She’d heard them all.
But she had never heard anything like this.
There was a rhythm to the steps, but instead of the crisp strides of a lawyer, the more casual stroll of one of the guards, or the vaguely confused-sounding, tentative steps of a visitor who had lost their way, this was different. The approach was near silent, as was the muffled sound of the feet hitting the floor.
And even in the darkness, even though she could almost hear nothing, Cassandra couldn’t deny the feeling that hit her, the one that told her this was what it sounded like when a predator was stalking its prey.
As the seconds passed, the wrongness of that sound intensified.
Cassandra dropped her hand from the man’s forearm, and to her relief he loosened his hold ever so slightly.
She moved to lift her arm, and he released it too. She hit the button on her phone and lit up the elevator. She looked at his face and saw that it was set in a mask of focus, but one that had questions.
She wanted to speak, but he shook his head slowly.
She remembered his admonition.
Quiet.
Cassandra thought she would vomit.
She didn’t.
But she did take a step back. She bumped into the man, who still stood behind her, and for reasons she didn’t quite understand, she wanted to hide behind him.
But there was no hiding here. Nowhere to go.
All she could do was wait, each second, each stealth, menacing step making her that much more anxious.
Her heart was pounding wildly now, sweat that had nothing to do with the heat pouring down her back.
The steps got closer, closer, but when they were so loud Cassandra was certain the person stood outside the door, they went silent.
She looked around wildly, waiting, the tension of the moment making her knees feel weak. She stared toward where she knew the elevator doors were, though she couldn’t see them.
The light on her phone had gone out, and she was too terrified to move to turn back on. And even more, she didn’t want to risk whoever was on the other side of those doors seeing it.
So she stood frozen, waiting, the silence that had been so intense before intensifying the further.
The hard crash shook the entire elevator.
It also shattered anything that was left of Cassandra’s self-control.
The scream came out involuntarily, feeling as urgent as her next breath.
But much like her next breath, it was muffled in the man’s hand.
He must have anticipated her response, because he clamped his hand down tight, held her still as the scream poured out of her.
Her mind was racing, rocking just like the elevator car.
She couldn’t say why, but something about this was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
A few seconds ticked by, though to Cassandra they felt like an eternity. As the seconds passed, the car stopped rocking, but the lack of motion on the outside did nothing to calm the jangling nerves that made her breaths jagged and jerky.
At least she wasn’t screaming.
She waited, her breath almost refusing to leave her, and without her even realizing it, she had lifted her hand to the man’s forearm again.
She had no idea what she was going to do, but she held him tight, hoping that the next sound she heard was those same stalking steps leaving.
No such luck.
Another crash, this one more intense than the first, shook the car.
Strangely, this crash had the opposite effect of the first.
Rather than screaming, Cassandra’s response was a deep exhale.
And rather than sending her mind shifting, that crash gave her an intense clarity.
Whoever was out there wanted to be in here.
And that would be very, very bad for her.
And then there was the elevator itself to consider.
It was old, having been added to the courthouse in the forties and, as far as Cassandra knew, hadn’t been redone since the seventies. It wouldn’t stand up to any kind of stress, especially the determined kind that seemed to be on the other side of the door.
Which left Cassandra with two options: whatever was outside would find its way in or send the elevator crashing to the ground trying to.
Fanfuckingtastic.
Neither option was something Cassandra wanted to contemplate, but here she was.
The man tightened his hold on her, and Cassandra looked back at him, though she couldn’t see him.
Somehow, she had managed to keep her grip on her phone, and she lifted it and pushed the button.
His face was again lit up with that eerie light, but this time, Cassandra appreciated the calm she saw in it.
He dropped his arms and Cassandra turned, keeping the light on his face.
He lifted his hands slowly, put one finger against his lips.
Cassandra nodded, understanding very well what he had been trying to tell her before.
Cursed herself for pushing that stupid bell.
Once the man seemed certain that she understood, he moved his finger away from his mouth and pointed up.
She followed the direction he was pointing. He wanted to get out of here too. And apparently, he had found a way.
She nodded, her excitement at a way out only momentarily tempered by the question of whether she would be able to take the path.
She tried to work out when she could, but cardio wasn’t exactly a priority, and Cassandra didn’t mind indulging in the occasional—okay, more than occasional—pint of ice cream.
But if her options were the first pull-up she had done since elementary school, careening to her death in this elevator, or her facing whoever was outside those doors, she would find her inner iron man as fast as she could.
She tilted the phone up to illuminate the ceiling. Then, she watched as the man stood on the narrow rail and braced one hand against the car’s ceiling.
Then, moving in complete silence, he pushed at the ceiling, dislodging one of the wooden tiles. He had tilted his head away, but Cassandra could see the dust and grime that fell off the tile.
He didn’t seem bothered, and instead, one hand still braced against the wall, one foot on either of the rails, he slowly slid the tile aside.
The elevator jarred again, this crash louder, more intense than the others.
Cassandra went careening against the wall but quickly reached for the rail to hold herself still and make as little noise as possible.
She recovered, and she lifted her phone toward the man, saw that he was still as he had been, his entire body unmoving.
The car shook yet again, this time the motions even more violent. Cassandra knew this was a tenuous position, one that only got more so with each time the elevator shifted.
It wouldn’t stand up too much more of this.
The man seemed to agree.
He looked at Cassandra then gestured toward her. She moved forward as quickly but as quietly as she could and handed him her cell phone.
He took it then slowly lifted it into the open ceiling.
It was again dark in the car, the faint light of the phone getting only fainter as Cassandra presumed the man looked around the elevator shaft.
What felt like hours later, but had only been seconds Cassandra knew, he handled her the phone and then braced himself against the wall.
His hands went into the hole in the ceiling first, followed by his head. He shifted his shoulders to look closer and then pulled the rest of his body up.
See, that was easy.
Cassandra told herself that, her attempt to pump herself up for what she knew would be a challenge.
But if he could do it, she could too. And what was more important was that she didn’t have another option.
She could stay here or, she realized with a stunning clarity that had been missing before, she could die.