Heart still hammering, it took a moment for Nick to comprehend Mica's words—after the night he'd had, something so mundane as taking a lift didn't quite compute. As understanding sank in, he dropped the deckchair and collapsed onto it with a thankful sigh, not at all sure his legs could have faced thirty-odd flights of stairs anyway.

"Lift sounds g-g-ood," he gasped. "Just n-n-need a sec."

Any hint of a smile vanished from Mica's face. "We don't have a second. We have to go, right now."

As the flood of adrenaline coursing through him ebbed just a little, Nick regarded the determined, diminutive woman staring back at him and considered just how little he knew about her, or the situation she was in—the situation of which he was now an inextricable part.

It had been easy to assume she was the victim here, but really, what did he have to base that on? For all he knew she could be some major felon, held in protective custody after a plea-bargain to turn state's witness, or something. The foul-mouthed and possibly dead Hugo might actually be a foul-mouthed and possibly dead plain-clothes police officer or federal agent, or who-knew-what.

What if rather than helping out a woman in distress, he was aiding and abetting a criminal mastermind?

A criminal mastermind who now no longer needed him?

And had a gun?

The thought brought a wry smile—people who threw themselves off buildings had no right to be worrying about guns. And this was hardly the time to start speculating on possibilities—in for a penny, in for a pound, as his grandmother used to say. His mind turned to the practical.

"Shouldn't you maybe g-g-get d-d-dressed first? You know, in some p-p-p-p-p-p-"—man, he really hated Ps—"p-p-proper clothes?"

The woman's resolute expression wavered—but only for a moment. "Clothes? These...these...people"—the word dripped loathing—"took away my clothes. And they haven't given me any more. The reason I'm being kept here doesn't require clothes. Now, are you coming or not?"

Nick swallowed, as his reservations about the merits of what he was doing crumbled away—he doubted any kind of protective custody meant being denied clothes. He stood up.

"Let's g-g-go."

He was about half-way to the lift before new doubts hit.

"Wait. What if the l-l-lift st-stops at a f-f-floor with more of...them?"

Stride never faltering, Mica raised her gun in an emphatic answer. "We have this. And you can bring your deckchair, if you like."

For all her bravado, she had no idea how she would respond if confronted with more of her captors—with the prospect of being dragged back to the penthouse, to subjugation, to...Salazar and what he had in store for her. As loathsome as that prospect may be, could she really shoot somebody—gun down a living person—to stop it from coming to pass? Could she take a life, when all her upbringing, her education and her beliefs compelled her to hold life as sacred?

As she entered the lift, with Nick trailing behind, she prayed she wouldn't need to find out. In any case, there was very little sacred about her current predicament.

Seeking a distraction from these thoughts, she turned to her rescuer and deliberately away from the sight of the plush killing floor—the immaculate abattoir—where her innocence had been sent to die.

"Tell me, what's your name?"

He turned wide eyes on her. "Me? I'm N-n-nick."

She held out her hand. "I'm Mica. Nice to meet you, N-n-nick."

The imitation was thoughtless and without malice, nothing more than the faint echo of a more carefree Mica, a playful girl with an actual sense of humour, who wasn't averse to a gentle jibe or two.

But she saw it had been a mistake. Although he took the proffered hand, his eyes clouded over.

Contrite at her unintended cruelty, she held on as he tried to disengage his grip. "And I want to say thank you." She gave a gentle squeeze. "Thank you, Nick."

The reserve remained, but he managed a half-smile. "My p-p-p-pl...my p-p-p-pl-pl-ple...you're welcome." He gestured at the lift's array of buttons. "Where t-t-to?"

Where to? If only he knew the thought she had given to that simple question. From the very first day of her captivity, Mica had schemed and dreamed and plotted to get her hands on a keycard. And about precisely what to do, should that much-fantasised eventuality come to pass.

Her single previous ride in the lift, the ascension to her private hell, had originated in a basement carpark, a vast, almost-empty, subterranean cavern, all monochrome concrete and rising damp. Roughly ejected from the back of a van, blindfold removed for the first time in hours, she'd had time to take in that much before she was bundled into a small, white room, bare of furniture or ornamentation of any kind, other than the single large mirror set in one of the walls.

Despite her frenzied, fruitless efforts to resist, she was stripped naked with brutal efficiency, and had been horribly certain what her two burly, silent captors had in mind. Only when forced to stand before the mirror did it dawn on her that it must be one-sided, and that this was some kind of perverted assessment she was being forced to undergo, rather than an assault. At least, for the moment.

Then, judgement apparently passed, the still wordless men had left her shivering and alone, to cower in a corner for more hours. At last, two others—the Syndicate goons she now knew as Hugo and his weasel-like offsider, Diaz—had arrived, bringing with them her simple robe and a one-way ticket to Jaime Salazar's lair.

She shook off the memory—although only weeks ago, it felt like ancient history. She needed to focus on the now.

The basement was an option. If they could make it to the hopefully unguarded carpark level, then perhaps they could find a way out—through a ventilation shaft or fire escape, or stowed away in the back of a vehicle, or...or...something.

The 'if' was the issue with that plan. If they could get to the basement. To do so they would need to get past the lobby, or reception, or whatever it was the first floor held, along with the Syndicate people who would no doubt soon be swarming there.

It was too big a risk. She had long since decided to go with her second plan. She—they, now—would exit the lift well before ground level. Well before the Syndicate people would expect them to. And once at large in the building, a whole range of options should present themselves. Stairs, which may lead to a way out. Telephones, with which they could call the authorities. Perhaps even non-Syndicate people, who could harbour them or help them to escape. It was a big building, to judge from the height of her penthouse prison—there had to be something.

