Chapter 7 I stood, peering at Kruger from a safe distance. His face was clean for the first time, his beard tidy, and his complexion calm. If under any other circumstances, I would have found Kruger attractive. His lean build, high cheekbones, and large, intelligent eyes would have made any woman's knees weak. In fact, my own trembling with barely enough strength to stay locked. As I was looking at Kruger, I failed to notice the guard slump forward and begin inching towards his desk. The brief exposure to the Medbay had healed him enough that he could crawl forward and hit the emergency button beneath his desk. Alarms started to sound in the corridor. Frantically, I knocked the guard's head against the corner of the desk with a well-aimed, high-powered kick. The guard fell to the ground, finally dead. I grabbed the gun from his belt and a remote I quickly established was a skeleton key to all the doors leading in and out of this place. With some luck on my side, I decided to flee. I would leave Kruger. I no longer cared about what happened to him now, feeling I had fulfilled my debt to him. As I turned to leave, I felt a strong hand grasp my wrist. Electricity shot through me. My instincts alighted. Vision blurry and red, I wheeled around, viciously slashing through the air with my knife. I felt the gun drop out of my hand and clatter on the floor. Another hand caught my knife wielding hand, and I was immobilized. My eyes began to focus on my incessant and hounding fear staring back at me with a blank, hardened face. Kruger's grimace let me know I was in trouble for my earlier display of insolence. I couldn't help it anymore. I snapped. "What will you do, Kruger?!" Fear evaporated from me. They would kill me for certain, if I was lucky. Fight or flight kicked in, and I had to flee. Now. "Well?! What's it gonna be, swine!" Kruger only glared, holding onto me. He was stalling. My escape time was dwindling. "I just saved your sorry arse! The least you could do is give me a fucking head start!" I glowered at him, no longer feeling like the coward I was this morning. My bravery must've caught Kruger off-guard, for he loosened his grip ever so slightly. That was all I needed to wrench my hand out of his and take off. Gaining my balance, I began to sprint down the hallway, past my cell and beyond. I pressed the button of the skeleton key remote, and sure enough, the door opened. I dashed through, slowing slightly in order to listen for approaching androids. Suddenly, my mouth was clamped shut from behind. I was dragged behind a corner. I kicked and fought, hard, but it was no use. As I struggled, I saw several security droids jog past me and my attacker. With one final buck of my body, I was freed from the arms of my captor. I dove for the throat of whoever it was that caught me, hell-bent on the kill. Expertly, I pinned the assailant to the wall, my knife at their throat. Dark green eyes stared back at me, totally unafraid. Exhale. "Fucker…" Kruger stared back at me from behind my knife, an interested expression on his smug face. "I knew I liked you for a reason, princess," he swaggered. The tip of my knife pressed on his jugular. I was in no mood to be fucked around with. "Try anything and I'll make sure you stay dead." Kruger only smiled amusedly at my death-threat. I released him, concerned with worse threats on my tail. I peered around the corner, looking for security droids. The alarms were still sounding, and a flashing red light emanated through the hallway. I looked back over my shoulder to check Kruger. He had his new katana in his hand, stroking it like a silvery serpent. "I'm gonna rule this place…" I murmured menacingly. "She has to die. Today." I said it as a statement, so no communication errors occurred between me and the cobra. Surprisingly, Kruger nodded solemnly. Perhaps it was the sudden lust for power I had felt since I saw my family killed. Seeing my family die under the hands of the government made me utterly despise Elysium, more so than I had before. I wanted to rule everyone in this bloody paradise, starting with Secretary Delacourt. "You're gonna help me." I made my demand perfectly clear to Kruger. A ruthless killer, but an agent, nonetheless. His jaw clenched. Anything could happen now, but it was what happened next that I couldn't predict. Kruger looked at me blankly; the only hint of an expression was a slight sneer tugging at the corners of his lips, disappearing into his beard. He locked his eyes with mine, then he nodded. Breathing a sigh of relief and after checking once again around the corner, I loped down the hallway. Kruger's heavy footsteps were surprisingly stealthy behind me. Rounding a corner, I almost slammed into a security droid. Before either of us could react, the droid's head had slipped off its metallic shoulders. It clattered to