They had walked into the building expecting a perfectly legal transaction to take place.

They left the upper-story room satisfied. Hand in hand, they made their way down the hallway to where the elevators were located. She looked up at him, and he smiled at her, and together they felt satisfied about one more thing crossed off their to-do list.

A gunshot broke their reverie. It came from behind them, from the office where they had, moments before, finished their business. They turned, surprised as anyone would be, to see two men in masks come from that office while another three emerged from various others in order to confirm kills.

They two had no idea what was going on. There was only one thing they knew, and that was that they had to run.

She stood gaping for a while longer than he did, so he grabbed her wrist and dragged her out of her state of shock and towards the elevators. Their footsteps alerted the armed men behind them to their ever-receding presence. One of them shouted into a walkie-talkie something about witnesses headed for the elevators while the other four shot wildly, barely missing the two would-be escapees.

He heard the reply as the doors closed behind them: they two would be met on the first floor. The welcoming committee would not be very pleased to see them. They would be met with what they had left behind here: bullets.

He looked at her and she understood. Tears formed in her eyes as she mouthed five words to him.

He turned away from her. He didn’t want her to die, either, and he would try her hardest to make sure she wouldn’t.

Studying the buttons on the door, his mind began formulating the shreds of a plan. The door close button was very close to the emergency stop button. He would have to hit them in the correct order in order to ensure her chance at survival.

She understood his plan as he moved his hands over the buttons lightly. She grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at her.

“You can’t do this to me.” Her eyes were panicked as she glanced upwards at the flashing lights that served as a countdown to the first floor. They were close.

He tried to make his face hard and commanding as he replied in the only way he could. “I have to, baby. You know that.”

She didn’t take her eyes off the constantly lowering numbers as she repeated herself. “You can’t… do this to me…”

He let himself soften as he asked the only question he could allow himself without breaking down and crying. “Why… why not.”

She took her eyes away from the numbers to say something she had never been able to before. “Because I love you.”

He reached out and rubbed the tears from her cheeks as the elevator touched ground. “I love you too, baby,” was all he could muster before the ding of the door opening. He pushed her down onto the floor while the doors pried themselves open, leaning over only to hit two buttons in succession: doors close, emergency shut down.

She stayed crumpled on the floor as she shook with fright and wept as she heard bullets tearing at the doors of the elevator and at her lover. The only thought running through her head was how worthless her life would be without him.