please comment your opinions on this chapter! I'm not so sure abt it yet and might change it if I ever get better at writing these sorts of scenes :)

This time, I am the predator, not the prey. 

My laser-sharp gaze finds Jamie in the main room, chatting idly with a guy not too much older than him. It pins him down, a red dot shining on his forehead like a spotlight, and follows him as he accompanies me to one of the adjacent rooms, under the false pretense that I have something to ask him about. 

I abandon my recently-squeaking walker against the wall of the empty room, sitting down with my back against the wall, gesturing for Jamie to join me. 

"Do you play football?" I ask, our shoulders brushing as he takes his seat. 

As a girl who identifies as pretty, I have done this before, and yet nerves still crawl up into my throat, threatening suffocation if I lose my focus. 

So I don't. I smile and shift my weight so I'm leaning just slightly towards Jamie until the sides of our torsos are touching, too. He is wearing clothes he found in these tunnels: sweatpants and a red t-shirt. His hair has greased from lack of washing, but then again, so has mine, despite my valiant efforts of not touching it and keeping it up as often as possible. 

"Was that your important question?" smirks Jamie, a slight pink creeping across his cheeks, noticeable only because I am looking for it. 

"Maybe," I respond. 

"Well, I do," he says. "I played fullback for my school's team."

"What's that?" I ask, eyes wide, head tilted down just a little bit so I'm looking up at him, through eyelashes barely holding on to the last bits of my mascara. 

"It's just a football position," he says, moving on quick, as if he can't wait to get to other topics. I let the slight insult go. "Really, though, Sadie, why'd you bring me here? It can't be about my football career."

I hesitate, just for a second, and Jamie takes that as a response. "I thought you hated me. Do you hate me?"

"No!" I exclaim, leaning a little bit more on the wall, moving my gaze over to Jamie, letting it roam his pockets, the darkness obscuring my plans. "I don't like hating people. It just feels so... negative. And, out of all people, I wouldn't hate you."

The lies spill from my lips like sweet honey. I know Jamie will want to believe them, and so he will. It doesn't matter how obvious it is that they are very plainly untrue.

I accompany this sweet comment with a smile that Jamie returns. 

"I'm glad," he says. "I don't hate you either. The... opposite, actually."

I let my body relax and lean on him, resting my head on his shoulder and closing my eyes. He is tense but unwinds after a second, one arm twisting around my shoulders and pulling me comfortably close. 

"I'm glad, too," I say, tone quieter now, the atmosphere calm. "That you're here. That it's you, and not anyone else."

My comment might be going a bit overboard, and for a second I don't think Jamie will fall for it, but then he exhales a contented breath of air, and I feel his head nod against my forehead. "You're a wonderful person, Sadie, did you know that?"

A small ache, on the left side of my chest, that I ignore. "So are you," I say, and let my hand fall limp, coincidentally landing on the pocket of the sweatpants he has donned today. 

There is a small lump inside, and my heartbeat races, because oh my god, I've found it. 

no dirty comments istg : (

I shift around, moving my legs towards his, so he doesn't notice when I reach into his pocket and extract the small metal object, slipping it into my own pocket gently, quietly. 

We are silent for a long time, while I wait for the right time to leave. I can hardly close my eyes in anticipation, daydreaming about the moment when I step outside of this cursed hospital and back into the real world, the one my mother is waiting for me in. 

I know she's there. I can feel it. I can picture her sitting in our house, staring at the TV as she lounges on our decades-old couch, waiting for me to get home. She glances intermittently at the door, eyebrows knitting tighter together with each passing hour. 

She loves me, and I love her, and there is nothing purer in the world than the love between a mother and a daughter. Who am I to soil that uncontaminated feeling?

I need to get to her. I need to find her. If a pretty boy's sweet little heart must be broken to get there, so be it. 

The perfect distraction walks in soon enough: Jamie's older friend come to look for him, covering his laugh with a hand as he opens the door, soft white light spilling into the previously-dim room. 

When I look beside me, I find Jamie's face tinted pink. I rise first, although Jamie's friend is gone, "leaving us to our privacy," as he says. He accepts my hand as help to get up, and doesn't let go as I stride to the door, closed again. 

"I like you," he whispers in the darkness right before I open the door, and I offer nothing but a smile as we step back into the hallways. 

I walk a little bit in front because there is not enough room for two people to walk comfortably in these hallways, his hand still folded around mine. His is warm, but feeling my own hand brush against my other arm, I know that it is cold. I wonder what he thinks of that. 

The key is heavy in my pocket, despite its minuscule weight. It represents my freedom and my mother, my happiness and my escape. 

In the main room, everyone is readying for bed. Recently some have taken to sleeping in the adjacent rooms simply for the darkness and solitude, so our number has dwindled, but not by much. 

"It's nearly eleven," Logan says, glancing down at our twined hands, smiling softly but not mentioning anything. Her hair is tied into one loose braid, as she does when she sleeps. I've taken to mimicking it, in an attempt at salvaging my own heat-damaged and dirty hair. 

Tonight I don't. Instead I lay straight down on the mattress I've claimed, turning on my side. Jamie subtly drags his own mattress across from mine, and although he doesn't try to touch me, when he closes his eyes, his body faces mine. 

It is a small gesture, but it means more than his words ever could. Or it would, if any of this meant anything, at all. 

The lights are dimmed to a point the youngest of us can tolerate, and eyes are closed, minds drifting off into the dreamscape. 

I don't let myself fall asleep, continuous thoughts flowing through my brain, most of them centered around the key and my imminent escape. 

By the time Jamie is breathing softly, hair flattened against his pillow, I am up and heading towards the door. I don't bring my walker with me, it would be too loud and cumbersome. Instead I endure the pain from my foot, doing my best to step only on the right.

The key turns softly in the door and it creaks open. No creatures jump out, planning my demise. 

The lights in the stairwell slowly flicker on, sensing movement. I close the door with the key still in the lock, knowing that by the time they wake and find me gone, I will be too far away for anyone in there to do anything about it. 

It's an odd feeling, walking away from the place that has kept you alive, even if only for a short time. Although I do not know most of their names, those people inside that room there, asleep on the floor, are my kin and have gone through this terrible thing along with me. 

And yet, they are cowards. Not willing to risk the outside world, they lie low in a storage cellar, ensuring their own, eventual, death. What will they do when the supplies run out and suddenly there's no more cans to force open, no more feasts to be had? What happens when the lights flicker off, generators spent, and the backup flashlights can only last for so long?

The stairs spiral upwards in front of me, inviting and yet in a way, terrifying. 

I know that deep down, I'm one of those cowards, too. 

The only difference is that I am too afraid to show it. 

longest chapter yet, and most interesting, I think! can't wait to see what'll happen next : ) 

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