the ground. Jumping over its corpse, I continued to jog down the corridor. Listening for sounds of people screaming, I honed in on the CCB central control room. I had to admit to myself that I was impressed with Kruger. With his killer instinct directed away from me, Kruger was a sight to behold. He truly was a spectacular soldier. The only grievance was that he worked for Delacourt, though now I was skeptical as to where his loyalties lay. "Hea, princess, take his." Kruger handed me a non-specialized handgun, the kinds I was used to using. "It's got t'a kick to it." Kruger thought that I was helpless with a gun because I was from Elysium, wasn't it? That's what he thinks… I thought with contempt. "I think I can handle myself if I've made it this far, thanks very much." I couldn't help but snap at him. The smug look he's had on his face since he awoke annoyed the hell out of me. Sirens continued to blare as we reached the end of the corridor. Another security droid aimed at us. I raised my new weapon and fired at it, hoping to distract the droid while I got to cover. It wasn't a standard bullet that fired from my handgun, but a barrage of them. About a thousand bullets glinted through the air and struck the bot, dismembering it before it hit the ground. The gun smoked, and my mouth gaped. I turned to look at Kruger, who had a silly smile plastered on his face. "Told you so," he chuckled sarcastically. I sneered at him, not wanting to let him know that I was amused at his change in behavior. The sneer hid my smile beautifully. "The central control room is just down here, I recognize these hallways," I noted. Kruger looked questioningly at me. I was just as surprised as he was to hear those words. I couldn't remember all of it, but from what I did piece together, was that I had in fact been here before. It was like déjà vu; a feeling you're unable to place but entirely instinctive and true. I let my instincts lead the way through the winding, metal corridors. I had been jogging ahead of Kruger slightly, not noticing that he had been lagging. if not for the adrenaline and urgency, I would've kept the knife poised just so behind me as a warning. I knew this man was volatile; a bomb waiting to go off. I just couldn't shake this feeling I had. A bold feeling. A longing feeling… "No need for that, princess." I felt Kruger's hand grasp mine that was holding the gun. I realized with a shock I had a white knuckle grip on the trigger guard, with my finger trembling dangerously close to the trigger. He removed the gun from my belt, lowering the barrel forward and toward the floor. "Be a shame to waste such a prize…" Sizzling for a moment, I ripped my hand away. "Fuck you." With a snort, he trotted ahead of me, glancing quickly around each corner. It took me a moment to realize through the feverish electricity that Kruger had saved me again. If I had even accidentally touched the trigger of my weapon, my legs would have been blown off. A prize! My brow furrowed in discontent. Is that what I am to him? I was good at riddles, but this enigma was beyond my comprehension. Why was it that around this man, all my judgment was skewed? It was infuriating. What was even more so, was the dead end I found myself at. Kruger came to a halt in front of me, looking down a single corridor. At the end was a hatch of some sort, not the central control room to the CCB. "What…" I stammered confusedly. Staring ahead of me, I glanced around, looking for any other possible way to go. There were none. I approached the door and tapped it with the edge of my blade. Hopelessness tunneled my vision. Despair clouded my thoughts and blanched my face. My stomach churned menacingly. I was trapped once again. Would I never be free? An enraged wail escaped my throat, several times, from deep in my gut. Kruger looked at me as I wept shameless tears, almost unnerved. My back slid gracefully down the wall as I sunk to the floor. Shivering, huddled against the cold metal, I wept for my freedom now so far gone. "Just kill me…" All hope had since evaporated from my adrenalin state. I just wanted to be dead. Please, I silently begged Kruger, just finish this. He only stood there, looking down at me, then looking at the hatch, then back. Dark waves lapped at the edges of my mind, inviting me to wade in, to give myself over to their suffocating grace. Ages passed before either of us said anything. "Delacourt can wait." I barely had time to register what Kruger said before I heard the scraping metal of the security droids' feet against the floor. They were upon us in minutes, trampling down the hallway like a herd of mechanical bulls. Before I knew what was happening, glaring sunlight hit me like a tractor beam, blinding me momentarily. Then, strong arms scooped me up from the floor and hurled me through the air, into the light.