At that moment, Cassie had felt her heart starting to race inside her chest. Her palms became sweaty and her train of thought went off the tracks, leaving her unable to focus on any one thing for more than a couple of seconds. She was having a panic attack. They happened from time to time, stemming from an episode of childhood trauma that no matter how hard she tried, Cassie was unable to forget. The next thing she knew she was underneath a table with her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the outside world entirely.
“Come on,” Samuel groaned as he pressed the elevator call button over and over again, glancing upwards at the screen. “What is going on?”
“Do you think someone is up there?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” Samuel mused, trying to figure it out. “Come on. I’m going to give them a call.”
Leading Cassie back to his office, Samuel walked inside and headed over to his desk. He was trying to approach things in a rational manner, aware that for the time being there weren’t many options and that he needed to remain calm in front of Cassie. So, he sat back in his chair and picked up his office phone, pressing a couple of buttons on the keypad to automatically dial the HR line on the nineteenth floor.
“Ugh, give me a break,” he muttered a few seconds later, putting the phone down and looking up at Cassie. “Busy.” Dialling another number from the contact list that was printed and stuck next to his phone, Samuel waited once more for the dial tone to kick in and the phone to start ringing. Once again, he was met with a busy signal.
“Either there’s people up there or the phones are down. Which is it?”
“I don’t know,” Cassie replied. “I think everyone was told to get out of the building. I don’t really remember, sorry.”
“Ah don’t worry, Cassie. The only thing is how we’re going to get down now.”
“Can we not use the stairs?”
Samuel looked at Cassie and smiled, deliberately not wanting to worry her in any way. “Hopefully,” he nodded, “but we need to be prepared to cross paths with a few people if we do. I reckon we’ll be in the minority trying to get out of the building rather than in.”
He couldn’t help but feel responsible for the young woman in front of him. He had been there during her interview process. He had selected her from a group of four or five willing graduates, each trying to prove themselves. But there was something about Cassie’s work that stood out, she might not have been the biggest personality in the room, but her designs were flawless and meticulously planned, coupled with a rationale that he couldn’t fault. She had been a standout selection from that recruitment day, a decision that Samuel firmly stood by.
However, that also made Cassie his responsibility. If he hadn’t selected her, then she wouldn’t be in this predicament right now. Sure, she would probably still be suffering somewhere else in the city, no corner unaffected by the madness Trident had caused, but she wouldn’t be directly in his care. And while she was an adult and well-versed in life enough to take care of herself, Samuel couldn’t help the paternal instinct that washed over him when he looked at her. It awakened the desire in him to have children of his own, one day, perhaps when the world was right again.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” he smiled at Cassie. “I’ll go and check it out and I’ll come back and get you if the coast is clear, okay?”
“Where are you going?” Cassie immediately questioned, a note of fear present in her tone at the thought of being left alone again.
“Just to the stairwell,” Samuel reassured her. “Two minutes. I promise.”
Leaving the young woman in his office, Samuel edged his way back to the stairwell that he had dashed down not that long ago to try and escape a thug with a crowbar. Pressing his ear up against the metal door he listened, trying to figure out if Matt and his friend were still out there. There were definitely people in the stairwell, faint echoes of footsteps and conversation drifting upwards, but it didn’t sound like anyone was directly outside.
With his foot positioned strategically so that the door would smash into it if pushed open, Samuel’s hand hovered over the door release button. He was scared. There was no other way of putting it. He had never really been in anything close to a fight before and the altercation with the two men upstairs had shocked him to his core. Had his predicament been any different, Samuel wondered how he would’ve reacted to it. Perhaps it was lucky that his fight or flight reflex had been running since lunchtime.
Now was no time for flight though. He had a duty of care for someone else and he had to get them both out of the building. If they walked with purpose and kept their heads down, no one should suspect that they were anything more than another pair of civilians who had entered the building in a search for answers. They had to do it. They didn’t have a choice. And so, pressing the door release button, Samuel tugged open the large metal object and stuck his head outside, glancing into the stairwell to see if it was empty. With a huge sigh of relief, he saw that Matt and his friend had vanished, hopefully going far away where Samuel would never encounter them again.
Five minutes later, he was walking through the
