Chapter Text
She wanted what her parents described.
She wanted the best friend who her parents said would always be there for her, like her parents were to each other. Even from a young age She wanted someone she could play with, someone she could be herself with, someone that wouldn't think that she was weird when she went on about science. And most importantly, she just didn't want to be alone .
School was easy, but being in school was hard. Her brains and shy demeanor wasn’t winning her any friends, and the ones that were nice to her used her for homework answers and then made fun of her behind her back.
Caitlin Snow wanted that one special friend in the whole wide world. She didn’t want to be alone.
She especially hated that she had to grow up before she could ever meet them.
The mechanics of soulmates wasn’t something many people researched until the 1930’s and even then it was speculation at most. No one knew why at a certain age people could start hearing their soulmate’s voice in their head and feeling their emotions, or why it wasn’t always there, or why only about a quarter of the population ever heard from their soulmate. Most religions insisted it was their deity guiding them to their chosen spouse. Conspiracy theorists claimed that it was the government messing with their brains…..somehow. And others, people of the more romantic persuasion, simply believed it were people’s hearts calling out to each other.
It wasn’t until researchers started looking at brain scans that the cause of soulmates became more apparent. The human brain was a complex thing, but even more so when it was discovered that the parietal lobe, specifically the Wernicke’s area, had the ability to transmit brainwaves to incredible distance. The brain didn’t just send, it could also receive other people’s brainwaves, but not just any random person’s. Brainwaves were as unique as a fingerprint, and only people on the same wavelength could communicate with each other.
Two or more people on the same wavelength were called soulmates.
Soulmates don’t have everything in common, they might not even have similar interests, but down in their very core of being, they were kindred spirits.
But they couldn’t know for sure who was their soulmate until their brain decided they were good and ready.
The main part of the brain in charge of the telepathic communication was the parietal lobe and the Wernicke’s area. The parietal lobe was the part of the brain concerned with reception and correlation of sensory information and the Wernicke’s area was the part of the brain that could comprehend language. It was only because of the brain that soulmates were possible, but the brains need to be finished developing until they can ever connect with their soulmate. And brains didn’t finish developing until their mid to late twenties.
Which meant that many people had to wait. Especially lonely little girls.
Caitlin’s obsession with soulmates lasted well into her teen years. While the kids got nicer, they also got more aloof, less caring. Unless Caitlin talked to them, they would forget she ever existed. Caitlin frequently wondered if maybe there was something about her that repelled people. Maybe she was too different, maybe her brain sent off signals that made people uncomfortable, that told people that she was other. Instead of one day finding her soulmate, the person who is just supposed to get her, she instead is anti-soulmates with everyone. Instead of drawing people in, they can’t get away fast enough.
She knew it was ridiculous, there were no such thing as anti-soulmates, but doubts and insecurities always managed to creep into her mind.
Her father’s passing didn’t help.
Her father’s slow and almost tortuous illness that had eventually taken his life left it’s mark on Caitlin. While her mother slinked away into an icy fortress, Caitlin longed for her soulmate even more. Now that both her parents were essentially gone, she craved that soulmate connection more than ever. She didn’t care that she would probably see them die in the future. She would kill for as much time as she could get. She just wanted to know what it was like to connect to someone, to have that support there for when she needed it. Even if she only felt it once it would be enough for her.
Meeting Ronnie Raymond in college was the first time she stopped caring about soulmates.
She wasn’t sure if Ronnie was her soulmate, and if he wasn’t, she didn’t care. He was there for her, he listened to her, he cheered her up and made her smile like no one else before him. Being with him was the first time in her life where she didn’t feel the only person in a crowded room. Who needed a hypothetical soulmate when she had everything she needed already?
Making friends with his roommate, Cisco, was the icing on the cake. Cisco was funny, shared a lot of the same interests as her, and knew what it was like to feel unloved from family. They frequently bonded over their hopes and dreams for the future and to escape from under someone’s shadow. For her, she wanted to be Dr. Caitlin Snow, not Dr. Tannhauser’s daughter. For him, he wanted to be Cisco Roman, not Dante’s little brother.
They took things slow, at first that is. A few study dates in the library, buying souvenirs at the bookstore together, walking each other to class. It was sweet, comfortable, everything Caitlin wanted. But when things got serious, they got serious.
