I let out a breath and my knees go out from under me until I’m trembling on the floor. And as my mind wakes up, I wonder if this means I win. I’ll get to the lobby way before he can take any stairs, and if he waits for the elevator, I’ll be long gone anyway.
So…what happens now?
My excitement congeals.
Did Young-gi expect me to leave his penthouse? Was I supposed to stay there? Did he want this to be more like hide and seek? What if this isn’t what he meant? What if he doesn’t come to chase me because I already won?
What if, this time, I got away…even though this time, I didn’t really want to?
My stomach heaves because I don’t know what to do, what to think. My adrenaline is crashing into despair, into anxiety.
But then everything stops. The elevator lurches to a sudden halt, only a few floors below Young-gi. A blaring alarm goes off, and the lights switch to emergency runners along the floor. The elevator door pops open with none of its usual mechanical whirs.
The fire alarm is going off, and the elevator can’t run during an alarm.
My heart soars. Young-gi isn’t letting me get away that easily.
I smile like a lunatic as I scramble to my feet and hop out of the elevator, where it hovers a little too high above the floor it was trying to spit me out on. My eyes are already looking for an escape route, and the bright red EXIT sign at the end of the hall is a siren song. I sprint to the door and slam into it, tumbling into the emergency stairwell. I pause, breathing hard and listening harder.
There. Footsteps above me, running down the stairwell.
Chasing me.
I burst back into motion, going recklessly fast. People start pouring into the stairwell, but I shove past them, nearly slipping several times in my socks.
“Out of my way!” I shout, grabbing the railing, running for my life. “Move!”
Some people just shout back at me for being a jackass, but some people think I know something they don’t, and suddenlyeveryone is trying to get down the stairs as fast as possible. People from the top of the building catch up to the people closer to the bottom, everyone yelling and shouting and panicking and pushing their way to the exit.
I finally make it down, pressed in on all sides by the crush of people. They’re all sprinting now, carrying their cats or dragging their little dogs, rushing for the front exit of the lobby.
But I stop and stand there, a rock in the river of people.
The door is right there. If I make it outside, I can get away. Like, not for just a little bit, but maybe forever. New York City is big, and I’m a ghost. He would never find me.
And that’s an option. I could do that, it would be like safe wording, in a way. I could leave him behind right now, and truly escape everything he makes me feel. I could leave him.
Oh my god, I can leave. A floating, soaring feeling splits me open and lifts me away. I’m crying, I’m smiling, because I finally know, for sure, that if I ever needed to again, I would run without making myself suffer first. I could do it. I could do it right now.
But I don’t want to.
Scanning my surroundings, I take off in the opposite direction, heading deeper into the building. The ground floor has a huge, fancy lobby with a bar and restaurants, all of which are also evacuating. There are some marble stairs leading up to the second floor, and I take them three at a time. When I’m at the top, I glance over my shoulder.
Young-gi is already out of the emergency stairwell, staring at me like a man possessed, pushing through the people in his way, coming after me.
I take off running. The building rapidly emptied, and I’m alone as I rush through what appears to be a conference hall, a venue, and another gorgeous lobby. The alarm is still blaring, covering any sound of Young-gi’s pursuit, so I don’t know howclose he is, but I can feel his eyes on my back. I know he can see me, but I don’t dare look over my shoulder in case it slows me down.
I burst through some open double doors into an empty fine-dining venue, plates still on tables and chairs pushed out from the hasty exit of the patrons. I vault over a table, scattering plates, sending them to the floor. I rush through the dim interior and through the doors to the kitchen. It’s much brighter in here, everything in chrome and silver. The alarm is muted, so I can finally hear my harsh breathing, the sound of my terrified excitement.
An exit sign calls to me, but I know it probably leads out into an alley, or onto the street. I don’t really want to get away; I want to be caught, so I should stay inside.
But I don’t want to make it easy on him, either.
I slide to the side of the still-swinging kitchen doors, just in time. Young-gi barrels through them, flying past me. He must see me out of the corner of his eye, because he tries to abort his momentum but I’m already slipping behind him, running back the way I came.
A crazed laugh escapes me as I rush back toward the lobby. When I hear the kitchen doors slam against the wall as Young-gi follows, I almost trip because my knees go weak.
I can’t wait for him to catch me. But I’m enjoying this too much to stop.
