She'd never held a gun before in her life.

Her hands trembled around it now, the metal still chilled against her skin even though it had had ample time to warm up. She paused as goosebumps raced up her arms and sent a shiver down her spine.

The old her wouldn't even recognize the woman she'd become.

She leaned against the wall, head falling back as she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for strength. With one last deep breath, she threw herself out into the open, finger already hovering over the trigger.

In less than a second, bullets whizzed by, so close that their slipstream fluttered the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail. She blew it out of her eyes as she threw herself behind a filing cabinet, firing off two shots on the way.

Almost there. Adrenaline pounding in her veins, she peered around the cabinet and laughed softly to herself. No, the old her would never recognize her now.

Digging in her back pocket, she threw a glance toward the hall outside. Muffled shuffles and mutters wafted through the office door, low-pitched and soft. Forming a plan. They wouldn't come in while they didn't have her in sight. They'd be sitting ducks the second they entered the doorway.

She pulled out a switchblade, and it caught the glare of the harsh white lights overhead as it flicked open. Jamming it into the gap between the cabinet and the lower drawer, she worked it back and forth until the drawer jimmied open, revealing a row of neatly-tagged files.

"Okay," she breathed, fingers flying as she rifled through half the alphabet before slowing down. Any moment now...

And there it was. She yanked it out, flipped it open, and froze as her breath caught in her throat.

His mugshot stared back at her, half a smile dimpling the right side of his face and crinkles of mischief zigzagging from the corners of his eyes. Those eyes.... Even in two dimensions, they sparkled like the ocean under the noon sun.

And now her heart fluttered for an entirely different reason.

"Come out with your hands up!" a man's voice boomed. "You're surrounded!"

She jumped, slamming back to the present. Then she gritted her teeth, those eyes still burning in her memory.

One thought consumed her, burning like a flame: I have to get to him.

She tossed the switchblade out into the hallway; it clattered across the concrete floor, and a gunshot rang out. Then another, and another, building into a cacophony of chaos.

With his voice in her ears and his face in her vision, she dove into the hallway, keeping low and scooping up the switchblade on the way. A guard, wrapped in a bulletproof vest with his knuckles white around the butt of his gun, nearly tripped over her on his way toward the office. Her teeth tore into the insides of her lips as she pointed her own pistol at him and squeezed the trigger.

She ducked under the arm of another guard, firing a few shots over her shoulder as she scrambled past. A muffled cry told her that at least one had found its mark, but she forced it from her mind, instead imagining his face—his face when he saw her and saw that she had come—

The stone walls turned to bars as she ran, and she barely noticed the prisoners inside rushing to the fronts of their cells. Hands wrapped around scabbed iron, rattling at the barriers, echoing off the walls, but she never took her eyes off the spray-painted numbers that lined the wall near the ceiling.

She skidded around a corner, and there it was: One word, written in blackened paint that almost looked like charcoal charring the cement wall, above a door of solid metal.

Solitary.

The world narrowed down to that one word and the door underneath it. Nothing existed but what lay beyond it, and she imagined him in there, waiting. Existing. Breathing. She wished she could take his hand and reassure him and ease his worries.

I'm here. I'm coming.

A single shot rang from behind her, and she ducked, whirling on instinct. The bullet whizzed past, burying itself in the wall a few inches to the right of the doorknob. Without thinking, she fired off another three shots. The first two missed, but the last one found its mark, and the man fell to the floor where he lay unmoving.

The old her would have backed away, whispered "Oh, god," and tried to find a pulse in vain. The new her rushed forward, unclipped the ring of keys from the man's waistband, and left him to his fate.

Another man needed her more.

She fumbled with the keys until she found the right one, and then the door swung open and solitary was no longer solitary anymore, and everything tilted back into place.

He sat on the floor, hands propped up on his knees, dangling from limp wrists as if he hadn't heard the barrage of gunshots just outside his door. He looked up—those eyes an even purer, paler blue than in his mugshot—at the pistol pointed at his face.

His gaze flicked up, and as he finally met her eyes over the barrel, she let out a sigh. Her muscles uncoiled, her shoulders drooped just a little. Her white-knuckled grip on the pistol loosened just a hair.

For a moment, silence engulfed everything, and they only stared at each other.

Then he laughed.

It was a beautiful sound, bouncing wildly off the walls like an echo in the Alps. A grin stole across her face as she lowered the gun and held out a hand.

"You're here," he said as he clasped it.

"Always am." She pulled him to his feet.

"You always are." He repeated it in a whisper, studying her with the intensity of thunderclouds rolling in before a storm. His fingers brushed her hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear.

Just like that, the air vanished from her lungs. Her heart stuttered. It was like dying a slow, delicious death—one that filled her with hope and longing and need and emotions so deep that for the first time in her life, she knew she must have a soul. Because what she felt for him—it ran deeper than her mind, or even her heart.

If he hadn't stolen her breath, she might have used it to tell him she loved him.

And then he blinked. "Let's get the hell out of here."

She nodded, letting him take the gun and taking his hand as he ran out into the fray. Other prisoners shouted now, rattling their bars as the fugitives pelted toward the exit. She kept her head down, listening to the exchange of gunfire and wishing she could cover her ears. But his hand wrapped around hers like a blanket, warm and comforting, and that was enough.

As they turned the final corner, the EXIT sign cracked and flickering red, a different voice called out—a woman's voice.

"Wait!"

As she slowed to a stop, he tugged at her hand. "Come on."

But she had turned toward the sound; a young woman—almost a girl, really—stood behind a rusted set of bars, her fingers curled around the metal as she watched them with wide, innocent eyes.

Familiar ones.

As the two women stared at each other, the free one reached up to ghost a finger along the dark circles she knew had entrenched themselves in her skin.

My eyes.

But this girl's face was plump where hers was gaunt, cheeks red where hers were sallow. At a glance, they looked like they should have been in each other's place.

"Don't go with him," the trapped girl begged. "Don't go. He's not who you think he is."

Another tug at her hand, harsher this time as he scanned the hall for signs of guards. "We have to leave."

"You'd do anything for him," the prisoner whispered, face pressed against the bars now. "You'd give your life to save him. But he won't save you."

The girl's hands tightened around the bars. "No one will save you."

Footsteps from the end of the hall caught their attention, snapping their hearts back into overdrive, and he tugged once more on her hand.

"Come on, let's go!"

After one more moment's hesitation, she followed.