Ronnie was a few years older than her, but since she had graduated high school early and was in an advanced program in college, she had graduated the same year as Ronnie, unfortunately leaving Cisco by himself for his last year of college. They got jobs at one of the most promising research labs in the state, STAR Labs.
At that point Ronnie was 24 and around the age where people started meeting soulmates. Insecurity came back to haunt her. She would pick Ronnie over some random voice in her head any day, but would Ronnie? Would it take just one telepathic whisper for everything they had to come crumbling down?
A couple of weeks of building tension between the two finally boiled over into the strangest and most confusing fights they’d ever had. One that was resolved by Ronnie reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ring.
That ring meant more to her than any words he could’ve said. He wanted to be with her, forever. And choosing forever with her was better than anything something as silly as brainwaves could do.
Life was good. She had Ronnie, Cisco was about to start at STAR Labs too, the work was good, and she had friends.
But then the accident happened.
Faulty wiring and a few spilled chemicals caused the entire building to go into lockdown and a quarantine was placed around the afflicted area.
Ronnie died with four other scientists.
It took her months just to be able to breathe again. She had quit her job at STAR Labs and left all the painful memories there and had been offered a position at Mercury Labs.
Cisco, who was now alone at STAR Labs without his two best friends, tried to be understanding and be there for her, but there is only so much someone can do for a broken heart.
Caitlin would often think about what she used to think when she was younger, that she didn’t care how much time she spent with her soulmate, how every moment would be worth it as long as she had that time at all. Her younger self was an idiot. Because while she didn’t have a soulmate, she had Ronnie, and he was all she needed. And now she had an empty apartment she couldn’t move out of fast enough.
She buried herself in her new job at Mercury Labs, and her supervisor couldn’t have been more impressed with her dedication. But everything around her felt hollow. It didn’t feel right.
Her weekends consisted of Cisco trying new things and taking her wherever to chase away the pain. Video game nights, a club or two, and lastly, just getting drinks at the bar down the road.
And that’s where she met Hunter Zolomon.
He strolled in the bar, acting all shy and sticking to the back of the room, but she could still feel his eyes on her.
When Cisco went to use the bathroom he had cozied on up to her, and even though his flirting was awkward and geeky, it was a welcome distraction. He took her mind off the pain, and for the first time in months she felt normal.
Hunter was nothing like Ronnie. Ronnie was confident, loud, where Hunter was quiet and rather shy. Hunter wasn’t an engineer like Ronnie, he was a freelance writer and occasional travel blogger for when his work took him out of the country. He wasn’t the fire to her ice and he didn’t thaw her out of anything, he just made her feel good and that’s all she wanted.
This time Caitlin knew Hunter wasn’t her soulmate, they were just too different, but Caitlin didn’t care. If anyone would’ve been Caitlin’s soulmate, it would’ve been Ronnie, but since Caitlin hadn’t been the right age before he died, she would never know if they were soulmates after all.
Over the course of a year their relationship remained casual but not casual. Dinners and movies and office parties and sleeping over at each other’s places. Hunter and Cisco didn’t hang out much and Caitlin hadn’t even met his friends, and that’s how she liked it. She didn’t want to meet his friends and turn their relationship into something it wasn’t.
She didn’t think to question much about him, which ultimately led her to a very dark place.
Caitlin’s bad day couldn’t get any worse.
Her lab assistant had mislabeled the petri dish of the most current strain of influenza and the entire collection had to get tested, setting back Caitlin’s team a few days and gotten Caitlin a lecture from the boss even though it wasn’t her fault it was Emmet’s.
Nevertheless, the day was over, but she still needed to take her mind off of it.
She hadn’t told him she was coming over, something she had never really done before. But he had never turned her away before and she couldn’t think of a reason why that would suddenly change.
He answered the door slowly, and then surprise overtook his face as and widened the door upon seeing her.
“Caitlin? What are you doing here?” he asked, not looking as happy as usual to see her.
She grimaced. “Bad day, can I come in?”
He opened the door to allow her entrance and then he grabbed her arm before she could move away from the door. “I actually have some company over that are just about to leave. I’ll meet you upstairs when they’re gone?”
Caitlin bristled at the idea that she was his dirty little secret, but then tossed the thought away as she remembered that their relationship wasn’t like that. “OK,” she said, flashing him a smile before dashing up the stairs and heading straight to his bedroom.
