He Strikes at the Hotel

Chapter Forty Nine

Zachery's face showed no signs of concern at this point, only thoughtfulness as he glared straight ahead through the rusted bars.

"Is this lift the only way of getting back up from the basement?" He asked calmly as we finally started to move away from my two angry captors who were approaching rapidly through their smoke fuelled coughing.

"Yes, I believe so. However, I can't be too sure any more, seeing as surprises keep popping up around here at the moment." I said whilst calming down, feeling my muscles begin to relax slightly as the basement sunk out of sight.

"In that case, let's take it up to the highest floor it will go. Then we can run downstairs to alert Giles and the others. The lift will take longer to get back down there, than for us to run down a couple stairs." Zachery seemed confident in this, which gave me some peace. However, his notion of 'a couple stairs' is a massive understatement.

I agreed with his idea, but had to inform him that the highest level the lift would go was to the second floor. He didn't seem too bothered by this, still believing that gave us adequate time to race downstairs before Jeremy and Jared were able to get to us. I felt much safer now that we were out of the basement. Even if they did get up here and find us, what would they do? It's not as if they could kidnap us both with so many people around without somebody noticing.

Then I thought back to how they crept up behind me and put a chloroform soaked rag in front of my face, enabling them to take me without a sound being made. Even the thought made goosebumps trail down my arms. God, it's like they can go unnoticed at the click of a finger...

In my attempt at reassurance, I ended up making myself even more wary of my surroundings. I have always felt safe in this hotel; it's my home. Now though, I feel like every comfort I have ever known is being ripped away from me by the roots. I haven't even got Nerissa to speak to about any of this, as it would take too long to explain the whole story, and I can't imagine her accepting a single statement like "two crazy men are trying to kill me and Zachery and they are on their way up from the basement right now" without having some sort of back story to accompany it.

We were almost at the second floor. We had just gone past the first and could only be a few feet away from where we needed to be. A few feet away from freedom.

Only a few feet.

As if by a cruel trick played on me by the atmospheric powers watching me, the lift began to judder softly, causing my heart to sink.

"What was that?" I asked, hoping Zachery would be able to give me a quick nod of reassurance, saying it was nothing, that it was completely normal for lifts this old. However, I knew it was never a good sign. The maintenance men are often called out for the lift doing things like this, but I can't imagine them being around at this time of night...

"Well..." Zachery began, before the juddering suddenly became violent, creating a painful screech as the lift came to an alarming halt. "That is most likely a link within the chain getting jammed. If it helps, for as long as we can't move, neither can those two downstairs." Zachery continued, plastering a fake smile over his face.

"How do we fix it? We haven't got that much time. They will find a way out of there, I just know it." I panicked. I wasn't a claustrophobic person, but suddenly the bars of the lift felt as if they were closing in on me. They were laughing at me again, just like the day Zachery arrived. Laughing at my unease, taking as much of my oxygen away as they could.

"I can try and whip the rope to untangle the jam, but I can't promise that it will do much without actually seeing the problem." Zachery sighed, not wanting to dishearten me, even though he was fully aware of how unlikely it was for that to work.

I was beginning to get to the end of my tether. I was not going to allow one more thing to go wrong for us. We had made it so far regardless of everything that has happened, we could not let a stupid chain link, or whatever it was Zachery said, get in the way of me bloody well getting out of this.

"We are only a couple feet from the next floor. Can you climb rope? I'm not sure if I can, but I'll give it a good go. I climbed up beams the other day, this can't be much worse. We need to get out of here." I said, beginning to look up at the vast length of rope above us which extended far into a dark abyss.

"Really? We're really doing this?" Zachery seemed astonished as he frowned. He followed my gaze up towards the ceiling as he took a deep breath in and began rolling up the sleeves of his suit. "Okay then. Shall I go first? Or are you an eager beaver?" He said as he stretched his arms out, cracking his fingers as he did so.

"Be my guest, royalty first." I let out, quite glad he offered to go first.

"You'll be part of it soon enough, Kitten." Zachery pointed out to me, as he held on tightly to the rope and pulled himself up, placing his feet together around the rope underneath him. Even though I was feeling nauseous and was about to climb up a rope for the first time in my life, he was still able to make me feel butterflies and turn my mind to mush with a single sentence.

"Go." I stated, pointing upwards as I myself began to get ready to climb onto the rope and hoist myself up whilst wearing a gown that weighed a tonne. Zachery merely smirked as he looked down at me, then carried on moving up slowly, making sure to keep close to me.

I lifted myself up and held the skirt of the gown between my legs so that I could place my feet on the rope beneath me as Zachery did. I was extremely surprised to find out I wasn't as bad at this as I thought I would be. My arms and hands were burning, but I was managing to keep up with Zachery rather well. After a few strained heaves, Zachery managed to pull himself up and through the hatch of the second floor's lift space. He turned round to look down towards me, where I was only a few centimetres away from joining him.

He reached out his hand for me to grab on to, which I took willingly. As I began pushing against the rope with my feet as Zachery pulled me up towards him, I felt movement.

"Zachery... I-" I began, but before I could finish, there was a clatter coming from below me and the sound of clicking metal. The weight of both of us on the rope must have dislodged the jam to the point where it would work again on some level. I wish it would of done that five minutes ago...

Zachery gripped on tighter as he held my whole arm now, pulling me with all of his remaining energy. As I crawled out onto the floor by him, I felt something on my dress snag against something in the lift. No no no... I thought, as I realised it was part of the train getting caught. I tried pulling it, but it wasn't budging in the slightest.

The lift was slowly moving downwards, pulling my dress along with it. Zachery noticed what was going on, as he began pulling at the train with me. Luckily, his strength paired with my feeble attempts managed to separate me from the lift, but not without a loud tear as the train of the dress got ripped away from me.

"Oh, bloody hell!" I shouted as I began to stand up. Zachery laughed at me in my frustration, finding the funny side to the situation, as he always did.

"I'll get you another one." He said warmly as he tried to stifle his laugh. "Now, let's get down there with everyone else before they do." Zachery looked at me and gave me a cunning smile, like he was looking forward to this. It was as if he was thinking of this as a competition between us, and them. Maybe that's how he is coping with the knowledge that the people who are behind this are two of the closest people to him, by turning it into a game of sorts.

We both began to run down the corridor towards the second floor stairs. We both knew what had to be done and we both knew this was now a race against the clock.

Zachery began to slow his pace suddenly as he asked, "Do you smell that?" Whilst turning his head and sniffing the air like a curious dog.

I hadn't noticed before, but now he had mentioned it, I could smell smoke beginning to make its way up from the basement... It must be coming through the lift.

"The fire!" I exclaimed, now realising it must be spreading pretty quickly for us to be able to smell the smoke up here. "Quick! We need to stop this!" I screamed as we both instantly fastened our pace, blood being drained from both our faces at the thought of what might happen.