No Escape (luke hemmings au)

~part thirteen~

        There was a bright, white flash of light. I tried to get up but I couldn’t move. I felt helpless. This must have been how it felt to die. I squeezed my eyes tight.

                Then I heard Ashton giggle. I opened one eye and saw him and Elisa huddled over a silver rectangle that I could barely recognize. Luke was pressed up against my back with his arm draped over me gently. He was still asleep.

                “Oh, sorry honey bun,” Elisa said in a hushed voice. “Did we wake you up?”

                “I found a camera!” Ashton beamed and waved the device in the air. I could barely formulate a coherent thought. I slipped out of Luke’s embrace and rubbed my eyes in attempt to wake myself up a bit more. Luke let out a soft moan and cuddled the blanket close to his chest, but he didn’t wake up.

                “How?” I managed. My throat was still thick with sleep. I yawned and stretched my arms to the ceiling.

                “El and I were bored so we were taking turns going on scavenger hunts and I found a camera that still works,” Ashton smiled. “Say cheese!” he ordered and snapped another picture of me. Elisa squealed and rushed to his side to look at the product.

                “Delete that immediately,” I demanded before even seeing the picture.

                Elisa shrugged. “Not as cute as the one of you and Lukey-Wukey, but still cute,” she decided. I grabbed for the camera but Ashton held it above his head and out of my reach. He turned the camera around and, after sticking his tongue out to the lens, captured a picture of the three of us.

                “Let me see,” I whined. Ashton shoved his handless arm against my chest and held me away while he examined the picture. He smiled.

                “I should totally become a model,” he praised himself. 

                Elisa scoffed. “Yeah, a hand model.”

                Ashton whacked her with the lack of hand she was making fun of. Elisa shrieked and ran behind me, using me as a human shield. I laughed and tried my best to defend her against Ashton.

                “You’ll never get me alive!” she called and dragged me away. Elisa led me around a corner and we ran until we couldn’t hear Ashton’s footsteps anymore. I wondered if Luke was awake yet. Elisa stopped to catch her breath near a display of various types of computer keyboards. I instinctively started tapping the keys at random, pretending that my life had turned out differently.

                “Oh!” Elisa called out suddenly, making me jump. I turned to her. She had a look of pure excitement on her face. “Mouth to mouth!”

                I raised my eyebrow. “Are you hitting on me?”

                Elisa smacked my arm. “No, you’re not my type,” she said without missing a beat. “I mean, like, CPR mouth to mouth!”

                I stared at her blankly.

                “For the cure, dummy,” she elaborated.

                Suddenly everything clicked into place. She wanted to use CPR to resuscitate the Sick. It was both incredibly ingenious and incredibly stupid. “Do you think that would actually work?”

                Elisa shrugged. “Next time we see a Sick, I’ll answer that question.” She started back to our aisle where Luke had finally woken up. We walked in on the boys talking about Calum.