The bag was then lifted off my head and now I could clearly see my situation was much worse than I had hoped. I quickly moved into the back corner trying to distance myself from anyone else in the room. It was dark with just a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. I was sitting on a cold concrete floor and there was nothing inside the cell except for one thing. Sitting directly in front of me was a boy. He was about my age probably 14 or 15, tan, blue eyes, and dirty blond hair. It was then that I saw standing outside the door was yet again my captor. He had a sickly smile on his face that made me wanna cry even more than I did before. I figured the boy saw how scared I was because he came over and sat down right next to me.
My captor then said something, “Cody this is Emma, Emma this is Cody. Don’t try anything stupid Emma or what I said before about me hurting you will come true.”
After he locked the cell door and walked away I looked at the boy who now had a name, Cody.
“ Hi Cody, I guess were gonna have to rely on each other now, huh?”
“I guess so Emma” he responded. 
“So now that we don't really have a choice but to be best friends I hope you don't mind if I cry.” 
At that I did begin to cry and Cody, my new best friend, held me as I sobbed.
Once I finally came to terms with what had happened to me and let it all out, I started to open up to Cody and he did the same for me.
“Ok so all I know about you is your name” he said to me.
“That is true.” I replied.
“So are you gonna tell me how you ended up here?”
“I think it's too soon to talk about.” I said “We can save that for another time.”
“Ok well at least tell me who you are.”
That sounded reasonable enough for me, so I did.
“Ok well my name is Emma May, I am 14 years old, I live in Pennsylvania, and I'm in 8th grade.”
“It’s nice to meet you Emma May. My name is Cody Mally, I am 15 years old, I also live in Pennsylvania with my family, and I am in 9th grade.”
“It's nice to meet you too Cody Mally.”
****

“Cody it's been a month, I don't know if I can take this anymore.”
“Emma the plan will work, we just have to wait a little while before we can act on it.”
“Ok” I answered worriedly.
Ever since the day I was taken I hadn't wanted to talk about my family or how I was actually an orphan who nobody wanted.  But Cody did want to know and he wanted to know what happened to me when I was taken because I was starting to have nightmares that were recurring and terrifying. He said he was beginning to worry about me but considering the situation we're in I didn't think it was nearly as important.
Everyday since I arrived at my prison my captor, whose name I later learned was Harry, came to my cell and would take me to a room  where he would ask me different questions. If I didn't answer the way he wanted he would beat me in any way he felt necessary. He had done the same thing to Cody when he was first taken but stopped after Cody told him something. He would never tell me what he said because apparently if I said it Harry would kill me as well as Cody.
In the months I had been there it had turned into a routine for me to be taken to that room and everyday I would come back to my cell with a new bruise or cut. That was why Cody and I made a plan. We needed to escape because we knew we wouldn't be alive much longer to have the chance to. When it hit the three month mark we knew we had to do something. We decided that on the 1st week of the 4th month we would attempt to escape.

