Excerpt: 300

We run for our lives through the halls, our footsteps slapping across the cold marble. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. But at this moment, counting doesn't calm me down; I'm terrified out of my mind.

“Damn it!” Aida swears, panting. “What the hell are we supposed to do? We're trapped inside and we can't get to any of the exits – they're all blocked by your freaking filthy men.”

“Aida, they're not my men –”

“Oh shut up! They used to be your friends, didn't they?” she snaps at me, glaring.

“I don't really care about that right now!” I shout. “I just want to figure out a way to not let them catch us!”

An idea hits me. “Wait, there's a hiding place that Marcus doesn't know about,” I say quickly as I begin running through Mind Probe Project's halls again. “Follow me.”

“No way in hell! I'm not following you, you sexist pig!” Aida dashes in front of me and takes the lead.

I roll my eyes at Aida's stubbornness. “You have no idea where to go, genius.”

Reluctantly, she lets me race in front of her again. “Shut up.”

Five frantic minutes later I find it – the mirror at the end of the L wing. As soon as I spot it, I hear the footsteps again, back on our trail. They are far, but in a matter of minutes they'll be upon us.

Aida swears again.

“Give me a bobby pin,” I say hastily, nodding at her pinned-up hair.

She gives me a look of indignation. “Excuse me?”

“I said –”

“I heard what you said, you moron.”

“Well, then –”

“How the hell does a straight guy know what a bobby pin is?” she asks with incredulity. Then a thoughtful look comes over her face. “Does that mean you're not ...”

“What? No! Of course not! I –” I groan and interrupt myself. “Why are we having this argument? It doesn't matter right now. JUST GIVE ME THE FREAKING BOBBY PIN!”

I freeze. The man on our tail surely heard that.

CRAP.

Realizing the urgency of the situation, Aida slips one out of her hair and throws it in my palm. I slip it in the small crack between the mirror and the wall, and the mirror clicks open like a door. Inside is a tiny compartment just big enough for two people.

Aida stares at it like it just grew two heads.

“What are you waiting for? Get IN!”

She does. I close the mirror behind us and hold my breath, waiting.

The footsteps enter the hallway we just were in. They hesitate for a moment of terrifying suspense, and then they head off down the right corridor, away from the mirror. I breathe out a sigh of relief.

Aida raises her eyebrows. “That was pretty smooth, Roberto Vasquez.” The weird thing is, she isn't sarcastic.

I'm so shocked at the fact that she's actually complementing me for the first time that I forget to breathe.

And then Aida does something even more astonishing.

She kisses me.

I'm stunned out of my mind; I can't even think. All the numbers evaporate from my brain as my mind tries to register what is happening.

Aida. Is. Kissing. Me.

KISSING me.

I don't believe it.

When the numbness evaporates, all I feel is fire – fire and a rush of feeling. I've wanted this for so long; I can hardly comprehend that it's finally happening now.

My heart is racing a million miles per second. My lips are burning. Suddenly seized with desire, I tangle my fingers into her hair and pull her closer, my lips tracing patterns with hers. My blood is rushing, my veins pulsing, my mind blazing.

And then three very furious agents are bursting into our hiding place and pressing guns to our foreheads.