All The Good Things

Chapter 7 - "You're okay. You're safe."

Ash was falling. Everything was dark and she was falling and there was nothing to hold onto. She threw her hands out, violently reaching for anything until something solid grabbed her around the waist. The force jerked her up and she opened her eyes.

"Shh. I got you," a voice said from behind her.

She jumped at the sound and the hold around her waist tightened as her balance wobbled. Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to make sense of the green world around her. Then it all started to slowly come back to her. She was high up in a tree, hiding from the people who had kidnapped her.

"Help is on the way," Zach whispered against her ear. "We can't make any noise until they get here."

She nodded to let him know she understood before she let her heavy head rest back against him.

Someone was coming to help them. Zach had a plan. There was nothing to do but wait for him to tell her what to do next. Zach had a plan. She yawned and wondered how long she had been asleep. Her body didn't feel quite as frozen as before but she felt incredibly weak.

She pulled her jacket tighter around her and looked up at the sky to see if she could figure out the time of day. But she realized she wasn't even sure what day it was.

She thought back and found the last time she was certain she knew the day and time was around nine-thirty on Thursday night when she had been leaving the coffee shop.

But she didn't know how long she had been knocked out. It had been light outside when she had woken up but had that been Friday morning? Friday afternoon? Saturday? Or even Sunday?

She looked back up, trying to gauge the sun's location in the sky. It was to their left, but she didn't know if that was east or west. The only thing she could gather from the sun was that it was either rising or setting, which wasn't really any info at all.

She wondered if Zach knew which way was east or west. Or if he knew what day it was. He probably did. There was no doubt in Ash's mind now that he did in fact work for the CIA. The average college student couldn't speak Russian.

He had also done other things that the average college student didn't do but Ash stopped herself from thinking about it before images could pop into her head.

Instead, she turned her thoughts to the fact that he worked for the CIA. That one piece of information seemed to answer all her previous questions she had had about him, but it also didn't make much sense to her.

Why was a CIA agent at her college? Especially Fayetteville State University. She had done extensive research into all the state schools and knew Fayetteville was one of the most boring and basic state colleges.

Was he on an undercover assignment? There didn't seem to be any other reason a CIA agent would be hanging out at a college. Was there a group at the college he was trying to take down? He had mentioned something about working against the Russian Terrorist Group. They were the reason Ash had been kidnapped.

But Fayetteville State College seemed like a big step down from a Russian Terrorist Organization. Everything in her wanted to turn around and ask Zach a million questions but she remained silent and let her brain begin to produce possible reasons he was undercover at the school.

When something near them began to buzz, Ash was pulled from her working theory that Zach was at the school to investigate the chemistry group that had turned into drug dealers.

She looked back at Zach to find he had a phone in his hand. Right, her brain reminded her, she had heard him talking to someone. He held a finger up to his lips, signaling for her to be quiet as he answered the phone.