There was another bottle of water at the last work station. I picked it up and curiously glanced at the computer screen to see Mark locked in a cell similar to the one I had occupied. I moved the mouse hoping to enlarge the screen and was surprised when a different room came into view. The room was definitely not in this building. The rich exterior and massive size of the room made me think of a ballroom you would find in a mansion on television. The room was richly decorated, but that was not what grabbed my attention.

The image showed two individuals reclining on leather sofas that sat in the far corner of the massive room reading. Could they be the missing pair that Russo raised as his own children? I stared at them for a few minutes wondering what their fate would be. Finally, I dragged myself from the screen; getting out of here was more important now.

I cautiously headed down the hallway, pausing at each door to listen for any signs of the goons that were holding us hostage. If it was silent, I would try the door knob. The first one I tried was locked. I made a mental note that Mark might be locked in there and moved on to the next one, but it was locked also.

“Crap,” I said, quietly moving on. The next three were also locked. Finally, trying the fifth door, the knob turned. I opened the door and recognized the room I had spent the first thirty six or so hours locked-up in. Moving on, I tried the next door which also opened when I turned the knob. The room appeared to be a supply closet. I gave the room a quick once over and then shut the door. I finally hit the end of the hallway which split off in two directions. I was just about to go right when I heard footsteps.

I quickly darted back the way I had come; I ducked into the supply room, and closed the door softly. I pressed my ear against the door and listened to the footsteps as they passed by. Another set followed closely behind with another behind them. I could hear their conversations as my captors headed back to the lab.

I waited. I knew I needed to get out of the supply room before they discovered I was missing. My hand was on the door knob and I was starting to turn it when I heard several more sets of footsteps.

I released a hiss of air. That was a close one.

I waited a few more seconds then turned the knob; I stepped out of the room and looked in both directions. The coast was clear. I took off down the hallway as the adrenaline raced through my veins propelling me forward. I hit the fork in the hallway and turned to the right, running at a pace that was unfamiliar to me. It was as if my feet had been given a boost, they propelled me full force down the hallway. Before all of this, I would have said my body was using my adrenaline as energy, but I now believed a higher force was helping me.

The long hallway ended with a door. I twisted the knob cautiously and stepped out of the hallway into the room. It was another room like the lab except it was occupied by a small Cessna plane. I had been right when I thought the lab looked like an aircraft hangar. I rushed across the large space and headed out the door that had an exit sign lit up over it.

I made it, I thought stepping out into the brilliant sunlight. Now I needed to locate a phone and call Shawn and Sam. I would need their help if I was going to help Mark.

I looked back with a pang. I hated to walk even a step further away from Mark, but I knew I must if I was going to save him.

I rushed around the side of the hangar and stopped dead in my tracks.

I had found Bruno.

Chapter 13

Bruno was leaning against a white Ford F-150 smoking a cigarette. He dropped the cigarette when he spotted me. I made eye contact with him and saw him jerk his head slightly toward the direction I had just come.

I backed away slowly and gave him a small smile of thanks. Once I was back around the corner, I headed in the opposite direction. I took off at a fast trot and rounded the next set of aircraft hangars and spotted an airport office up ahead. I marveled when once again I was able to run at a pace that would have made a track star’s jaw drop. I reached the door and opened it slowly. I cautiously walked into the small space, finding the office was empty.

I closed the door behind me and franticly searched for a phone. My heart raced when I spotted a dirty white clunky phone on the corner of the desk. I picked up the receiver and went weak with relief when I heard the dial tone.

I punched in Sam’s cell phone with clumsy fingers. The phone rang and was picked up instantly.

“We’re sorry the number you dialed is not in service, please check the number and try again,” a recorded voice said.

My heart sank.

I tried again. This time I took my time and the number went through. The phone rang twice before it was answered on the other end.

“Hello,” Sam said.

I could have wept with joy at the sound of Sam’s voice.

“Sam, it’s me.”

“Krista? Thank God, we have been worried sick! Where are you?” Sam said in a rush.

“We were kidnapped! I need your help, they still have Mark locked up,” I told her urgently.

