I know it's short, but I promise there are more coming soon, they just need some editing first. Read and Review as always. Enjoy, and thanks for being such awesome fans!

It was 52 seconds before I felt his presence. But I didn't let those 52 seconds go to waste. Instead I managed to ascertain several crucial pieces of information. First, that the room had no security cameras. Second, that the only entrance or exit was the one Caroline Goode had left through, protected by retinal scanner. And last, but certainly not least, my hands were tied to a metal pipe with vents on it. A metal pipe with a button directly under the knot of my rope. Caroline Goode's "security measures".

And then I felt him, somewhere behind and above me. And then I heard his voice.

"Cam," he called softly, and I twisted my head as far in his direction as I thought was safe, carefully watching the knot above my head.

"Don't move," he called. "It's booby trapped."

Well, duh, I thought to myself. A pipe with vents that doesn't connect to the central air system can only really mean one thing: Poison.

I felt him coming closer, walking gently on the pipes that hung from the ceiling until he was finally shuffling along the one above my head.

"Did she hurt you?" he demanded, placing his hand on mine, which was still tied to the pipe.

"Not yet," I answered. "I was able to keep her talking."

"We were right?"

"About the chip?" I answered. "Yeah."

"But you know where the real one is, right?"

"Yeah," I said quietly. "It's not going to be easy to get our hands on though."

"What…" Zach started, but we could hear footsteps coming from the corridor outside the room, and he muttered a curse under his breath. "We've got to get you out of here. It's a pulley system," he explained. If you pull your hands down, you hang yourself, and if you try to pull away, your hands lift you higher. And the button releases the poisoned gas if the pressure on the rope changes."

"Great," I said, "Can you beat it?"

"You can with two people," he answered. "I'm going to pull on the one with your hands and cut it off below my hold."

"We're running out of time," I reminded.

He gripped the rope above where my hands were tied, applying pressure and then slicing the rope below his hold. I spun, caught the knife he dropped, and gripped the rope behind my neck, slicing it below my hands. Maintaining the pressure on the sensor.

"Hold on, Cam," he said. "I'm coming down."

"How do we get out without setting it off?"

"We don't," he answered. "I'll take both ends. Find something to tie to each end."

The first place I looked was the table near the center of the room. The one where Caroline Goode had gotten her knife from. And I wasn't disappointed.

It may have looked like an ordinary toolbox, but I knew there were plenty of alternative uses for every tool that was present. I settled on a heavy wrench and a power drill, weighed them in my hands for a moment, and tied each to one end of Zach's rope while he maintained the pressure. We carefully wrapped them together, so neither one would fall too far, and then we let go. And the gas didn't release.

"Now what?"

"We wait for her to come back," Zach said. "And then we get the chip. And then we run."

And then I heard it. That almost silent whooshing that meant it was all over. Zach spun, locking eyes with me.

"Zach…"

"Cammie, stay with me," he ordered, grabbing me and pulling me close. "There's an antidote, there is. And I'm sure she has it somewhere. I'm sure of it."

I didn't feel like I was dying. I felt a little dizzy, a little tired, but that was all. At least to start with.

"How long do we have?" I asked quietly.

"There's about half an hour before the full paralysis sets in," he answered, his eyes boring into mine. "But your mind is still clear, that's the torture of it. Then the real pain starts, and it can last for up to twelve hours. But you usually give in long before that."

A shudder ran through him, but something just wasn't making sense to me.

We'd beaten the pulley. It had been a solid thirty seconds between the moment when Zach had let go of the rope and the moment the gas was released.

"We beat it," I muttered, dumbfounded. "We couldn't possibly…"

"Cam," Zach said quietly, the intensity in his eyes undeniable. "We didn't set it off. She did."