CHAPTER TWO
( ESCAPE THIS )

     THE FIVE STRANGERS around Ayson didn't move, nor did they respond. She wasn't sure what to think of their silence, only hoping that they would consider what she had said. But they didn't have time to consider it; this was their only option, and a limited one at that. There were only five keys above, which meant one of them surely wouldn't make it out. Ayson was going to make sure she wasn't the last one left.

"What do you mean?" One of them demands— a new voice. "How are we supposed to know why we're here? Some psycho kidnapped us!"

"Jigsaw only kidnaps those who wrong others," the boy comments. "He even said that our lies managed to take others down. What have we done?"

"Um," Ayson hesitates, thinking back through the span of her lifetime. But what had she done? Nothing, really. In fact, most others had wronged her.

Her memory was etched on a single one that still caused her nightmares; one that took place a mere four months ago. She was abandoned at a party, of which her friend had begged her to go to. But for only a short moment, she had left her best friend's drink among a group of strangers, just for a second, to get fresh air from the smell of alcohol.

"Two months ago," the same boy starts, talking over all of them. "I was driving home after a party, and got into a car crash that killed two passengers in the car with me."

He looked miserable as he continued, "I was told to stay sober so that I could drive, but I got drunk. I killed them."

Immediately after he finished, it was as if a blade had swiped through the air and sliced through the rope that held the nearest key to him. The key landed on the floor with a clang, close enough for him to reach it and unlock himself from the chains. Nearly a minute had passed, and only one of the six were free.

The keys, as Ayson could tell, were nearly ten feet above his head, and there was no way he could take another. Instead, he nearly toppled over his feet to Ayson's side, trying to lodge the key into a cuff.

"Why won't it work?" He asks her, expecting an answer. "It worked on mine—"

"Because I haven't earned my way out yet," Ayson shakes her head, before looking to the doors behind him. "Go."

He hesitated as the others yelled for his help; for the key. They wouldn't admit what they did, but Ayson wasn't about to go down like this.

"I got my best friend killed," Ayson chokes out, closing her eyes and hoping that this would set her free. "I . . . I didn't know someone would drug her drink. I wasn't even gone that long. But when I came back inside, she was drinking it, and then she just stopped. She had an allergic reaction to whatever was put in the drink, and it's all my fault." Her throat burns, scraping with guilt at each new word. "It's all my fault."

Once again, a key dropped from the rafters. It hadn't taken her long to catch on that perhaps, because of her silence on the topic, he had taken advantage of someone else. And even though it wasn't truly her that committed the crime, she allowed it to happen.

Now two minutes had passed, and Ayson rushed forward to the doors, jamming her key into the first one she could find. Thankfully, it was a quick fit, and she was in the next room in no time. But she‒ along with the boy‒ could still hear everything that was going on behind them. Ayson shoved herself closer to the wall, sinking down onto the floor.

The adrenaline in her veins reminded her of her first rollercoaster ride; back when she was seven years old, and her father was still happily married to her mother. But after two years, he was no longer happy, and neither was Ayson. Some things just weren't meant to be, and her father had to escape. Oh, how she wished that she, too could get away.

"I don't know what I've done!" The blond man yells into the open, loud enough for an echo to resonate around the warehouse. "Uh- shit, I've cheated on my wife on several occasions! Damn, is that not it?"

The boy shook his head, lowering himself to the floor next to Ayson. The girl frowned, looking at the room around them. It was dirtier than the first, but so much smaller. Yet another timer was located on a shelf at the corner of the room, right next to the exiting door. Ayson felt her hands begin to shake, running them through her hair as a distraction of some sort.

"How did I get here?" She murmers, swallowing back the cries that seemed to be lodged in her throat. The girl wasn't about to cry— she couldn't. It felt as though everything in her disagreed, and wouldn't allow her eyes to burn with tears.

"We just need to get out," the boy says lowly, closing his eyes for a short moment. He then procedes to look at Ayson, letting out a sigh. "I'm Aidan, by the way. Aidan Tarver."

"Ayson Lee," the raven-haired girl responds, placing her shaking hands on the floor to brace herself. "Would you happen to know any of those people back there?"

"I know them just as much as you do," he chuckles, not a trace of amusement in his voice. "I'm pretty thankful for that, though. I could only imagine if anyone I knew was in this situation."

Ayson realized that she, too, wouldn't have taken that easily, especially if one of her family members would've been sitting near her. A wave of cold ran up her spine, causing her to shiver. But she was pulled from her short thought as a brunette woman steps into the room, breathing heavily as she looks around with wide eyes. Ayson recognizes her as the woman wearing the pantsuit, watching as she takes a seat beside her.

"Screw this place," she shakes her head, tightening her ponytail. "How the hell are we supposed to get out? I don't play games with death."

"We get through the obstacles he throws our way," Aidan replies, not hesitating to answer the woman's previous question. "This Jigsaw shit isn't fake, and John Kramer can't be dead."

Ayson could remember reading several articles about the games— Jigsaw killings. They were gruesome, and showed up on the news occasionally, to which she payed attention. But never did she think that she would be a victim to his ways. Ayson wasn't innocent, and she would have to pay the price for it. It was easier said than done, to manage a way out when there were desperate others all around her.

Because all she had to do was escape; but nothing would ever be that easy.

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