And if not, well—she glanced down at the silver handgun clutched in her small hand—she would not be captured again. There was more than one way to make sure that didn't happen.

Where to? As the lift doors drew shut, she perused the control panel for the answer.

Tequila? Coke? Maybe meth?

Such were the reflexive thoughts that formed in Hugo's pounding head as consciousness tested the waters of his battered synapses. He had suffered hangovers induced by an impressive array of substances but 'deckchair' didn't occur as an option. At least, not until he sat up, groggy and in pain, and saw the offending piece of furniture lying abandoned among the million glittering shards that once comprised a significant portion of the penthouse's wall.

And as with tortured, migrainous deliberation his memory reassembled the sequence of events leading to his current situation, his expression morphing by slow stages from pained bafflement to murderous fury, he reached into his jacket for his gun—to find it gone.

"Those fuckers are dead," he growled, drawing his other gun from its side-holster as he made his unsteady way back to his feet.

Despite these words, even in his rage and pain he knew better than to think he could lay a hand on the girl. For reasons beyond Hugo's comprehension, the boss had a real hard-on for her. Jaime Salazar could (and frequently did) have whoever and whatever he wanted, yet he never failed to pay the penthouse a visit whenever he was in town, even though, as far as Hugo knew, he'd hadn't even nailed the uppity bitch.

And never would, unless they got her back. This sobering thought cleared Hugo's head far better than any anger could. If it hadn't already, the call from the control room downstairs would soon be going out to the boss, to let him know his favourite little piece of Filipino poontang was out and on the run. Not to mention on whose watch it had happened.

Slipping his phone back into the jacket of his tux, Jaime Salazar settled into the soft leather of the limousine's seat, his olive features impassive as he watched the lights of the city slide by.

Idiots. He was surrounded by idiots. Even worse—incompetents. A slip of a girl, nothing much over five feet, securely locked in a penthouse, and they'd let her escape. She'd never make it out of the building, of course, but the fact she'd gotten as far as she had was inexcusable. Never mind the presence of the intruder.

Changes would have to be implemented. Lessons learnt.

Examples made.

She was an indulgence, he knew. A foolish indulgence, and a potentially dangerous one, given the knowledge she held. Ah, but such a sweet indulgence. So full of fight and life and righteous anger. So...captivating.

He'd had the occasional other kept aside for him over the years, those rare women who caught his eye or captured his interest or would discomfit his enemies. But none like Mica, with her fierce intellect and even fiercer hatred of him and all he represented. He'd been intrigued from the moment the striking young criminal justice student, on study exchange to the USA from the Philippines, had first been ushered into his office, full of curiosity and questions and a startling degree of knowledge about his shipping company, not to mention its compliance (or otherwise) with the international regulations against human trafficking.

Nevertheless, when he'd arranged for her to be taken, his first thought had been merely to ameliorate the threat she presented—and the excellent price she would fetch was a bonus. She would be catalogued and sold and slipped into the endless stream of people the Syndicate shipped across the world, never to be seen again.

But on a whim, he had interceded. After all, what was the point of the wealth and power he had striven so hard to obtain if he could not indulge the occasional whim?

Yes, she had intrigued him at their first meeting. And had intrigued him ever since. Her spirit and fire and fear had more than met his expectations and given him no cause to regret his indulgence. Until tonight. Tonight's incident brought home the potential peril of the game he was playing. It was time to bring it to an end.

But first he would have his reward.

As the lift began to descend, its movement so smooth as to be almost imperceptible, Nick felt the stirrings of misgivings. Expression tense and distracted, Mica hadn't provided an answer to his question, leaving him to wonder whether she had one. He worried the young woman's desire to be out of and away from the building, as soon and as far as possible, may be clouding her judgement. That perhaps her intent was to simply waltz out the front door.

If the cameras in the penthouse were monitored then 'they' (these Syndicate people, whoever they were) knew the fugitives were coming. And if that was the case, the odds of them making it out via the lift without a violent and possibly fatal stop along the way were pretty much zero. And while Nick could view his own demise with a fair degree of equanimity, his life was no longer the only one at stake.

It was becoming clear that as a means of escaping life's complications, jumping off a building was a bit of a bust.

The challenge he faced was persuading a determined young woman to abandon her escape plan —assuming she had one—and then convincing her to follow his new and better plan. After having coming up with said plan, that is, all in the time it would take what was no doubt an express elevator to descend thirty-something stories.

And he had to do it with a stutter.

He glanced at the control panel's surprisingly small array of buttons. Although, he supposed, perhaps not so surprising. Obviously not for general use, it made sense a lift servicing a penthouse would only stop at a limited number of floors—the floors permitting access to whatever pretentious bullshit the kind of pretentious assholes who lived in pretentious penthouses wanted to access.

Stuff like boutiques. Restaurants. Beauticians. And...um...yacht supply shops? That kind of thing.

Which meant there must be other lifts. Lifts for the non-rich, non-pretentious plebs to ride to the mundane, non-pretentious bits of the building. Lifts he and Mica could use, if only they could get to them. Lifts that may not deliver them straight into a deathtrap. Or better yet—he realised, mind racing—there must be stairs.

Now he just had to explain all that in however many seconds were left before their descent passed beyond the point of no return. He took a deep breath.

And, would have muttered, "Fuck it," if he hadn't thought there was every chance Mica would shoot him during the time it took to mutter it, thereby denying him the chance to implement his just-conceived, stutter-circumventing plan of just pushing a button and worrying about explanations later.

So—lips sealed, breath held—he contented himself with thinking the obscenity as he reached out and pushed.

And grimaced at the feel of cold steel, pressed hard against his cheek.