“Where are you?” Sam asked.

“At some aircraft ha…” My words were cut off as the phone went dead.

Dread filled my whole body, but it was easy to fight it back. For the first time in my life, I was in charge of my emotions. I turned and faced the door bracing my hands on the desk behind me. As the knob was turning, I felt the cool metal of some kind of tool where my left hand had landed. I slid the tool into the waistband of my scrubs just as the door swung open.

Bruno’s almost twin James was standing in the doorway. I tried to back away from his grasp, but the desk stopped my backward motion.

James seized my arm and dragged me out of the office. With his other hand he dragged a radio out of his pocket. Pressing the buttons, he paused. “I got her she was trying to make a call, but I cut the lines just in time.”

“Take her to her mate. We will be taking care of them tonight. I’m done with these games,” Amanda said on the other end.

James grabbed me by my arm and started to drag me back in the direction I had just escaped from. Though they had found me, I felt a rush of excitement from Amanda’s words. She told him to take me to Mark, in a few moments I would see him. It had been over forty eight hours since I had last seen him in the flesh, and not in a dream state.

I kept my eyes open, observing my surroundings as James continued to drag me back into the building. I was soon in the familiar hallway where my own cell was located. James walked a few more doors down and paused at the first door I had tried earlier during my flight down the hall.

He paused and used his free hand to pull a gun out of the waistband of his pants.

I gasped when I saw it. I had seen guns before on T.V, or on a policeman’s belt, but I had never been this close to one.

James pointed the gun at me and told me not to move as he released me so he could unlock the door. Once the door was unlocked, he told me to open it. I twisted the knob at the same time that James pushed me through the door. He kept the gun pointed at my head.

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot her,” he said as he backed out of the door.

My eyes met Mark’s as James backed up out of the door. Mark looked ready to spring, but stayed put when he spotted the gun pointed at my head. James cleared the doorway and slammed the door behind him, engaging the lock.

Mark rushed over to my side and dragged me into his arms. He buried his face in my hair and ran his hands over my arms and down my back looking for injuries.

“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.

“Yes, I’m fine, believe it or not, except for sores from the sensors, I feel kind of great.”

Mark pulled back slightly, looking confused.

“You do look good. I have been so worried about you. We’ve been here for over forty eight hours. I expected you to be as ill as you were where when your mom kept us apart.”

“I was, but last night in the dream when the wall disappeared, I felt a lot of the sickness leave me. At first I thought the feeling would disappear when I woke, but it didn’t, in fact I started to regain all of the strength I had lost. We did something in the dream. I think it happened when I talked about us opening our minds. It’s like we opened a locked cabinet, we took control over our dreams. I think if we survive this, we will not be pulled apart anymore. It was like our dreams were trying to give us a warning that something bad was going to happen to us.”

“You mean that our dreams somehow saw the future?” Mark asked skeptically.

I laughed at his tone. “You’re going to doubt that when all of this has happened? We defy the norm on everything. I have found out so much in the last two days. Like the fact that some kind of celestial beings sent us here to protect humanity. Dreams that could tell us our future seemed like small potatoes in comparison.”

Mark looked at me, intrigued.

I became self-conscious with him looking at me like that.

“What?” I said.

“You seem almost energized like you’re riding high or almost happy about something, you’re glowing. You look absolutely beautiful.”

I assessed his words, he was right, I did feel energized. Maybe it could be left over from the adrenaline rush from earlier, but even though we were locked up and facing a threat, I felt oddly happy, almost like everything was okay.

“I think it’s because I’m with you. Even though I know we probably won’t make it through the night, I’m okay with it as long as I am with you. It’s only when I’m away from you that I feel so lost. The only thing that would make this better is if I had a chocolate candy bar,” I said playfully.

Mark smiled at my comment.

He pulled me even tighter into his arms; it would have been painful if it didn’t feel so right. I felt him brush a kiss across the top of my head. “I’m glad you’re with me too.”

