Twenty - Kyle

My heart broke for her.

Huh. I had heard that before. Those words. People made that claim all the time. When someone was hurt or sick or grieving, people would always say their heart broke for another person.

I had never said it before. I had my heart broken for different reasons. I'd felt bad for people, of course. I had some sense of compassion. But the gut twisting, aching pain in my chest that felt like my heart was being ripped into a thousand pieces wasn't something I was accustomed to. But looking at Ella... yeah, my heart broke for her.

I didn't know how to fix this. Hell, I didn't think this could be fixed.

We found the room for clinical studies and as promised a dozen or so hospital beds were set up, complete with pillows and sheets. Miles raided the vending machines for a lunch of junk food and we had all waited. And waited. No one had really slept in well over twenty four hours and we were all damn close to the living dead at that point with how well our brains were functioning. But no one went to sleep.

We all had waited for Ella to join.

None of us knew if she'd gone to get H-26 or if she just wanted to be alone, but after an hour, she was still missing.

"We should go find her, right?" Miles asked Hunter. "What happened, Hunter? Just how worried do we need to be?"

Hunter stayed quiet for a long minute and then glanced at Zero. Whatever it was wasn't something he wanted to discuss with her in earshot. His reluctance to say anything was answer enough. What they'd gone through was more than we saw and worse than we were imagining.

"She seemed like she wanted to be alone," Joel said frowning. He didn't know what to do anymore than the rest of us.

"She probably shouldn't be alone," Hunter confirmed the words that he never said.

And when I found her, right where we left her, all I wanted to do was pick her up and hold her until all the demons were gone. But she'd reacted so strongly to being held earlier, I resisted the instinct and instead said her name. I knew she heard me by the way she stiffened, but she didn't look up or say anything. She didn't tell me to go away either, so I sat down.

I'd gotten a few words out of her before we sat in the quiet. She stared off into space, occasionally blinking heavy lids, but not letting herself fall asleep. She didn't try to talk or even really acknowledge that I was still there, but she had asked me to stay. If it was the only thing I could do, I would do it.

"I'm so tired," she said so quietly I wasn't sure she actually spoke.

"Do you want to go upstairs?"

She was quiet for so long after that I wasn't sure she was hearing me.

When she finally spoke, I had to once again resist the urge to pull her to me.

"What if this is a dream? I go to sleep here and wake up there."

And just what the hell was I supposed to say to that? How did you convince someone they were safe— as safe as they could possibly be? Someone else, Miles or Hunter, maybe even Zero would have been better at this. They would have known the right thing to say or do. I shifted and moved across the floor until I was sitting next to her instead of across the hall. Reaching out, I took her hand in mine. It wasn't much. Shit. It wasn't anything. Ella's fingers squeezed around mine.

"It's not a dream." It was lame, but it was all I could come up with to say. Maybe that was all she wanted, someone to simply remind her it was real.

"Do you think they're looking for us?"

I paused. I didn't want to scare her, but I didn't think it was possible to scare her more than she already was.

"Yes."

"Will they find us?"

"If they know we got you down, they'll probably be checking hospitals, clinics, pharmacies... places with med supplies first."

Ella stayed awake. Every time she began to doze off, she jolted herself awake once again, squeezing my hand tightly. It kept me from falling asleep too, but I didn't mind. I thought she needed someone to stay awake with her. I don't know how long we sat like that, but I was sure it was dark outside and we had been there for hours. At some point someone else would come looking for us, making sure she was okay or that we hadn't been attacked by a zombie roaming the labs, but I guess it would be a while still. They were probably all sleeping.

The sun had to be coming up again when her head settled on my shoulder and didn't immediately jolt back up right. I waited, counting the minutes until I was sure she'd actually fallen asleep before I closed my eyes too. I didn't want to risk moving her and waking her up when she'd finally fallen asleep. I let my cheek rest against the top of her head.

"Well isn't that just the cutest?" Miles not so quiet whisper woke me up.

"Wish I had a camera," Joel joined in, both snickering before Joel kicked my foot. Opening my eyes I looked up at my friends. "You forget about the nice comfy beds?"

"She didn't want to sleep," I said quietly, not wanting to wake her up. Understanding fill their expressions as they sat down next to me. "What's up?"

"Wanted to give them some privacy," Joel starts and shook his head. "Hunter talked a little about what they did..."

"He did?" My eyebrows shot up because he had been so reluctant.

"Well, his girl wouldn't let it go. So he's calming her down."

"What did he say?" I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know.

Joel glanced at Ella and then back to me. "She didn't talk about it?"

Slowly I shook my head. "I don't think she could."

"They drugged them, but not with a sedative or whatever," Miles jumped in. "Hunter said it, like, I don't know paralyzed them for a few hours. They were awake but couldn't move." He cleared his throat. "He said she started to pass out a few times from the pain or fear or whatever and they'd stop and yell at her or slap her awake so she'd be lucid for all of it."

"I don't even blame her for flippin' shit. Being awake but not able to move—" he shook his shoulders and made a face that communicated just how he felt about that thought. "So what's the plan?"

To be honest, I hadn't got that far.

"We going after these sons of bitches? We can't let them get away with doing that shit to two of our own."

My lips twitched. A week ago, Joel would have never referred to Ella as one of our own. I didn't smile though. So much of me wanted to do just what he said and go after these people. But I also wanted to get Ella away from here as quickly as possible.

When Ella finally looked up at me from under long lashes Miles and Joel had long since grown bored of whispering in a hall and went to explore the facility. Her brow furrowed as she lifted her head off of my shoulder. "You let me fall asleep."

"And you woke up right here," I said not bothered by her accusation.

