Something knocked me off my balance. I stumbled, barely managing to catch myself and stopping an inch short of the nearest bunk bed.

It was at that moment I realised Nick must have let go.

I tried to turn back around to find him– in the end I didn't have a choice; Stephen interposed himself between the two of us and the creature until I was nothing but a shadow against him. An arm coiled around my waist and he pulled me back.

'Hey, hey get off me!' I could hear myself complaining as I immediately started fighting against it in desperation to be released– to go back to help. 'Cutter? Cutter!' 'I looked back over my shoulder just as he fell against the back wall. The creature reared up between us.

'Get her out of here!'

My feet came out from under me and I was carried across the room.

'Cutter? What's going on?' Ryan's voice came up through the radio.

'There's- another creature down here. But don't worry, we're coming up.'

I caught Nick's eye across the bunker. He was trying to say something. I didn't understand. His attention flitted to Stephen and he waved his hand in a way that was presumably telling Stephen to go and leave him behind. But Stephen just stood in front of me presumably hating the idea of leaving Cutter down here as much as I did.

Nick went to look back at the creature but it was gone. Stephen's grip on me slackened and I immediately wrenched myself out of his grip and spun, searching the ground for any indication of where the creature had crawled away to.

'Stephen?' Nick called out to him. 'Stephen can you see it?'

'No!' Stephen's panicked reply echoed back. I drew my gaze up; I couldn't shake the feeling that I was in a horror show and as any decent horror fan knew when the monster isn't behind you, it's above you getting ready to drop. I followed along the line of scales on it back to its head just as it coiled in preparation to pounce.

'Stephen!'

Stephen's hand slammed down against my chest and he pushed me back until I toppled into a pile of stacked papers on the floor. He grabbed a hold of a jerry can from the ground and swung at the creature.

Then I heard a whistle from somewhere across the room. My heart sank, I pushed myself back up to my feet but I wasn't quick enough because Nick already had the creature's attention and it had turned it's whole body towards him.

'Go!'

'Nick!' Stephen replied.

'Go! Go! Get her out of here.'

'No!' I started to move, quickly shifting off my back foot to start running across the room. I never got the opportunity. An arm caught me around my waist again and my feet were pulled off the ground, then he ducked, grabbing me beneath the arm and pulling me over his shoulder and as he rose to full height again I was carried with him. I didn't stand a chance, Stephen carried me out of the room and slammed the door closed behind us.

'We've got to go.' He exclaimed, and carried me back the way we came.

'Put me down!' I demanded, hammering my fists against his back. 'Put me down, Stephen! I swear to god. Put me down–'

'No chance,' he replied as he retreated back down the hallway towards the tracks.

I punched him again, kicking my legs, digging my elbows into his back in a way I hoped was really painful, and I didn't stop screaming or fighting against him until we were back on the street outside the tube station.

He practically threw me down in the open boot of one of the trucks, and, despite his own annoyance at his inability to do anything that could help Cutter, Stephen sat down beside me.

It was brave. I was furious, but for some reason my anger made me freeze and all I did was ball up glare at him.

'Cutter? Come in!' Ryan spat into his radio as he crossed behind the back of the truck, pacing, whilst his frustration festered further. '...All I'm getting is interference.'

'Could he have found another way? Another tunnel?' Stephen questioned. Presumably concerned by my silence he chanced a look at me but I didn't respond. An arm stretched out across the boot of the truck behind me.

'Look,' Ryan returned, lifting a leg to hop up onto the tailgate beside us and reach for a map further back, 'there's no other way out.' He dragged it towards him and unfolded it with a shake off his head. 'These tunnels were blocked 30 years ago.'

'We need to get him back,' I said.

'Obviously,' Stephen retorted. 'Look he's got to be trapped,' Stephen said. His hand made contact with the small of my back, his thumb dug in to my hip and circled a pattern in what I assume was an attempt to calm me, but I could feel myself growing more irritated because of it.

'I'm going back in.' I was suddenly back on my feet but before I could take a single step, Ryan cut me off.

'No,' he snapped, 'no-one goes anywhere until we know what we're dealing with.'

'He could be injured,' Stephen shrugged. The prospect made my jaw tighten and I felt the desire to hurt something flood through my body. The anticipation suddenly made me itchy. I needed him to be safe.

