Perfect (Rewrite)

Chapter Fifty Five

"What are you doing?" He asked. The cart beneath Chloe's body was moving down the hallway; her eyes opened for a brief second before squeezing shut tight. She wasn't supposed to be awake, she had been sedated. Why wasn't she unconscious?

"I'm getting her out of here," Another man replied, his voice was smooth. Chloe peeked through one eye, both men were covered in black from head to toe, wearing the same masks every other guard did. She closed them again and kept her breaths short and steady to avoid detection.

"What do you mean?" The first one asked, and then the cart came to a halt. A sheet fell on top of Chloe; she opened her mouth to gasp but stopped halfway through the motion. From what she could tell, they hadn't noticed her movement.

"Let go," The other one replied.

"You can't just take her away."

"I can if I say so."

The cart jolted forward and then stopped abruptly again. Chloe's body slipped against the metal, her lower body was hanging off the end. It took every will in her mind to keep limp and not fix her position. One of the guards grabbed her legs and slid her back onto the cart. The sheet still covered her entire body, and the short supply of air almost seemed impossible to breathe.

"We need to take her back to the preparation room," The first man retorted. "He's going to be mad when he finds out about this."

"When?" The second asked. "When? You and I are the only two people who know what's happening, so what are you saying?" Dead air made Chloe hold her breath until one of them spoke again. "You're not planning on ratting me out, are you?"

"I would hate to have to."

The cart started moving again; Chloe couldn't tell which direction they were headed in, but from the sounds of it, they were going away from this awful place. Another sudden jolt made Chloe fall off the cart. She sucked in and held her stomach tight, kept her breathing to a minimum, and her heartbeat still.

Someone wrapped their arms around her chest and lifted her back onto the cart before wheeling it through the maze like halls even faster than before. Footsteps chased after Chloe and her helped; people were after them. They knew something wasn't adding up. The footsteps grew louder and louder by the second, and the cart gained in momentum. There were too many of them and not enough power trying to escape.

Chloe sat up on the cart and hopped off the edge; the guard seemed shocked by her movement.

"How are you awake?" He asked. "The sedative should've kept you under for days."

"I'm a fighter," Chloe answered, running along side the man; he let the cart go. They were barreling down the hall. She looked back and caught sight of at least ten guards chasing after them. A few of them pointed and shouted to stop, but the two of them kept running. A door at the end came into sight, the last door in the hall. A slither of light was peeking in from the bottom. Was it possible that this was the way out? Was Chloe this close to freedom?

They reached the door and the kind man beside her swung the door open before pushing Chloe into the new room and slamming the door shut behind her.

It was dark and chilly, somehow the light had disappeared. This was not the outside; Chloe was smart enough to know that. A bright light flashed on and then off, it spun around, lighting up one piece of the room at a time. She watched it make a full 360, turning her head when it tried to blind her. Chloe walked to the center of the room and examined the pole with the light. It spun around again, and she shielded her eyes from the harsh spectrum.

A door opened and closed on the other side of the room; Chloe ran to catch it, but it swung shut too early and locked after it was in place. She turned back and found a man standing in between her and the spinning light. He faced her, covered in black, intimidating in every way. A mask hid his face just like all the others.

"Who are you?" Chloe asked, backing away from him until her back hit the closed door. He stepped forward but didn't say anything. "Who. Are. You." He took another step forward, her eyes closed as she waited for him to grab her, to pull her away, to take her back to the room she knew was still waiting for her. Chloe's wrists were sore from the restraints they had been using on her on a daily basis.

"You need to go back to your room now," He told her, breathing down her neck. His lips made contact with her skin, and then she whipped her elbow out and ran back to the door she came in from. The hallway opened up; she continued running, tracing the path she could remember, but it all looked the same. Chloe hadn't even been aware of where she was until ten minutes before. Who knew how far away she was from her room or the exit? The door she had seen only a couple days before while locked in the small dark room, it was through a hallway, but the door for her to get there was locked. If only she had been given the key, but that would've been too easy. She knew he wouldn't let her get away that easy; she knew he ensured they were overprotective and confused every second of every day. She knew he took good care of his dolls.