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I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. Why would he? I rarely came downstairs.
I just shook my head at him. My eyes were locked on my singular goal—the double glass doors ahead.
One step after another, Addy, I told myself while my heart galloped faster and faster.
I pushed open the doors and stepped outside onto the wet concrete. Wind whipped my hair back from my face. Rain blasted me. But though the conditions were unfavorable, outside air was different from inside air.
An old, barely familiar feeling crept through me. My heart pounded fast but with a purpose now. One of my own choosing. It pumped forme. It pumped for freedom.
Someone pushed the door open behind me, and I bolted, taking off like a rocket. I didn’t think about direction. Though my desired destination was Lakeside, I just ran. My feet splashed through puddles on the sidewalk. No one was out but me. The wind and driving rain made even walking with an umbrella pointless.
Maybe my escape was just as pointless, but I kept going. I ran until my lungs threatened to burst.
Addy, stop. Think. Evaluate. Plan.
Slowing, I glanced around me.
Up the hill, the city reached for the sky. The other direction was only the dark expanse of the ocean. Sometimes in the penthouse, I stared at that darkness and entertained terrible thoughts about sinking beneath it and not fighting it. But I had to fight it. For the baby. For her. I couldn’t know, of course, but in my mind, my baby was a girl.
I turned, crossing the street in the middle without bothering with a crosswalk or a light. A light beckoned me, inside the lobby of a high-rise just on the other side of an empty paid parking lot. I would duck inside.
My hair was sopping wet. My clothes were drenched. Stupid clothes that Martin had picked out for me. A greenish-blue silk blouse and black wool pants, a silver chain double-looped around my slender waist. The outfit wasn’t practical for outside in the fall. It was dangerous to be unprepared with the rain and temperatures plummeting in a Pacific squall like this one.
“Addy!”
A voice I knew all too well called my name, and I froze solid for a terrible moment before I got myself in motion and ran.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind me. I ran faster, but not fast enough. A hard hand fell on my shoulder. I was trapped, caught, but I knew one thing after having just a taste of freedom again.
I would never go back.
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