'I don't want to leave him down there anymore than you do,' Ryan embellished, 'but I'm not losing anyone else on this wild goose chase. We don't even know for sure where he is. Did you see what kind of creature it was?'

'Oh some kind of centipede!' Stephen groaned, throwing his hands into his hair to give them something to do.

Ryan looked to me. 'Come on then, Doolittle, give us something that will help.'

'Centipedes use their antennae to hunt, they're sensitive to tactile information, and smells,' I explained. I had to pause to take a deep breath, 'if Nick's hurt, the smell of the blood...'

'Anymore like preferred habitat, behavioural patterns, strengths, weaknesses?' Ryan attempted to coerce out of me.

'It's all in the database. That's what it was for,' I snapped, 'I can't fucking think, right now! I need-' I needed to feel like I was doing something.

'Where's the database?' Ryan returned.

'Connor's got it,' Stephen resumed calmly. Then he exhaled a breath of laughter, 'He probably has giant bug fridge magnets, right?'

He glanced to me as if in confirmation but I did nothing.

'Okay. Okay I'll get him here.' Ryan finished, tossing the crumpled map down beside Stephen on the tailgate before he marched over to a group of men standing around another vehicle.

There was a brief intermission of silence between my steadying heartbeat and shaking limbs, where Stephen reached for the upturned map and pulled it onto his lap. 'I can't leave him in there,' he announced.

'You can't go down there without back up,' I responded, chewing the inside of my cheek. 'If you go, I'm coming with you.'

'That's ridiculous' he tutted back.

'What, you think that you'll magically be able to save him just because you're a man?'

He tutted again in response. 'You aren't going back down there. I'll go alone.'

'Now's who's being ridiculous! Besides, how are you gonna stop me?'

His eyes flickered over me in amusement, before he shot up, grabbed a hold of my wrist and yanked me towards him. I stumbled, and using this to his advantage Stephen hooked his other arm around my ankles, hoisting me up before he dumped me inelegantly back in the boot of the truck. And he slammed the boot closed.

As I scrambled to get back to the window, our eyes met through the glass and I summoned my most demonic stare. 'Stephen!' I yelled, slamming my fists against the glass and making him recoil with shock. 'Let me out!' I warned. 'Let me out! You can't do this on your own!'

'Watch me,' He shouted before, with a wink, he turned on his heel and sprinted back to the tube entrance.

'Stephen!' I boomed. 'You're going to get yourself killed!' There was no way he could still hear me. He disappeared down the steps to the platform and I turned away from the back of the truck and crawled towards the back of the seats in the vehicle. I posting myself through the gap between the headrests, flopped onto the back seats and immediately dove for the door handle.

But the door was locked. I shuffled around, lining my legs up with the door to give it a few well-placed kicks in the hope it would fly open, but nothing happened. I felt myself sighing, as I coiled an arm around the headrest of the seat in front for something to hold onto as I repositioned myself, this time lifting my leg higher to kick the window. This time, first time, the glass smashed. The car alarm started blaring, but I tuned it out as I swung my body through the window and clambered out.

I reached for the radio behind my ear but it because it wasn't there, so I looked for the next closest one to me. A large group of soldiers were still standing around another truck up the road, heads all turned to the noise of the alarm and shards of glass smashing under my feet. I made for them.

They were all still staring at me like I was possessed when I reached them and burst into their group, holding out a hand to simply demand 'radio, radio!' and one of them tore theirs from behind their ear so quickly he could have pulled his ear off with it, before he dropped it into my hand.

I raised it to my mouth. 'Stephen?' I waited for a moment to give him a chance to reply before I tried again, but there was no reply so I ran closer to the entrance to the station to give the signal a better chance of reaching him.

'Stephen, where are you, you fucking–'

'What's he done?' Ryan's unimpressed– slightly exasperated– voice cut through behind me and I turned. I had the audacity to wonder how he realised something was wrong for a couple of seconds until I tuned into the squealing car alarm and remembered that I hadn't at all been subtle, and without a word I just handed the radio to him.

'Stephen where the hell are you?' he demanded. The same way I did, he waited a moment for Stephen to reply but nothing came back.

'I know he's an idiot but he was just trying to help.'

