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Angie was in her own world, totally oblivious to the frustation of her company. Her body trembled with fear as she imagined the walls closing in on her. Pressing closer and closer. She could even feel the gentle sway of the cramped compartment; hear the light creak of the cables overhead. Holy hell, it's gonna happen again, she thought. I shouldn't be in here... Angie couldn't stop the horrible thoughts from swirling in her head, not that the silence helped to keep her mind on anything else. After a minute or so, Angie subconsciously began rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees that curled against her chest. Too exhausted to stop it, the day-mare that had so often plagued her thoughts in the past assaulted Angie's mind once again...
***************
"Daddy... why haven't we gotten off yet? This is the longest elevator ride I'VE ever been on!" the little girl giddily remarked. She loved things like elevators and escalators. They reminded her of amusement parks and the such. "Is this supposed to be like a ride?" she wondered aloud, bouncing around with her long chestnut curls swinging around her head.
"Please be quiet, Angel. Daddy's trying to listen for the men outside..." the older man answered almost absently. It was obvious that he was in deep concentration, his tall frame pressed against the metal walls. Frustration marked his face as he desperately tried to hear any word from the people on the other side.
The little girl giggled at her nickname before she remembered that he'd asked her to be silent. So much energy in one small body had to be released, however, so when she couldn't talk it out, she decided to explore the panel of buttons by the doors. Looking over the different colors and numbers that she had recently learned how to read, she began to mouth each one of them. Another button at the bottom of the panel showed not a number, but a word, and she wasn't too good with words yet. Reaching over and tugging on her father's coat sleeve -- she'd already forgotten his request for her to be quiet -- she demanded that he tell her what the button said.
"Angel, please! I need to hear!"
"But, Daddy... this button..." she whined, pulling harder on his arm.
"ANGELIQUE! Listen to m--" his words ended abruptly as a jolt went through the elevator. Cables from above could be heard creaking loud enough that even the little girl was shocked into silence.
Panic was etched into ever line of the man's face as the creaking continued, refusing to let up...
***************
As her younger self would ever time in the memory, Angie began mumbling incoherent ramblings to herself. Wimpers of fear and uncertainty.
Snapping from his thoughts, Nick realized Angie was muttering. Glancing down at her quivering form for the first time since they'd entered the elevator, Nick's first thought was that the woman was in shock. Kneeling down next to her to look her in the eyes, Nick started shaking Angie by the shoulders. He was gentle at first, but his motions grew harsh as the curled figure refused to respond.
"Angie! For chrissakes! Talk to me!" Nick shouted, wincing at the echo in the confined space. The glazed expression in Angie's eyes slowly receded to reveal terror and urgancy to break free such as Nick had never had the misfortune to witness.
Jerking her head to look at Nick as though she wasn't really seeing him, Angie blindly grasped for the rails inside the elevator with which she could pull herself up. Once again on her feet, her eyes darted around the area, frantically searching for a release, much like Nick imagined a newly caged animal would do. Her eyes landing on the panel of buttons across from her, Angie fell back against the wall and flat out began sobbing.
At this point, Kevin had become aware of Angie's odd behavior, but, like Nick, he was completely dumbfounded by it. Nick, however clueless as he may have been, was bent on calming the woman down. Reaching his hand out to her and letting it set faintly on her shoulder, Nick crept slightly closer to her side.
"Angie, what's wrong?" he wondered.
Peering up at him through her veil of tears, Angie knew that there was no way she was going to share that part of her that she'd never told a soul about before, not even James, with these people. There was trust between them, but not THAT much trust. Repeatedly wiping her sleeves across her wet cheeks, Angie tried her hardest to clean up the mess that was herself. When she was convinced that she was done acting like the child she'd once been, she returned her now determined eyes to their unsure ones.
"Nothing's wrong... I'm fine." She inhaled deeply in attempt to cease the tremble in her voice. "I was just thinking about.. what we just narrowly escaped," Angie lied through her teeth, hoping they'd use her obvious fear as evidence that her words were true. Changing the direction of the conversation, she said, "Really, what we need to do is consider where we're going now."
Taking the cue from Angie that whatever it was that had bothered her was an off-limit topic, Kevin jumped right in on the new subject she had suggested. "Exactly. Obviously, going up would be a step backwards. But I'm not sure how far down we SHOULD go. Trying to pass the fifth floor could be dangerous. All they'd have to do was press the button and it could stop for them: we'd be dead then. The real question is, I guess, how much help would it be to us to go down to the seventh or sixth floor, and which one do we wanna choose?"
"I'm all for the sixth floor. It's as close to them as we can get!" Nick jumped in to give his own two cents.
"Yeah, but that also makes us that much closer to danger..." Kevin repsonded, obviously uncomfortable with that idea.
"Kev, if you're worried about the danger, we might as well hang out in this elevator for the rest of our lives! And even THAT'S still dangerous!" Nick exclaimed, bent on opening Kevin's eyes to the situation. "I mean, com'on, We've got who-knows-how-many terrorists still parked on the fifth floor, with that one guy that just almost caught us back on the eighth floor. For all WE know, he could be on any floor at this moment. There is risk in EVERY option here!"
Kevin opened his mouth, about to make another counter, when Angie stepped in to support Nick.
"Plus, think about it this way.. as Nick pointed out, we aren't safe no matter what floor we land on. And as long as we are going to try to help some people down there, we might as well just do whatever is in the best interests of getting to them! Screw what's in OUR best interests to live, because every choice left leaves us in the same place: danger!" Angie added.
