I almost gave up.

A part of me wondered if he'd made it out, if he was already waiting for me up there on the surface, but the rational part of my brain, the part that knew Nick Cutter too well told me he was down here somewhere looking for me.

I'd turned a corner too quickly back there, and only found out all the creatures were roaming around down here too when I skidded to a stop face-to-face with a raptor. I'd missed all the fun in the shopping centre, so why not now. It seemed fair. And the best way to survive a fight with a raptor was to get out of its way.

I waited one out for three days up a tree.

Another time I'd jumped a cliff. Barely made it, winded myself when I landed with the edge jabbing deep into my stomach.

But I'd only just got away this time too. I'd used the pipes of the wall as leverage, and jumped off them, swinging up and onto the cylindrical tanker and sliding over the top to drop down to safety on the other side.

But I hadn't seen any sighs of Nick anywhere. I started on the bottom level and made my way up, but even I knew it was getting too dangerous, and as I approached the final floor before ground-level I told myself that I'd go out, get back-up if he wasn't there, and come back.

I wasn't going to give up on him.

I ran up the final staircase, so focused on crossing the stairwell as quickly and quietly as possible, that I hadn't heard the voices over my straining to detect how loud my own footsteps were.

As I jumped up the final step, ran out across the landing towards the doorway back onto the corridors, someone said my name. 'Anna?'

I jumped, reeling around so quickly my hair whipped me in the face, and it took me a second to realise he was there, standing on a stairwell across from me, holding onto the railing so tightly I was surprised it hadn't bent between his hands.

My chest rose and fell a couple more times, my breathing still so erratic I couldn't find the air to speak. 'Stephen?' I finally questioned.

There was a look in his eye, an intense disbelief and relief mixed up in a cocktail of desperation, as suddenly he was moving, crossing the landing with a few long strides.

I frowned, 'what– whoa!' He grabbed me, hauled me up into his arms in a huge hug that expanded around me. My feet came off the ground, against my will, and I had nowhere to put my hands except against his lapels. 'What are you doing?' He ducked his head, pressed his forehead against my shoulder and squeezed his arms tighter around my waist.

'I thought you were dead.'

'Uh– why– what?' I questioned in confusion. He set me back down on the floor, pulling back, but keeping his attention locked firmly on my face. 'Where the hell did you hear that?'

I hadn't noticed her at all. Honestly she should have slipped away into the shadows whilst Stephen was distracted because that would have been the clever thing to do. But Helen Cutter wasn't clever. Not really.

As she stepped forward, and the light illuminated her face, I sighed.

'So,' she called, 'you got away from the sabretooth then? I'm sorry Stephen, I thought– she was trapped with it– I thought it had torn her apart. That must have been some fight, Princess.'

My eyes narrowed, an immediate sour taste forming in my mouth. 'Don't–' I shook my head, she wasn't worth talking to. I kept half my attention on her but turned to Stephen. 'Can't you see that? She's manipulating you.'

His gaze flitted from me back to her.

'Don't listen to her Stephen–'

'Oh shut up,' I said, 'shut up! Don't embarrass yourself. You told him I was dead, but I'm not so your hands in the jar. Can't explain that. You shouldn't try to because you aren't that good an actress and you really aren't that good a liar.'

'Where's Lester?'

Stephen's question brought my head back round to him and I had to blink a couple of times to clear my own confusion. 'You didn't– you didn't even tell him–'

'Tell me what?'

'Lester's back at the A.R.C, this has got nothing to do with him. It's Leek,' I said, 'Leek is the one behind all of this, and she's been giving the orders.'

A door slammed somewhere close by, and grabbing a hold of Stephens arm I pulled him back suddenly against the wall. It could be anything. A predator. A raptor. The Smilodon. A guard.

If I had to go I'd rather it not be a gun.

At the sound of footsteps following, I felt my nose twitch. Well then, I wasn't going down without a fight.

Just as the body stepped through onto the landing, I leapt forward, catching the neck and whipping my knife up towards the larynx in warning, before I even saw who it was. A moment later I gasped. 'Fuck!' The knife clattered down to the ground and I let go of his neck as my hands pulled back so quickly I almost flinched myself, 'Nick I am so s–'

His lips slammed against mine, his hand reaching out to grab the back of my head and hold me against him, as every inch of fear, and stress, and aggression seeped through his body and boiled against my skin.

He pulled back, his eyes met mine, and I reached up in surprise to press a hand over my mouth. 'Wha– what was that for?'

He exhaled, similarly breathless and panting from the exertion. His lips turned up into a broad grin. 'Oh god, absolutely nothing,' he said.

I could feel his weight against me, my arms doing a better job at holding him up than his own legs were and when I hiked my arm up under his shoulder he hissed. 'You okay?'

'I got…' he gestured limply. 'Thrown against a wall,' he said. 'Predator. Its dead.'