'Well, he's done a really great job, hasn't he?' Ryan replied. 'Stephen come in. Stephen!?' We shared a passive moment of worry before I watched his anger cloud his features. 'That's the problem with heroic gestures, succeed and you look wonderful. Fail and all you do is leave everyone else the bloody mess to clear up.' He growled, then turning to the soldiers by his side he pointed down to the staircase to the tube platform. 'Get down there.'

'I'm coming with you!' I said as I matched Ryan's steps across the street to his gear, reaching out for the radio he was only half arsing an attempt at passing to me.

'Are you kidding me?' He snapped back. 'Absolutely not, I don't need to be worrying about you as well.' He scooped up a weapon and a torch from the floor and clipped them onto his vest.

'You're just going to leave me up here while they're both lost down there?'

'Yes. Don't even think about following us, stay here, stay safe and for gods sake stop that bloody car alarm it's really pissing me off!'

Frowning, I followed him to the entrance as the soldiers starting funnelling down the staircase. 'I don't have the keys!' As he started down the stairs I slowed to a stop. 'Ryan!?' I called angrily after him. 'Ryan, who's got the keys?'

There was nothing breakable within an arm's reach so instead, chewing on my bottom lip, I settled for glaring at the back of Ryan's retreating head until I couldn't see him anymore.

Feeling pretty much abandoned on the roadside I turned my back to the stations' staircase and almost immediately located Connor winding his way through the crowds of vehicles. 'Connor!' I exclaimed in relief.

He dropped his bag when I reached him and threw both his arms around me in a hug that cracked most of the bones in my spine.

'Hey, you okay? What's going on?' he asked as he pulled away. I didn't know where to start.

'I barely saw it,' I explained, watching Connor reach down into his bag and pull out his laptop to rest against the bonnet of the nearest vehicle. 'But we think the anomaly's carboniferous and it looked like some kind of Chilopoda, maybe even Myriapoda only way, way bigger. Ryan's gone to get Stephen, and he went in to get Nick. Nick's trapped down there,' I babbled.

'Nick?' Connor repeated, as his brow furrowed and the keys on his keyboard start clicking.

'Nick,' I clarified, 'Cutter. The professor.'

'The professor?' Connor repeated again then glanced to me as if he could sense the issue I wasn't even aware was developing. 'Anna, Why are you calling him that?'

Shrugging, I gestured for him to hurry up but he just smirked and kept typing. 'I don't know.'

'You know it's okay, right?'

I didn't need him to clarify anything else, because I knew immediately what he was talking about and it was extremely unhelpful. 'I have a boyfriend.'

He looked back at me. 'You've got to stop using that as an excuse.'

I pointed at the screen, 'come on.'

I saw him roll his eyes, but he said nothing more until he'd typed all the information into the database and pulled up the information.

'Have you got a radio?'

'Here,' I tucked it over his ear, 'all you need to do is talk, Ryan will hear you.'

'Ryan,' Connor said sceptically, 'you there?' he must have received a reply, because after that he kept talking. 'Great, I've got the information you wanted. It's an Arthropleura, a centipede on steroids basically, more or less blind, good sense of smell and touch. This thing is pretty big and scary looking but it's more or less timid. It's that kind of bug that would stick to the kitchen at parties.' He paused again as Ryan replied. 'According to this it would have eaten dead wood and leaves...No way.'

'No way what?' I questioned with a frown, until filling in the gaps I concluded, 'you mean it isn't poisonous?'

A commotion over my shoulder caught my attention as people started streaming out of the station entrance, and I began searching for Cutter and Stephen among them. 'Nope.' Connor answered, but I was immediately doubtful of the accuracy of his statement.

'Perhaps you should tell Stephen that,' I said.

Someone shouted for a medic and a moment later I found myself at the gurney as Cutter lowered Stephen onto it. I barely had a moment to register the relief that Nick was okay– we shared a fraction of a second of eye contact– before my attention turned to focus solely on Stephen.

Stephen's arm shot out, making me jump as his hand wrapped tightly around my wrist.

'Anna?' he croaked.

But I was still annoyed about pretty much everything he'd done today and tugged my arm back out his grasp. 'He's been bitten by the Arthropleura?' I pulled back a loose scrap of ripped fabric on his arm to reveal an oozing wound.