Twenty games of playing solitaire on her phone later, Hunter walked in with an apologetic smile and a bottle of bourbon and two tumblers.
He held up the bottle. “So, ready to forget about your bad day?”
She smiled. Her day was already turning out better.
Hours later Caitlin woke up with a dry mouth. Hunter’s arm hung around her waist, and she quickly lifted it from her to get up.
A quick glance at the clock on the nightstand confirmed that it was way too early for a rational person to be awake. But since her mouth left like dry cement, she figured that needs didn’t have to be rational and left Hunter’s bedroom to get a glass of water.
She tiptoed down the creaky stairs to not wake up Hunter and crept into the kitchen. The only light she had was from the streetlamps outside, making her cautious of where she stepped.
She grabbed a glass, filled it in the sink, and then sat on the kitchen stool as she sipped at it.
Caitlin heard a noise, so faint that she was sure she had imagined it. But she heard it again.
She set her glass on the counter and wandered the main floor looking for the cause of the sound.
Were kids playing nearby? Unlikely since it was the middle of the night.
Was there a noisy pipe? Maybe, she hadn’t slept over enough to notice any plumbing problems.
Did Hunter leave his TV on?
She accepted the last one to be true since as she got closer to the basement door, she could hear muffled shouting.
The basement had been Hunter’s ‘man cave’ and he had made it clear that it was a ‘bros only’ kind of place, so Caitlin had never found a reason to go down there.
She undid the chain on the door and slowly pulled it open. The muffled shouting had gotten louder, it almost sounded like crying.
She felt around for a light switch and then flipped it on. The uncarpeted and unclean looking stairs made her pause until she remembered that she had socks on and her feet would be safe.
Caitlin took a few steps down the stairs and followed the sounds of sobbing. Hunter must watch a lot of dramas if the sounds of sobbing had been going on for awhile.
She got to the bottom of the stairs, and the crying immediately stopped. Caitlin lifted her head and started looking for the TV.
There was no TV.
A dark haired scantily clad girl kneeled on the floor, gagged with duct tape and rope around her wrists.
Caitlin’s hand flew to her mouth.
The girl started bouncing on her knees, and even though she couldn’t make out the girl’s words, Caitlin could still make it out to be begging.
Dr. Snow sprang into action and ran to the girl’s side. She was too scared to tear off the duct tape without soaking it in water first, so she tried to undo the rope around her wrists.
“Are you injured? Are you hurt anywhere?” she asked.
The girl shook her head, and her crying started up again.
“Let’s get you out of here, alright? Will that be O-,”
“Caitlin, what are you doing down here?”
Hunter stood at the foot of the steps, watching her with a look she had never seen before. Well, she had seen that look before, when teachers weren’t impressed with a student’s grades, but not when someone was staring at a bound and gagged girl.
The girl herself shrunk into Caitlin’s side and whimpered. She wasn’t sure if the shaking was from the girl or from herself.
He cocked his head. “I thought I told you to never come down here.”
“Hunter, who is she? What’s she doing down here?” Caitlin asked, her voice fading into a hoarse whisper.
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “That’s really none of your business.” He breathed out a sigh. “You’ve really put me in a bad situation, Cait.”
“You don’t get to call me that.”
Caitlin wasn’t sure how long she was in the basement. She never knew what time it was.
The girl stayed in the basement, but she was moved into the closet and away from where Caitlin was chained to a bolted down bed frame. Hunter came in a few times a day to give her food and escort her to the bathroom. He had made it clear that something bad would happen if he heard her speak to Caitlin at all. Thanks to his threats, she never did.
Each and every time he went down the stairs he would speak to Caitlin. About his day, about good times they’d had together. She knew what he was doing, but no amount of strolls down memory lane would ever erase her disgust for him.
While she didn’t know the exact amount of time she had been missing, she knew that it was enough for Cisco to get suspicious. She never went a day without a text or a phone call from him.
Not hearing from her for more than a day would tip him off. There was also her job. She never took time off and she almost never got sick. Her sudden disappearance would raise a lot of alarms at Mercury Labs. All she had to do was bide her time and wait for someone to find her. No matter how long it took.
Waiting was easier said than done. For the first time since she was in high school Caitlin wished for her soulmate. Then maybe she could’ve telepathically alerted them and been rescued already.
