breathless.

"Any time," he replied.

"All clear so far, Johnny!" the other soldier called from across the apartment. "Find anything?"

Tess and Kyle drew apart, meeting each other's eyes. "We'll have to catch him by surprise," she whispered.

"Except he'll know something's wrong when—"

"Johnny?" the soldier called uncertainly, his voice growing louder.

There wasn't time to work out a plan with words, only to act. Kyle draped a blanket over the unconscious body, keeping it out of sight. He stepped back into the closet, while Tess slid between the open door and the wall, both concealed from anyone standing in the doorway.

"John?" The soldier said again, now at the room's entrance. Tess held her breath again, hoping he didn't glance through the gap at the door's hinges where she stood, inches away.

Predictably, the man walked directly toward the mysterious lump under the blanket. Just as he tore it off, revealing his comrade, Kyle leapt out at him, landing on the bed with a wiry arm constricting around the man's neck.

The soldier writhed and grabbed Kyle's fist, forcefully extending his arm until he was free. In seconds, their positions flipped, the soldier wrestling his arm around Kyle's neck. The soldier's veins were soon bulging with exertion, his arm cutting off the blood flow to Kyle's head.

Tess was out of syringes, so she grabbed a sturdy metal lamp and whacked the soldier in the head once, twice, three times, until his arm released and he collapsed onto the bed.

Kyle coughed violently, red-faced and clutching at his neck. "We need to get out of here."

But other soldiers had either heard the disturbance or been notified of their location. Tess could already hear dozens of heavy footfalls approaching the room.

___________

This is actually one of the longest chapters! (only 1700 words)