I nodded, 'good. Hey, look who I found.'

He brought his attention up to Stephen, a civility calmly flashing in his eyes, and he was halfway through a nod before he suddenly looked back over my shoulder and went rigid with rage.

I'd forgotten all about Helen.

'Not you too,' he said, as he brought the furious stare back to Stephen. 'Don't tell me you knew about this.'

I saw Stephen shake his head from my peripherals. 'I have never seen this place before in my life.'

'I told you the truth Stephen, Lester brought me here!'

'She told me you were dead,' Stephen replied. 'That you were all dead. And I thought…'

'You ask her, ask her about what she really wanted to do, ask her about Leek, ask about how many people were gonna die.'

'Leek?' Stephen repeated again, in realisation. 'Oh god, Helen, I so badly wanted to believe in you.' He rounded on Nick. 'But that doesn't put you in the right.'

I shook my head. 'Don't you get it, Stephen? This is just about terror. They want to conform the world from the inside out. The people will know; they'll know what's coming for them.'

'Stephen there is a whole army of predators in here!' My head whipped around to Nick. '…if anyone of them make it above ground there won't be anyone left. Now if you wanna help people we have to do this.'

'They're too powerful, Nick,' Helen said. 'There's nothing you can do.'

'Well then you better think of something, or we're all gonna die. You brought them here, you know them.'

'The siren,' she said, 'the creatures associate the noise with food, they'll come back to the cage room whenever it sounds.'

'And if we can lock them in with the predators, they can destroy each other.'

'It's working,' Nick said.

I drew my attention up to the ceiling, following the lines of the concrete back down the walls and to the enclosures. 'Let's get out of here.'

'Seal the door,' Helen nodded, 'nothing'll get out.'

Nick's hand grabbed mine, he pulled me back with him to the corridor. The creatures would be here soon, I knew it. I could feel the vibrations, the pounding against the concrete and my breathing synchronised to the rapid beating of my heart.

Helen was the last one through. She threw herself back against the door but it didn't budge.

'Nick,' she said, 'it's not closing.'

He let go of me, moving back to throw his own body weight with hers against the door, but still it refused to move.

'We've got to shut this door, otherwise they'll get back out.'

'The lock,' I said, 'on the wall.' I gestured quickly to the junction box, 'it's smashed. That doors not gonna close.'

'We can only do that from in there now.' Helen stopped pushing. She stood back from the wall and peered in through the window, 'The controls' on the other side but whoever does it will get locked in.'

Nick quickly swallowed. 'So, one of us has got to go back...'

We looked at each other, just completely, entirely, in finality for what felt like forever.

I knew what he was going to say.

I couldn't let him. Not without vying for a chance to get there first.

'Flip for it?'

He shook his head. 'You can't.'

'You wouldn't make it out,' Stephen said. It didn't matter which one of us he was talking to; we both already knew it.

'Heads,' I said.

Nick shook his head again. 'You can't.'

I cocked my head. I pulled a coin from my pocket, and flipped it. He reached out as it spun through the air and grabbed it in his hand.

He held my gaze, his expression overflowing with such raw and real desperation I wondered if he already knew.

'What does it say?' I asked.

He bit down on his lip.

'Nick. What does it say?'

He brought his hand up, sealed it atop the other, and I saw him swallow again. 'I love you,' he said.

I bit against my smile. 'I know,' I replied. 'I love you too.' I reached out, cupped his lower hand in my palm and took a step closer.

He started to pull his hand away but I kept my eyes on him, I wanted to see his face in that moment, and nothing else. Like I wanted it to be the last thing I remembered. His eyes darted up from the coin.

'No, not gonna happen.'

Stephen's words had barely permeated through me before he was suddenly bursting his way through between the two of us.

Nick went to grab him, to pull him back but he reeled around, planted his fist in Nick's face, and as Nick stumbled back into me, obstructing my path to the door, Stephen stepped through and slammed it closed.

Nick threw himself up against it. 'Stephen!' he yelled, slamming his fists against the metal.

'I'm doing this one,' he said, voice distorted as it translated through the glass. 'Sorry mate. They're gonna need you.' His gaze moved and fell onto me. I felt the air tangle in my lungs, neither inhaling or exhaling, and I was completely frozen. 'Both of you. So is he. You're far too important.' He took a step back, away from the door, then another, and another until he was right back in the centre of the room.

I tried to focus on him, but my eyes had gone glassy, my lips still parted with the shock when I saw the first creature lunge and snatched a hand over my mouth and fell back against the wall.

The only thing I could see was the white wall opposite me. There was nothing on it.

There was nothing.

I didn't move again until I heard it. It brought my head down, of its own accord to where he was– crippled– at the bottom of the door. 'Nick?'

The noise from him came again, louder, and I took a big step forward and dropped down beside him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into me. I felt his fingers digging tightly into my arms.

'I'm here. it's okay. I've got you.'