She wasn’t sure how long it had been when Hunter and two other men had come into the basement.
Caitlin scurried off the bed and scrambled as far from them as she could get, but a smirk from Hunter when they passed her told her that they weren’t here for her.
Caitlin’s silent roommate wasn’t so lucky.
The girl went kicking and muffled screaming from the closet. Caitlin screamed at them to let her go until Hunter put his hand over her mouth. The larger of the two choked the girl until her feet didn’t twitch anymore. Caitlin wasn’t sure if she had just witnessed her death.
The two men carried the girl’s limp figure upstairs and Caitlin screamed and screamed until tears were pouring out of her eyes.
Hunter held her and tried to calm her down and Caitlin stiffened but acted like his very touch didn’t revolt her lest she wanted to be carried up the stairs too.
Hunter eventually left, leaving Caitlin by herself for the first time since she’d gone down there. But at least she wasn’t near him anymore. At that point Caitlin would rather die than spend the rest of her life in that basement forced to be with him. She had decided that if there was a time where all hope was lost, she’d tie her restraints around her neck.
But thank goodness it didn’t come to that.
An estimated few hours after the men had left with the girl, Caitlin heard shouts and loud noises from above her head. The sound of heavy boots running across hard floors seemed to stick in her head and wouldn’t stop banging around in there too.
The basement door slammed open. Caitlin gave an undignified squeak before scrambling off the bed once more and trying her best to crouch behind the bed frame. The sound of running feet echoed the walls until it stopped. The flashlights were blinding and she weakly held up her hands to cover her eyes.
“We got her!”
Dark shapes from behind the blinding lights moved and crept alarmingly close to her. She tried making herself as small as possible.
A shadowed figure disarmed himself and knelt down to where Caitlin was still crouching. “Hey, hey,” he said, his voice raspy yet smooth. “It’s alright now. I’m Detective Thawne and you don’t have to worry. No one here will hurt you.”
The ride from the basement to the hospital was one that Caitlin would never be able to fully recall due to fading in and out of consciousness. She knew someone tried holding her hand at one point, but being touched by a random man was the last thing she wanted and she had ripped her hand away.
The bright white walls of the hospital were able to jarr her out of her fog and the sweet faced doctor that escorted her to a private room.
Words like “malnourishment”, “possibly drugged” and “shock” floated around and got caught in the room. In a distant corner of her mind she recalled memorizing symptoms of malnourishment while Ronnie waved flash cards.
“Do you need an internal exam?” a nurse muttered.
Caitlin’s mind was brought back to the sterile room and not just abstractedly wandering. But the implications of what the nurse was asking was enough for her to want her mind to take a hike.
She shook her head quickly, almost looking like tremors. “No, no. It never went like….” her breath hitched. “That didn’t happen.”
The nurse nodded and went back to checking the abrasions on Caitlin’s wrists.
“Alright. You’re all set,” the nurse said, finishing applying a bandage around her left wrist. Caitlin looked around, not sure what to do next. “We’ve notified your next of kin, they should be here any minute to sign you out. If you want to go home, that is.”
Caitlin’s head cleared, clearer than she can remember. “My next of kin?”
As if summoned by her words, a knock came from the doorway.
An auburn haired middle aged woman stood, not wearing a fancy suit from the first time since Caitlin was 12.
“Caity?” Her fingers trembled.
She hadn’t spoken to her mother in years, they hadn’t gotten along in far more time than that and they never agreed on anything.
But oh god she needed her mom.
Caitlin nodded her head and couldn’t contain her sobs let alone speak as everything that had happened came back.
Dr. Tannhauser practically ran from the door and gathered up her little girl in her arms and pretended like she was just a kid who fell off her bike again. Because then Caity Cat would be better after a few kisses, and Dr. Tannhauser had no idea how to get her girl to stop crying this time.
Caitlin told her mother that she just wanted to get it over with. And reluctantly Dr. Tannhauser signed her daughter out and drove her to the police station.
To immediately be met with a friendly face.
“Caitlin!” Cisco Ramon shouted.
Caitlin ran off the elevator and threw herself into Cisco’s arms.
“Caitlin. Caitlin, are you OK?” he mumbled, his hands going over every inch of her he could get to, checking her for an injury.
She swallowed and tried conjuring up a smile. “Better now that you’re here.” Her voice cracked and she hid her face into the crook of Cisco’s neck.
