121 Degrees

"We're not done yet!"

Melissa's POV:

I dropped the letter, my numb fingers unable to hold it any longer. Then I heard a loud banging on the window of the sauna, and whipped around to see Joshua. I was the only one of us able to lip-read, so I mouthed "Joshua?!" to which he nodded.

He didn't stay long at first, he just mouthed "Wait a minute-I'll see if I can break this window somehow." before darting off for a minute or two. We spent those minutes in panic-how the hell were we going to get out of here? Without Joshua?

He returned soon though, and he had a hammer, which he immediately set to work with. I mouthed things like "Hurry up!" at him as he worked frantically at the window. The temperature was rising quickly, and we only had a little bit of water to drink.

It took ten minutes, but it seemed much longer for the window to finally break, shattered glass littering the floor in the sauna.

"Melissa." Josh said, panicking "I don't know who that was, but he's destroyed the thermostat-I can't turn the heat off."

"Then focus on getting us out. I don't know how and I don't care how-just get us out of here before we cook to death." I told him, somehow keeping calm. On a sudden idea I added "If you manage to save us in time, I'll forgive you for stalking me all these years."

He paused for a moment as the last words washed over him.

"Okay" he told us, his resolve turned to steel "I promise I'll get you out of that death trap. How long do you think you have?"

I grabbed the letter and handed it to him, he read through it very quickly and said "Right, I'll find a way to get you three out of there-you just focus on staying alive." His face was very close to the window, and I had another idea-or maybe it was madness.

I lunged forward and kissed Joshua on the lips, but I broke it before he had time to return it. "For luck." I whispered to him "Now go, we'll do what we can!"

He gave a final nod, said "Don't die on me." and ran in the direction our captor did.

"Looks like we aren't done for yet." Ryan said, sitting on one of the benches and heaving a very long sigh. Sam went and joined him, shaking from what I knew was fear. I walked over and sat next to her, and put a hand on her shoulder. Josh was our last hope now, but he was also the best hope I could have asked for.