“Cody, today is the day.”
“I know. But for them it's just a normal day so we can't act any differently either. You remember what to do, right Emma?”
“Of course, I go with Harry to the room and I pretend to pass out or die or whatever, then while everyone's distracted you break out of the cell using the keys we took and then while nobody's looking I’ll run as fast as I can towards the door.”
“Remember we have to do this fast, so that it’s unexpected. I have seen Harry pull out his gun and he's not afraid to use it.”
“I know, I hope this works Cody because if not were dead.”  
Finally it was time we could see Harry walking down the hallway towards our cell to take me away.
“Cody I just want you to know that if anything happened to either of us, I love you so much and without you here with me I wouldn't even have a chance to get out of here.”
“I know, I love you too Emma.” said Cody.
Now Harry was directly in front of the cell unlocking it with his keys. As he did this the keys would clank together making a noise that sounded almost like jingle bells on a sleigh. Once he opened the door and grabbed me to leave I got one last look at Cody as Harry pulled me away. The look on Codys face was not very inspiring.
We finally walked into the room for what I hoped was the last time and I sat in my normal chair which now had some blood stains from earlier in the week. It was then that I started my act. First it was coughing, then I started acting as though I was in pain. He continued on his normal routine not even thinking that there might be something wrong with me. This is exactly what Cody and I planned for though, we needed it to be a surprise for him. A few minutes after Harry began to hit me was when I did it. I fell right out of my chair like a limp doll, and Harry was surprised. I had passed out before after taking beatings from him but this was different and he knew that.
“What happened to her!?” yelled Harry. “Why is she like this?”
At this point every guard had come to see what had happened to me. They thought I was dead so they all got into a group to talk about what was going to go down. As I laid there though I heard some things that I was not meant to hear.
“The ransom will only work if they are both alive, What are we gonna do now?”
I didn't have time to listen to the rest of the conversation, everyone's back was turned to me. This was my only chance.
By now Cody had to have been out of the cell so I jumped up as quickly and quietly as I could and started to run as fast as I could. I found Cody at the rendezvous point waiting for me, but just as I go there I heard the yelling.
“She’s gone!”
“What happened?”
“How is this possible?”
One scream was louder than the others though. It was Harry and he was angry. We turned the corner just as I saw him run down the hallway after us. We had to get away, I couldn't take the beating anymore.  When we finally made it to the door leading outside I heard a shot, it sounded like thunder inside the building, but it was really Harry's gun. The ripping sound of the gun changed to a ripping sound of my flesh as the bullet went straight into my side. Cody gave me a look that was like he was about to give up, but at that moment I had so much adrenaline running through my body the gunshot didn't even hurt yet so we just kept running. I was going to get out of that place even if it killed me. As we ran I knew Harry and his crew were right behind us but we had to just keep going. We saw up ahead that there was a tall corn field and we planned on hiding in the field and finding a way out  to the other side without getting caught.
  In theory all we had to do was keep running and try not to get shot again. I knew I was gonna pass out soon because of all the blood I was losing but I couldn't ruin Cody's chance of freedom too, so we just kept running. After running for a while we stopped. We were deep in the corn field and we couldn't hear anyone chasing us anymore. I sat down and immediately regretted it. The pain hit me like a wrecking ball with each wave more painful than the last. I knew we had to keep going but I didn't know if I could.
I could tell Cody was thinking the same thing because he quickly said “I'm not gonna leave without you Emma, I would never dream of leaving you behind.”
“Cody, I don't think you are gonna have a choice.”
Cody looked at me bleeding on the ground and said, “I do have a choice and I choose not to leave you in the middle of a corn field to die. We are getting out of this together.”

At that he pulled me up off the ground and half held me as we started to run again. When we came to the other side of the field we saw what we had hoped to see, a house! It had been almost an hour since we had last seen Harry so we ran as fast as we could to the house to get help. We pounded on the door and an old man opened it, he looked shocked to see us. He quickly ushered us into the house and closed and locked the door, at the same time Cody explained who we were and what had happened.
“ My name is Cody Mally and this is Emma May. We were kidnapped about 3 months ago, Emma got shot and we desperately need help.”
The old man helped Cody as they tried to lay me on the couch as gently as possible and then the man called 911.
As I laid there waiting for the police to arrive and hopefully an ambulance, Cody held my hand saying, “Emma we made it this far, you just have to stay awake, please stay awake Emma!”
Every minute after that was a blur. An ambulance came and took us both to the Emergency Room. The police called Cody's parents telling them where we were so they could come. I didn't have a chance to tell him that I was an orphan because once we got to the hospital I was rushed into surgery.
I came to a few days later in a recovery room. Cody sat in a chair next to my bed asleep, a man and a woman stood in the doorway talking along with a boy older than Cody and a girl younger than me. When they saw I was awake they walked over and introduced themselves as Cody's parents and his brother and sister. They told me that I was safe and that nobody was going to hurt me again. When Cody woke up he gave me a big hug and told me that everything was going to be ok. His family then left to give us a moment to talk.
“Cody did they get Harry?”
“Yeah they caught him yesterday. He can't hurt anyone anymore.”
“Am I gonna be ok?” I asked quietly.
“Yes, but you lost a lot of blood so your not gonna be able to leave the hospital for a little while, but don't worry I'm not leaving this hospital until you do. ….. Emma why didn’t you tell me your parents died?” he asked me. 
“I didn't think it was important.” I mumbled.
Cody shook his head and said, “When you leave here you have to go back to your foster parents. Emma I don’t think they would let you live with me and my family.”
“It's ok Cody, everything's gonna be ok. If they don't let me live with you then we will still find a way, but they will. I promise”
By the time I was ready to leave the hospital, we had convinced my social worker to let me live with Cody and his family. When I walked into Cody's house his sister ran by me up the stairs holding my bag to put into my new room. I turned and looked at Cody and smiled.
“We got away.” I said
“We did it.” He replied “And now Emma, you have a family.”