He stopped his perusal of her and went back to holding her. Cisco’s scent of detergent and sweat was the best thing she’d smelled in her whole life. It was clean, unlike the basement. It was dirty, unlike the hospital.
She felt rather than saw a new presence approach them.
“I’m sorry to have to break this up, but we’re ready for her to give her statement.”
Cisco moved back from her and scanned her face. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay with Cisco and her mom and go home and curl up in a ball and block out the world….
She gathered her strength and nodded. “I’m ready.”
Detective Joe West lead her into a backroom and on tape allowed her to record everything that happened. Why she was at the house, how she had gotten in the basement, and what had happened there. In order to say the entire thing in one go and answer all the questions he had on the specifcs was only possible when she didn’t make eye contact and she focused on the story and not what she felt during that time.
“OK, I think that’s all we need,” Detective West said, and he went over to the camera and turned it off. “I’m sorry.”
For the first time since she started talking, she looked up. “What?”
Detective West shook his head, seemingly disappointed with himself. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you? Why what happened happened?”
“No, no not really….” her voice tapered off, and an image of the girl screaming flooded her mind and she shivered.
He sat down. “It’s kind of a long story, but here’s how it goes. A few years back this guy, called himself Jay Garrick, would show up to the free clinic with a girl. A different girl each time. He would claim that he was a dance instructor and that the girls were from his dance company that needed to get treated for minor injuries, but didn’t have the insurance to go anywhere else. The doctor he saw the girls with the most was named Dr. Henry Allen, who used to do volunteer work there.” Caitlin noted the use of past tense. “He didn’t know. He was so horrified when he found out….”
“I’m sorry, Detective,” she mumbled. “I don’t see how any of this has to do with me.”
“I have a daughter around your age. Iris.” A ghost of a smile lifted his lips until it collapsed. “She has a friend named Linda. She disappeared last month after going home with a guy she met at a karaoke bar.” He reached for the file that was to the side of the table that had gone previously ignored by Caitlin. He opened the file and showed her the photo of a smiling girl. One that Caitlin recognized.
“That’s the girl who was with me in the basement.” She brushed her fingers of the girl’s smile.
He nodded. “She’s alright.” She froze where she stood and a half second of the girl’s- of Linda’s screams played through her mind. “We picked her up an hour after we found you. They ditched her at a truck stop once they figured they couldn’t go far with her.”
Caitlin’s breathing picked up. “She’s alive?”
“Yeah. She’s at Central City General right now.”
Linda was at Central City General. Linda had friends. Linda had probably been through more than her….
She licked her lips. “Please continue.”
“After Linda was reported missing, we questioned the guy she left the bar with, Hunter Zolomon.” He paused for her reaction. Despite everything, it still stung that he cheated on her. “He claimed he didn’t have a clue where she was and we didn’t have enough evidence for a warrant.”
Caitlin could take a guess on what happened next. “He had her in his basement, right? The whole time?”
Detective West shrugged. “We don’t know. Linda hasn’t given a statement yet.”
She looked back to the table. Of course they didn’t know, of course Linda wasn’t well enough to give a statement.
“That’s not all.” She didn’t want to hear it, but she felt like she had to anyway. “Henry Allen was my best friend.” Detective West didn’t look like he was in the room. “I showed him a picture of Hunter Zolomon, and he recognized the guy as Jay Garrick.” Caitlin wasn’t psychic but she felt like she knew how this was going to end. Badly. ‘We were able to piece together that Hunter Zolomon was a human trafficker who kidnapped and distributed young women.”
Caitlin clamped her hand over her mouth to not let out her yell. She took a deep breath to remind herself that the hand was hers and not Hunter’s. Her head wavered over the table for a moment before she had the strength to get herself together.
“On Henry Allen’s testimony alone we could’ve gotten a warrant, but before we could his house was burned down with him and his wife in it.”
“Oh god...”
He gently placed his hand over hers, his warmth almost a shock as Caitlin realized her hands were cold as ice.
“I want to apologize to you, Dr. Snow,” he said, his face unreadable.
“Why?” she was able to muster up.
“I was so absorbed in finding Linda and getting the sons of bitches who murdered my best friend and left his son an orphan that I encouraged my captain to pool all our resources into those cases. Other cases were pushed to the side and were buried under paperwork. Including yours.”