Nick nodded his head in agreement, ready to continue his defense of the idea if Kevin had anymore complaints, but they all found themselves now in accord. Angie smiled in satisfaction, content that they now had a plan of action.
Having acquiesced to the realization that self-safety was no longer a concern, Kevin was just reaching toward the button panel when the elevator began the journey downward on its own. His eyes shifted to Nick's with fear and anxiety. "Nick... I didn't touch the button."
Nick stared blankly back at Kevin, not sure he heard what had come out of the other man's mouth... no, not sure he wanted to believe what he KNEW had come out of the other man's mouth. "Kevin... please tell me you're kidding so I can kill you later for playing such a cruel joke on me at a time like this..." he pleaded. When only regret seemed to joined the fear in his friend's eyes, Nick felt his heart stop. Someone below them had called for the elevator.
Perhaps it had been the earnestness of the recent conversation or simply a forgetful mind, but until the moment they had proceeded going down, Angie's mind had temporarily neglected the fact that she was in an elevator. Confronted with a foreign sensation that she hadn't experienced in years, setting aside the incident from that evening that she could bearly recall even now, Angie backed herself up against the back wall of the small space. Her knees suddenly went weak as her eyes drifted to the floor, where they saw an image she hadn't allowed herself to see in ages...
***************
"Daddy... what's that sound from up there?" the little girl wondered, crouching against the back wall in fright as she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.
"I dunno, honey. Angel, why don't you come down here with me..." the man suggested as he slowly sat down on the carpeted floor. His hand lightly patted his thighs, motioning for her to sit down on his lap.
Angelique crept toward her father, catching the feeling from his body gestures that quick movement was not a good idea right. Once she was safe in the man's lap, she decided to curl up on her side. A smile of contentment appeared on her lips as her father absently pet her head, smoothing out the curls.
Suddenly, a loud clanging could be heard from outside the elevator walls. It wasn't directly over them, more toward the top of the doors. Startled, the man practically jumped up from the floor, cursing himself afterward when he realized he'd started the elevator into swaying again. He reassured his daughter that everything would be fine and that she should stay laying down on the floor. Then he began yelling for help, praying that someone would answer. Surely the clanging they'd heard had been from a rescue crew.
Angelique listened as the creaking from the direction of the ceiling grew louder with each step her father took. He was frantically knocking on different parts of the doors, calling for someone, though she didn't know who. Her concern wasn't for this other person, though, but her dad, as she realized the the more the elevator swung, the more was the creaking. Determined to tell her father this, the little girl bounded to her feet from the corner she had occupied and lunged herself at his legs.
"Angelique! What are you doing?!"
"Daddy, you're making it creak!"
"I'm wha--" he was cut off before the words ever finished leaving his lips. The creaking overhead was now steady and accompanied with a new sound: a snap. Then another snap. Several more snaps followed, ending in the elevator plunging downward. The man pushed his daughter to the floor, unable to apologize for being so harsh. Her being safely to the ground was more important at that point.
"Da--ddy... what's.. hap'pen--ing?" the girl yelled over the scraping of metal against metal, unable to keep her voice steady along the jerky ride. Once she struggled to stand up, only to be shoved back to the floor by her father.
"Stay there, Angel! Please stay down!" he prayed aloud as he moved along the side, using the hand rails, toward his daughter. When he reached her, he hunched his shoulders and head over and lifted his arms up, planning on blocking any debris from falling on her. Should any debris fall, that is, for he begged God that it wouldn't come to that.
Angelique watched in curiosity as her father protected her. Her eyes grew large in shock and terror as, without warning, the elevator ceased all movement at once and her father was thrown to the floor. He landed just to her side. Not wasting a second, she pulled his face to her and shook his shoulders, willing his eyes to open.
***************
Angie blinked her eyes repeatedly, wondering how the body of her father could possibly be in the elevator with her now. Why am I seeing him NOW? she protested in her head. Wasn't it enough to watch him fall before me THEN? A tear trickled down her cheek as her mind relived the events following the accident, the days after days in the hospital that her family had spent wishing for their father's awakening. It had never come, damnit! He'd never woken up after that, and why? Because he'd been too busy shielding ME! she screamed silently to no one. She'd lost her father, but wasn't the worst of it really that'd he'd died because of her? For that reason, Angie would continue to hide away the memories inside herself and refuse to tell anyone the truth. She could bearly stand herself when she thought about the past, how could she expect anyone else to if she told them?
All of a sudden Angie's thoughts were interrupted by Nick's hand on her arm, pulling her to her feet -- apparently she'd slid to the floor. He looked her in the face, his eyes either missing the tear streaks or he chose to ignore them.
"Kevin stalled the elevator again, but it probably won't be long before they press the button again. I doubt we can continue to stop this elevator before we finally reach them. We've got to move," Nick admitted.
Angie risked a short glance around the place and at Kevin, not realizing until then that the elevator had stopped.
"I think it's a crazy idea, but Nick's seems to think it'll work: we're going to use the escape hatch on the ceiling to get out. Maybe we can hide out on top -- not likely -- or maybe we can find a way to climb to the floor above us. My guess is that we are either between the fifth and the sixth floors or the sixth and seventh floors. We obviously aren't below that or they would have gotten to us by now," Kevin explained with no enthusiasm whatsoever in his voice. He couldn't really be faulted, though. It was pretty hopeless. "Do you think you can make it to the roof?" he inquired.
Unlikely Allies