No Escape

Lose Yourself

"You shouldn't have come here!"

Her hands shook as she focused on the clasps, the fear and the panic were making her clumsy and what were supposedly easy enough to remove restraints were making her heart thud harder against her chest. She could barely see anything through the tears, but she refused to give up. She couldn't. She wouldn't. She refused to give in to plea to leave.

"You need to go-!"

"You think I'd leave you here?!" She let go of the restraints that she was fighting against to glare at the blonde. She felt something in her slowly breaking down, but she had no time to dwell on anything but getting the two of them out of here. "You think I'd willingly walk away? From you?"

"You need to!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The four girls looked at each other, aware that there was only one reason for all their phones to ring. Emily felt a hundred times worse because Alison wasn't with them. She was the first one to reach for her phone immediately answering. She didn't even notice the three other girls following suit, not wanting to miss anything Emily was going to hear.

"Hello?" Emily asked, and the others figured out that it was a conference call. They could all hear what was going to be said. There really was no other person to do this.

"Let's do a little Sherlock."

Alison's voice shook as she spoke, and Emily recognized the tears that thickened it. She'd held Alison enough during the night as she broke down to know how that sounded. Emily's grip on the phone tightened. "Ali? Alison? What's wrong? Where are you?"

"I'm keeping her somewhere you've all already been." They all heard her choke, as if trying not to make them hear that she was crying, that she had been ever since she was strapped wherever she was. She sounded as if she was following someone, as if someone was telling her what to say. "But before coming, you must pick something up from-" A sob. Emily wasn't aware of the single tear that rolled down her own cheek. "-from a place hidden from others, but visible to two. A place where they share hearts, but never-" Pause. "Never- never the self, true."

There was a long pause, where they just heard Alison breathing at the other end, before the call dropped and Emily was already moving, putting on a jacket.

"What the fuck is this? A treasure hunt?"

Emily didn't pay Hanna any attention. She as already going through all the places in her head, finally settling on the Kissing Rock. This was the third time in a few months that Alison had been taken hostage. She didn't know how scared Alison was. She didn't know what was going through her girlfriend's head, but she knew that this was just another thing for the two of them to try and get over when it was over. And Emily had to believe that it was going to be over eventually. She had to believe that they were going to save Alison. Because after all the months of waking up to Alison, of her smile being the first thing Emily saw in the morning, of her lips being the last things she felt at night, she couldn't make herself think about the possibility of losing the one person she had built her life around.

"Emily-"

"Move," Emily ordered, already walking out of the house. "We need to go."

"The police-"

"Call them on the way. Don't slow me down. I've almost lost her too many times in the last year and I can't-" Emily rubbed at her eyes because tears were filling them already. She couldn't take the time to dwell. She couldn't. "Please. Come on."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"There's no time! Just leave me here!" She fought to let her words break through the tightening in her chest, the constricting of her throat. She couldn't bear to think that this was the last time they were going to see each other. The last time she was ever going to see her face. And they were both in tears.