I looked around the room for the first time and laughed. Mark must have had many fits of rage. The bed, which was no longer sitting normal, had countless restraints still hanging off it. It looked more like it had been tossed in a trash compactor. The metal was bent at odd angles that made it look more like a jungle gym than a cot.

“Rearranging your room?” I asked with another giggle in my voice.

Mark smiled slightly embarrassed. “That’s why James pointed the gun at your head. They don’t trust me; he thought I would rush him even with him holding a gun. They have tried to weaken me, but the more time that passes, the more frequent the rage comes on. I think I scare them,” he said with a smile as he bent the metal of the bed as close as he could back to its original position.

I sat on the edge of the now rickety bed as he held my hand. I filled him in on my morning excursion; making it outside of the building and discovering that we were being held at some kind of storage hangar for airplanes. I then told him about finding the phone, but being cut off before I could tell Sam more about our location.

“I’m proud of you, but I can’t believe you put yourself in that kind of danger, you should have fled as soon as you hit daylight.”

I looked at him with disbelief. “You think I would have left without you? I told you before, I can’t live without you. Would you have left me?”

“That’s different. I’m the guy, it’s my job to protect you, and in case you missed it, I’m doing a lousy job of it. You’re out there trying to find a way out for us while I sit in here cooling my heels,” he said with barely controlled frustration.

I placed my hands on his chest to neutralize his anger. “We may only have a few hours left. I don’t want to spend them in anger and frustration. I want us to make the most of our time together,” I said in a pleading voice.

Mark rested his hands on top of mine. I could feel the heat of his body. I felt a light blush approach as I thought of how alone we were. I was suddenly filled with the feeling of wanting to be with him as much as I could be. I had always said I would wait until marriage, but what if they did kill us tonight. We would never discover the true feeling of being together in the fullest sense.

I looked up and could see the same thoughts mirrored in his eyes as he reached the same conclusion as me. He leaned forward and placed his warm lips on mine. It was like being lost in the desert and finding an oasis waiting for you. I locked my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Drinking greedily, I took everything his kiss had to offer. I felt more in tune with him than ever before. I opened my mind finally finding the key and our thoughts merged. The kiss deepened and without even realizing it I was lying down with Mark sprawled on top of me. My lips parted as he deepened the kiss even further. My thoughts were wrapped around Mark’s as we discovered the joy of each other’s lips. We had never kissed this intensely. I saw his desire in his thoughts mirrored my own.

Mark left my lips and found his way to my neck. I leaned my head back as his lips found the pulse in my neck.

“I hate to break-up the love fest,” a snide voice said behind us.

It took us a few moments to return from the place we had journeyed to with the kiss. Finally, we realized we were no longer alone. Mark pulled back and looked behind him. I looked over his shoulder and saw James standing in the doorway.

I should have been embarrassed that he caught us in such a compromising position, but I didn’t. Instead, I felt disappointed that we were interrupted. I knew I told my mom I wanted to wait, but that was before all of this. Besides, half the girls in my old school had already done it numerous times; I was one of the few that had waited. This was probably the last time we would ever be together and we had been interrupted.

My mind picked up Mark’s thoughts and I saw that he was disappointed also. How ironic that we had figured out how to read each other’s thoughts when it was too late.

“Get up,” James said, pointing the gun at us.

I sat forward and felt something dig into my back. The screwdriver, I had forgotten about it. I spent half a second trying to figure out how to send the signal to Mark until I realized he already knew. I felt his hand slide into the back of my pants and dip below the waistband.

“I don’t want to distract you,” James said pointing the gun at us.

By the time we were on our feet, Mark had successfully stashed the screwdriver in his pocket. His pants were baggy enough with oversized pockets, that the screwdriver was almost completely concealed.

James kept the gun pointed at my head. He was smart enough to know that Mark would not risk my life that way. We shuffled out the door and made our way down the rest of the hallway and into the lab.

Amanda was in the corner with Mark’s dad.

Mark paused, willing his dad to look our way. If he was reading our thoughts he gave no indication. I couldn’t help wondering if he would still destroy us. Hadn’t we given him what he had strived for? We had shown him we could become stronger.