She swallowed before speaking. “I understand.” She waited for anger to wash over her and drown her in all the pain, but she was so tired and so sick of all of it that she couldn’t find herself to be bitter when confronted with Detective West’s apology. “You had to make a tough call. It happens.”
“You should thank your friend Cisco. When we weren’t putting in the time on your case, he camped out on the front steps for a week.”
That got her to smile. “That sounds like him.”
“This morning I did the follow up on your case and we got the break we needed. You and Linda and Henry were enough for a judge to sign a warrant to search his property. And then a few hours ago we found you. And the bastard who did all this is sitting a cell as we speak.”
Caitlin shrugged on the CCPD sweatshirt and pressed down the plain sweat pants. She was just glad to get out of her office clothes. Detective West took the bag of her clothes when she exited the bathroom. Detective Thawne was there too and the both of them looked at her gently.
“I’m gonna run these to CI,” Detective West said as Detective Thawne’s cell phone buzzed.
“Wait.” Detective West stopped. “Spivot just texted me. She sent just Barry home and you’re gonna give the evidence to her instead.”
Detective West shook his head. “He’s probably not happy about that.”
A sharp pain pierced the side of her head. “Ah!” She clamped her hand over the aching spot and gritted her teeth.
Detective West placed his hand on her shoulder. “Dr. Snow, are you alright?”
She clenched her fist and spoke through her teeth. “If you don’t need me for anything else, I think I should go home.”
Detective West moved Caitlin towards the elevator where Cisco was waiting. “Sure, sure. We’ll call if we need anything else.”
“Caitlin, what’s wrong? Are you alright?” Cisco said when he saw Caitlin clutch her head. Detective West took his leave when Caitlin was securely being seen to by her friend.
She waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. Just a bad headache. Nothing big.” She grimaced. “Where’s my mom?”
“She’s pulling the car up. We’re meeting her downstairs.” He rubbed her back sympathetically. “Now let’s get you home to the land of warm tea and showers, that sound about right?”
Caitlin managed a smile for him and they hopped on the elevator, thankful that they were the only two on it.
“Hold the elevator!”
Caitlin didn’t bother holding in her groan. The solitude was nice while it lasted. She massaged the spot above her ear and hoped the newcomer wouldn’t strike up an unwanted conversation. She didn’t think she could take the unnecessary noise.
A dark haired young man slid into the elevator and then Cisco let the doors close. Caitlin was taken aback by the sudden swell of anger that rose within her, but yet she had no desire to act upon the new feelings.
Cisco wrapped an arm around her shoulder and casted a weary eye on their new companion.
The man in question hissed and pressed a hand to his head. “Do any of you have a Tylenol? My head’s killing me.”
Cisco raised an eyebrow at him. “Sorry, bro.”
“I don’t think a Tylenol would cut it. I think a lobotomy would do the job better,” she said, surprising even herself when she spoke up.
He chuckled. “You got a headache too?” he asked. The tight, hot feeling of anger lessened.
She looked at the stranger curiously and met his gaze. “Yeah, I-,”
His actions were mirrored to hers. They were both rubbing the area towards the back of their heads and above their ears.
Right where the parietal lobe was.
His grin slipped as he came to the same conclusion.
Cisco’s arm dropped from her shoulder as he swept his eyes back and forth between them as they stood unmoving in their revelation. “Oh my god.”
“H-how old are you?” he asked, his voice lowered, but also higher in pitch.
Caitlin had wished for this moment. The moment where it all came together and the world would be alright. Meeting her soulmate was something she used to dream about. To her it was the beginning of the rest of her life, her happily ever after.
Before Ronnie and death and Hunter and torment she would’ve jumped head first into this opportunity.
But how could she be someone’s happily ever after when it felt like she’d never be happy again?
Hello?
His voice in her head rang loud and clear, but came with a twinge of pain as her neural pathways were unused to receiving messages like that.
She could feel something pressing against her mind, a gentle knock. A playful presence.
Her mind felt like scorched earth. No poor unsuspecting stranger should be exposed to that. To her.
The elevator stopped right on time.
She started backing away. “No. I’m sorry...” She slipped out and Cisco followed after her.
She didn’t hear the doors shut behind her, but she knew she didn’t hear a third pair of footsteps.
It would be better for everyone this way.