'Same one, same symptoms as the pest controller,' Nick nodded, 'we need to do something before it destroys his central nervous system. The spiders are off the hook it's the centipede that's the killer.'

'Not poisonous you said!' I hadn't noticed Ryan standing behind me until I heard his unimpressed voice addressing Connor.

'I was only speculating,' Connor clapped back, 'is he going to be okay?'

I shook my head. 'No, unless we find a way to help him we know what's going to happen. We need to get him to the hospital right now.' The sound of me speaking must have encouraged Stephen to have another go at grabbing onto me, only this time I was ready for his flailing limbs and I managed to step back out of reach. 'If you weren't dying right now, Stephen, I'd kill you,' I said, the alarm still screeching in reminder.

'I was trying to keep you safe, you know, it's romantic.' He mumbled.

His statement took me aback. I guess in the classic romance novel I was the damsel in distress and he the knight in shining armour and we would be falling in love but in a strange twist of events it wasn't him I was stealing away with to the haybarn.

'Who was keeping you safe, Stephen?' I returned.

The paramedics began to pull his gurney back towards the ambulance.

'Tell them about Helen,' Stephen said. The name made my head snap up from him to Cutter, who immediately released his hold on the gurney as his face fell. 'She was there.'

Nick stopped dead in his tracks and I looked back at him. 'What's he talking about?' I asked, slowing to a stop myself.

He took a moment to compose himself, and he swallowed before he formulated his reply. 'I don't know.' He admitted. 'He must be hallucinating.'

'He seemed fairly lucid to me!' Ryan replied.

'Anna?' I turned my head in annoyance back to Stephen. 'Anna? Anna!'

I ducked between the ambulance staff and stopped at his side. 'Hey Stephen.' Hot looked feverish. I doubted he was anywhere as lucid as he seemed, and reached out to check his temperature with the back of my hand but quickly pulled it away. He was burning up.

'You know you look really beautiful?' he stammered.

'You're delirious,' I told him. To my surprise he managed to chuckle at my words. I reached for the torn fabric covering the wound again and lifted it. I couldn't help but wince. That in itself looked painful.

'Have dinner with me?'

'We'll talk about it when you're better,' I replied. My bedside manner was pretty good, considering. I was pretty good at knowing what to say to shut people up quickly.

'I can't wait that long.'

'Of course I will then,' I said, without a second thought. He tried to nod, but the effort alone seemed too much for him and his eyes rolled back in his head. Immediately, my hands went to his wrists to hold him down in fear he would start convulsing. 'But just dinner, no coffee, and definitely no breakfast.'

'I'll make you pancakes,' he said.

'I hate pancakes.'

'You're gonna break my heart,' he joked. Then a hiss of pain split his lips. 'It's amazing how you see this stuff when you're dying.'

'You're not going to die, Stephen!' I assured him. The paramedics pulled his gurney up into the back of ambulance I found his hand with my own and squeezed. 'I'm not going to let that happen.'

A hand landed on my shoulder and I jumped, turning back to find Nick standing right behind me. It wasn't until then that I considered how much of my conversation with Stephen he'd heard. Any animosity wasn't present in his voice but his stance seemed almost protective, I just wasn't mad at that. 'We're going with him,' he told me, and though it wasn't a question I nodded.

'Okay.' I quickly looked him up and down– scanning his body for any signs of any possible injuries he could have attained down there but my attention was quickly pulled back up to his face as he tutted. He knew what I was doing.

'I'm fine, Anna. I promise.'

'Are you sure?'

Nick just smiled calmly back at me, his hadn't shifted up from my shoulder to cup my cheek gently and he took half a step in.

Panic flooded through me. He was going to kiss me.

Instinctively I stepped back without even thinking.

It took a moment for me to realise what had happened. With a guilty sort of realisation my brow furrowed and I shut my eyes so that I didn't have to look at him as I apologised . 'I'm sorry,' I muttered.

'No, no,' he returned, 'its fine.'

'No, it's not,' I finished as I backed up towards the ambulance, 'there's– I need– it's complicated but... it's not you.'

'It's okay.'

'I can explain but let's just get through this first.'

He nodded understandingly and gave me a soft smile. I climbed up into the back of the ambulance and he followed.