Minutes had passed since Tatiana and Edward took refuge from the Butcher. His menacing stomps could still be heard up the hall outside of their temporary shelter. For the first and only time during their ordeal, the pair was grateful that he was carrying a loud chainsaw, as its deafening engine was likely the only reason their noisy panting did not give away their positions instantly. Thankfully, their breaths had since calmed slightly in the minutes that elapsed, but the two found that they could still not pull themselves off the floor they had collapsed upon.

Shaking and sweating profusely, Tatiana rolled her head towards Edward and chuckled, speaking to him in a hushed tone. "You still have that stupid tie around your forehead."

Edward shot the woman a baffled expression and yanked the drenched accessory from his head, tossing it aside. With his makeshift headband removed, his dripping, dark blonde locks sagged upon his brow. "Is that all you have to say after I just saved your life?"

"It's real humble of you to brag, but you didn't save my life."

"Oh yeah? Well, you don't look dismembered to me," Edward contested.

"Don't be stupid, you know what I mean."

"Stupid like you tripping up back there because you were looking at me instead of where you were going?"

The weary woman rolled her eyes, not quite craving another argument with the businessman. "Let's not do this."

"Oh, we're doing this. That psychopath was right about you, you talk a big game, but when my life is on the line it makes you different—it makes you care."

"Oh, please."

"Don't try to deny it, it's true," Edward insisted. "It's the same for me. Every part of me wanted to just bolt back there, but I couldn't."

"Yeah? Why not?"

"Because you looked at me with those eyes."

Tatiana's features shuffled surprise and confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Back when you were on the floor, you looked up at me and your eyes were..." Edward paused for a moment, reliving the scene in his mind's eye. "Disappointed."

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do," said Edward, sternly. "I know that expression because I've seen it many times at work when folks know they're about to be laid off. It's that pessimistic gaze of someone who expected the worst, but, deep down, they really wanted to be hopeful. I couldn't leave you there seeing that lost look in your eyes."

"Let me make this clear for you," Tatiana started. "Whatever you think you saw, you're wrong. I'm only trying to help you stay alive because you actually have a chance to live. I made a stupid mistake back there, but so did you when you came back for someone who's going to die anyway."

Edward grabbed Tatiana's hand, eliciting a quiet gasp from the woman. "Enough! You keep saying that and acting like it doesn't matter if you die here. But you want to make it out of this more than anything, don't you? I don't care what you say, even if you don't realize it yourself, it's just human nature." Tatiana yanked her hand away from the determined man before he continued, "you say you're trying to help me live? Yeah, well, I'm going to help you live too."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Tatiana said, dryly. "I don't get you. You've been a whiny crybaby about dying this whole time. I gave you the green light to look out for yourself here, and yet, first you try to offer yourself up instead of me, then you risk your neck coming back for me, now this. Why does someone like you care about what happens to me?"

"Because you've never even had a real chance to live," Edward said. "All the hardship you talked about going through back there, having no one, your living conditions, and now your sickness? It isn't fair that you should die here."

Tatiana looked slightly surprised by the businessman's remarks but shook her head and replied in a curt whisper. "Listen, I've hardly had it the worst in life. Can't say I've loved my time being alive, but I'm lucky I even made it this far. There are children who face what I'm facing, and they take it head on. Some of them don't even live half a decade. So, who am I to say my life isn't fair?"

"What?" said Edward, flummoxed by the woman's response. He knew that her point was correct to an extent, but he also knew that the ranking of misery was a game with no winners, one in which goalposts could be moved infinitely. All tragedy is equally terrible, he thought, but arguing her logic was futile. He knew that she would surely keep comparing herself to increasingly tragic strawmen until he relented and agreed that her situation was insignificant.

"I knew rich people lived in another world but you're pretty naïve for a go-getting businessman, you know that?" Tatiana sighed. "Point is, drop the hero stuff. You're feeling guilty, but you shouldn't be. Next chance you get to escape, take it—no matter what happens to me. Got it?"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Slowly, Edward rose to wobbly feet, his calves still burning from the manic chase he had just endured. He fixed his gaze down at his fellow victim who remained lying on the cold, dirty, tiles and spoke. "Fine, maybe somehow this whole situation is 'fair'. But you know what? I'm not accepting it, and I'm still going to save you." The woman groaned and tried to retort, but Edward interrupted, continuing his passioned speech. "You mess with my head, piss me off, and make me question myself in ways no one else has. As much as it pains me to say, I would have run away back there if it was anyone but you. I need to understand why that is. I can't do that if you're dead."

Tatiana was floored. Throughout her time in captivity with the man standing above her, he had surprised her very little. Successful, well off, and wholly ignorant of the real world, she knew his type very well, but his current behavior was completely alien to her. Sure, plenty of guys like Edward attempt to play up their supposed morals and "everyman" qualities, but when push comes to shove, their true colors always emerge. Men like him would never die for someone like her, yet here he was proclaiming he would risk exactly that.

"Here, take my hand," said Edward, reaching out to Tatiana. "Get up so we—"

"There you are!" the Butcher's voice roared from behind the door, his large, dark silhouette visible beyond the glass.

