Nothing Without You | Eric Coulter [2]

seven

NESSA

"Stay close," Eric tells me as he guides me down the hallway hurriedly with my hand clutched tightly in his.

I could tell that there was still something that wasn't quite right with him by the way he frowns at certain things I say as if he's trying to remember where he's heard the phrases from, but he can't.

He leads me down the hall after hall with his gun drawn at his side. I'm not sure how long we've been running for before we're stopped by a voice yelling from behind us.

"Don't move!"

I whirl around at the familiar voice to see Zeke standing with his gun raised and Tori behind him.

"Zeke-" I breathed by he quickly cuts me off.

"You shouldn't have come here, Ness."

As curt as he sounded, I notice that he wasn't pointing his gun at me. Neither of them were. They were aiming for Eric.

Tori's gaze meets mine and she shakes her head slightly, looking disappointed.

"I warned you not to trust him," She sighs.

I move to step in front of Eric, to take the target off of him. If the way they're keeping their aim off of me was anything to go by, I don't think they would harm me.

However, Eric wraps an arm around my waist, shoving me behind him and refusing to let me shield him.

"Now's not the time for this," Eric grits out, "I'm not the enemy." His eyes lift to meet Zeke's holding them as if he was challenging him, "We need to get her out of here. Right now, before anyone realises that she wasn't brought to her cell."

There's a moment of standstill between us that drags on for long enough that I was starting to think that they weren't going to let us go. But just as I do, Zeke lets his gun fall to his side.

Tori's wide eyes dart to him, "What are you doing?"

"Helping," Zeke answers as if it was as plain as day.

"Helping?" Tori demands, "Zeke, he's on their side-"

"I'm on whichever side that would keep her alive," He interrupts, "We're not the only people who want her safe. Open your fucking eyes."

Tori still looks unconvinced but eventually, she lowers her gun and jerks her chin to a hallway to the left of us.

"This way," She says.

Eric grips my hand in his once again as we followed Tori and Zeke as we raced down the hallway.

Just then, the radio on Eric's wrist sounds and a voice follows, saying something that sounded like some sort of code and Eric curses under his breath.

"Fuck, they're on to us." He says, "Hurry the fuck up!"

Zeke and Tori pick up speed in front of us and so do we.

I run as quickly as my feet could carry me, trying to keep up with Eric's long legs until they burned.

We paused briefly as Tori works to unlock a door that was secured with a pin-coded lock and I glanced over at Zeke.

"You good?" He asks me and my heart squeezes painfully at the way just looking at him reminds me of all the good memories we'd shared with Marlene.

"Zeke, there's something you should know...about Marlene," The words stumble out of my mouth even though I knew this was probably bad timing. "She...She's-"

"Hey!" A voice yells and I looked over my shoulder to see a group of armed guards rushing down the hallway towards us.

"It's open," Tori says just in time, pushing the door open and ushering us through.

We hurry through the door, sprinting down the next long hallway that leads to an emergency exit.

Suddenly, an alarm starts to blare overhead and shutters start to fall around us, blocking off all the exits.

"We can still make it!" Zeke throws over his shoulder, "Hurry!"

Bullets chased us, letting us know that the guards have caught up to us and we pick up speed, running as if our lives depended on it- and I guess in a way, it did.

Eric turned occasionally, returning shots, successfully taking down some of the guards.

The shutters felt like they were gaining speed as they made their descend, now already halfway closed and my heart thuds loudly in my chest it feels as if it was about to burst through.

Tori and Zeke slid through the opening first before turning to wait for us.

"Come on! Let's go!" Zeke's voice echoes through the hall.

As if time had slowed down, I watched as the shutters continued to fall shut.

"Nessa, come on!" Zeke encourages, "You can do did!"

He grips the edge of the shutters as if he could someone hold it open to buy more time.

"Nessa!" Zeke yells.

We get to the shutters eventually...but despite all our efforts, it wasn't enough and the shutters fall shut before we could ever make it out.

My heart plummets to my stomach and Eric quickly pushes me behind him as if he could somehow shield me from what's to come and we turn to face the group of guards that were quickly gaining on us with nowhere left to run.