It's been years since I last updated and I'm so sorry that life threw me for a curve ball.

The bounds around her wrists have left engraving marks, red and raw as a reminder of her predicament. She doesn't know how long she's been held captive in that dark and isolated room, but she knows the feelings that are flooding her mind, she knows the turning feeling in the pit of her stomach. It's something dark, something primal that has her bruised skin rubbing against her restraints. The fight or flight instinct that's bubbling alive in the pit of her stomach.

She groaned, her wrists raw against the restraints.

And then without a single moment of hesitation, the door swung back open, the raw of light against her eyes was enough to warrant another groan of discomfort. With her eyes squeezed shut, flinching against the sudden light, she felt the breath of another person against her cheek.

"Who are you?" She questioned, her voice strained against the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion.

"It doesn't matter," the voice spoke.

She felt the rough fingers against her shoulders, sliding down her arms, the breath against her ear as the person leaned their body around her own, finger fiddling against the restraints against her wrists. His voice was clear, hushed but frantic, as he fiddled with the rope— almost hopelessly.

"Tell me your name."

It was a request that surprised even herself, a demanding tone that she wasn't used to using. However, in the circumstances she found herself in, it fell passed her lips with such urgency that it was a demand of this other human that she couldn't hold back.

The request— no, demand, halted the hasty attempt at freeing her. His fingertips hesitated over her bonds, fingertips hovering over her wrists.

And when he spoke, it was soft and comforting and something she likened to compassion.

"Sasori." He breathed.

The silence that followed deafened her ears, the sound of his heart beat as his chest pressed against her face, frantic fingers untangling the rope around her wrists. Anxiety, absolute fear, the sound of a beat of heart that was riddled with an urgency of conflict.

"Thank you," she breathed, a sigh of almost relief— though she feared the worst for the man that risked everything to help her escape.

She could have asked him a thousand questions. Why was he helping her? What did he earn from her escape? Why dare he go against his blatantly obvious boss? What was his angle in this dangerous game? So many questions and yet she silenced her thoughts, silenced her words, and allowed him to fumble with the restraints around her wrists.

And as the tray fell the ground, breaking the silence between the two of them, a loud crash that earned a grimace from the both of them, she dared to stay seated— dared to take a deep breath of a hesitation.

"We need to move," he spoke, and it sent a chill down her spine.

The hesitation was apparent in her voice as she spoke.

"What's going to happen to you when she finds out?"

Silence. Absolute and painful silence.

Her eyes had yet to adjust to the sudden light that had flooded from the opened door, a stinging sensation that licked at her exhausted eyeballs.

"Death," he breathed.

And it was as if someone had tied an cement block to hear ankle and dropped her into the angry oceans when he spoke.

Without a doubt, she spoke— absolutely honestly.

"Why are you helping me? If death is the sentence, then why?"

"Because you deserve to live."

His fingers curled around her wrist, and without another moment of hesitation, he yanked her forward, pulled her from the confines of the chair of solitude.

With a stumbling footing, she fell into open arms, and his heartbeat echoed something oddly familiar to the dazed woman, a heartbeat that was strong against her ears, and beckoned her attention. It was a moment of clarity that she had been unaware of until the moment her cheek connected with the fabric of a stranger's shirt, and her ear pressed against his chest and the erratic beat of a fevered heart begged her own to follow suit.

And in the next fleeting moment, the sound of their footsteps echoed throughout the empty hallways— begging for an escape.