She looked at me hard for a moment. It was cuter than it was intimidating. And then her face relaxed and her lips tipped up into an almost-smile. It didn't reach her eyes, but it counted for something, I figured. Yawning she stood to her feet and jutted out a hand to help me up. Cute. She wiggled her fingers at me when I didn't immediately take her hand. My eyes trailed up her arm until they met two big, brown eyes that still looked haunted despite the grin on her lips.

My lips parted to say something, but snapped shut. She wanted to pretend she was okay, so I would let her. I placed my hand in hers, chuckling as her weight tipped toward me when I pulled myself up. Ella placed her free hand on my chest to steady herself and a soft giggle fell from her lips. My heart sped up under her fingertips. My eyes moved from her eyes to her lips. Perfect, soft pink lips. Fuck. I wanted to taste her again. It was inappropriate as hell to be thinking about kissing her after what she'd been through. But when her eyes dropped to my mouth, it was damn near impossible to resist.

She leaned closer. Her tongue slipped between her lips, wetting them.

"Come on," she said and twisted around, pulling me behind her. I didn't miss the sexy smirk that tipped the corners of her lips as she turned. The girl knew exactly what she was doing to me.

"Where're we going?" I asked when she dragged me down an unfamiliar hall.

She twisted back, not letting go of my hand. "We're going to save the world."

Ah, so that explained the chipper mood. She was finally in her element. I had a feeling that was why she was able to push aside everything and plaster a smile to her face. We came to a stairwell and instead of going up to the second or third floors, we walked down to the basement. Dropping my hand, Ella placed her thumb on the small screen when came to a door. Fingerprint security down here... high tech. I guess I should have just been thankful it was still working. The door slid open and Ella let blew out a breath of relief as she grabbed my hand again and pulled me through the doorway.

It looked like, well, like exactly what I'd imagined it to look like. All sorts of equipment that I didn't know names for but I suspected had been rather expensive was set up around the room. Racks filled with emptied test tubes and beakers - I remembered those from high school biology - were neatly lined on the lab tables. It was all set up as if it were ready for a team of people to show up and get to work at any moment.

Ella looked relaxed in a way I hadn't seen her before. She walked ahead of me, deeper into the room, brushing her fingers along the tabletops as if she couldn't help but.

"It's just gonna take me a few minutes," she said.

I hung back as Ella walked to one end of the room where a large glass-door refrigerator hummed. She typed in a code and pulled open the door to the fridge while I took a seat at one of the stools. Reaching forward, I pulled a test tube out of it's holder thingy and twirled it in my fingers. The glass slipped from my grip and hurled toward the floor. I managed to grab the tube before it shattered against the tile and quickly returned it to its home. Probably best I didn't play with the lab equipment.

"No," Ella's strained voice had me spinning on the stool to face her. "No, no, no, no. No." Her back was still facing me, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that something was very wrong. I grimaced, lifting off the seat as something crashed onto the ground. I paused there, awkwardly hovering over the seat unsure whether or not I should go to her. Something else flew out of Ella's hand, crashing on the floor between the two of us. "You fucking asshole," she yelled and I didn't think I'd ever heard her use such strong language. The worst I'd heard was when she called me an ass. And I didn't think she was talking to me this time.

She let out something between a growl and a scream of frustration. It sounded like she kicked something and when a wail followed, I was sure I was right.

"Ella?"

As if remembering I was in the room, Ella turned to me. Wide brown eyes full of teary anger. She opened her mouth but no words came out and she shook her head, letting out another scream-growl to express her aggravation. Throwing her hands up in the air she walked away from the fridge before abruptly turning around and walking back.

"Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-seven!"

I frowned, beginning to understand the crux of the problem.

"Twenty-seven," she yelled again, her distressed voice echoing through the room. "It's not here." Her voice was so quiet.

I took a hesitant step toward her. "It's okay, baby. We'll figure something out."

And then she was on me. "Figure something out? Figure. Something. Out!" She yelled, half hysterical and started pacing the floor in front of me. "Okay? Are you kidding me? Nothing about this is okay."

Ella tore at the end of the bandage on her right arm and began yanking it off, muttering under her breath the whole time. The bandage on her left arm followed and then she was ripping off her shirt and yanking at the bandage on her waist.

"Look at me," she screamed furiously. "Does any part of this look okay to you? I-I-" she shook her head. "And Hunter! I put everyone in danger for-for what?" She turned to a table and swiped at all the equipment on top. Everything crashed and clattered loudly to the floor. When that didn't seem to appease her she did the same to another desk and another.

She was going to hurt herself. I rushed forward, wrapping my arms tightly around her. Ella punched at my chest, shouting muffled words that weren't intelligible. I kept my arms around her, holding her until she was worn out.

"There should have been a dozen samples, minimum," she said quietly. "There should have been a dozen samples." She pulled away from me, all the way away from me. "They're all going to hate me." Brown eyes met mine. "You must hate me."

"I don't—"

"I demanded you bring me to one of the most dangerous places I could imagine on an inkling that there'd be samples of the virus here. On hope. I practically lead you all right to your deaths."

It was fifteen kinds of wrong, but I couldn't help it. I laughed. It wasn't funny, not really.

Her eyes narrowed into slits. "This isn't funny."

No it wasn't, but her melodramatic reaction was. Just a little bit. Call it nervous laughter.

"You didn't lead anyone to their death."

I don't think she heard what I said or, if she did she ignored it.

"Don't tell them," she said suddenly. "Don't tell them this was all for nothing. Not yet. Just...just give me some time. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe there's something else. Maybe he hid it or maybe I can find a journal with something. This can't be it. He can't have sold destruction to the highest bidder and not have had a back up plan. I'll find something. Something has to be here, okay. Just, please, don't say anything for now."

"Alright," I said quickly. "We need to hang out for a couple days, let you and Hunter heal a little. We have time, Ella."