Edward yanked Tatiana to her feet in a panic and shouted, "shit, he found us!"

The Butcher tried to throw open the door but found that it instead collided with the large cart Tatiana had wedged in front of it. With a thunderous growl, he thrust the chainsaw's blade forward and shattered the door's window. He shoved his massive arm inside and began reaching for a grip, forcefully trying to remove the obstruction keeping him from massacring his startled prey.

Tatiana cursed her and Edward's carelessness. They had been so focused on their conversation they didn't notice that any sound of the Butcher had vanished from earshot. Desperate, Tatiana scanned the room frantically, her eyes searching for anything that could aid their dire situation. Swiftly, she identified a large ventilation duct situated atop a tall cabinet. "Up there!" she shouted.

"Here, climb up on my back and get it open!" Edward directed, dropping to all fours so the brunette could use his torso as a step ladder.

Without hesitation, Tatiana ascended Edward's form and lifted herself onto the cabinet. She yanked on the grate until it ripped from its mount with a loud clunk, revealing the entrance to a shaft that was just big enough for the two to crawl through. She spun around and slipped into the shaft, hanging her body halfway out and over the edge of the cabinet to hold out her hand. "Come on, I'll pull you up!" she yelled.

Edward quickly got to his feet and glanced back over his shoulder. The Butcher had just flung the cart away from the door and was preparing to breach the threshold of the small room. With a panicked scream, Edward grabbed a tight hold of Tatiana's hand. Her arm trembled greatly at the challenge of trying to lift the larger man, but she managed to begin slowly pulling him towards her.

"Help me out here!" Tatiana commanded.

"I'm sorry. I'm trying!" Edward cried.

The Butcher took a step back and delivered a mighty kick that sent the door flying straight off its hinges. He did this with such ease that the sight alone made Tatiana cuss profusely. His chainsaw, which was not currently running, began to grumble as he tugged at the starting handle. A final, great heave sent the engine roaring back to life, and the blades began to spin rapidly once more.

"Edward, hurry up!" urged Tatiana as she dropped her second arm over edge of the cabinet.

The desperate blonde grabbed hold of Tatiana's other arm and shifted his weight to make lifting him up easier. At the same time, the Butcher rushed into the room, swinging the perverted power tool wildly. With zero seconds to spare, Edward kicked his legs up behind him to just barely avoid a brutal maiming. The woman above him strained but managed to pull him vertically enough for him to grab hold of the top of the cabinet and climb into the ventilation shaft with her.

"Go, go!" Edward yelled; the sound of the Butcher's chainsaw nearly drowned out his voice.

"You think this is easy?" replied a frazzled Tatiana. Having to turn her body to pull Edward up into the vent meant that the brunette was stuck having to crawl backwards in the tight, dust infested shaft. Progress was slow and clumsy, but the further she and Edward advanced, the further away the pulse pounding sound of the engine became.

"Where are we going?"

"How the hell should I know? I can't even see where I'm going like this."

"What if it's a dead end? If we get stuck in here, we're—"

The loud, abrupt sound of metal creaking shut the businessman up and stopped the advancement of both individuals. Tatiana and Edward shared an uneasy glance as the metal beneath them began to dent in and bend downward. An unsettling series of pops coincided with the sudden sloping of the duct's floor. The pair exchanged a knowing look, and, with a final loud, metallic clatter, the vent floor burst and sent Edward and Tatiana crashing down into the room beneath them.

"Ah, shit!" Edward cursed, wincing from the harsh impact with the unforgiving floor. He laid in a heap for a second, his head in a haze from the suddenness of the fall. A powerful chill quickly moved upon him, enveloping his body and covering his skin in goosebumps. Before he could make sense of the sudden shift in temperature, he was startled out of his daze by the abrupt, bloodcurdling scream of Tatiana. The sound of her distress made him practically kip up to his feet. When he steadied himself, he got a first glance of his surroundings and vomited instantly.

It was a large freezer, the kind used in meat processing to store butchered meat. But the hooks that populated nearly every inch of the icy room did not hang the carcasses of slaughtered cattle. Instead, the corpses of dozens of men and women dangled lifelessly from the merciless ends of seemingly endless hooks. It was a twisted diorama that no mind in Hollywood could ever realize in such gruesome detail.

Entering a trance for the second time in mere seconds, Edward stared vacantly at the scene in front of him, morbidly transfixed by the sickening displays of brutality hanging everywhere. He was jettisoned back to reality once more by the sound of Tatiana's shrieks.

"Edward!" the woman shouted; her voice wracked with agony.

The shellshocked man snapped his head in the direction of Tatiana's voice and gasped, nearly yelping when he caught her in his crosshairs. "Oh God, no!"

There, mere inches from Edward, Tatiana dangled desperately by the arm, screaming in anguish. Her fall from the ventilation shaft had not ended as well for her as it did the businessman, and one look made it clear that upon descent, the woman's right hand was impaled all the way through and completely down the length of an empty hook's loop. As blood surged from an immobilized Tatiana's wound, the sound of a chainsaw rapidly drew nearer.