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All I needed to say was a single word. “Magnus.”
“How did he pull that off?”
I still had no idea.
“I’m glad you’re still with us.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“What happened to Melanie?”
“The boss took her…” In the limited interaction I had witnessed, I knew he saw her as a pet, like he owned her…when he had no right to own anyone. Now that she was a flight risk, he removed her from the camp. I just hoped her second destination was better than this.
“Took her where?”
“No idea…but not here.”
A week had passed and Magnus continued to drop off food, but he rarely stayed for a chat. He was either busy in the camp, or he just didn’t want to talk.
I was much better than I had been a week ago, but the gauze was still wrapped around me, and I was still taking the antibiotics he left for me. The pain medication stopped, and I was relieved to find that I didn’t need it.
When he came to deliver dinner one night, he pulled up the chair.
I cared more about the conversation than the dinner, so I sat at the edge of the bed and left the tray on the nightstand.
He pushed his hood down, revealing that handsome face. He didn’t look like the kind of man who needed to work in a place like this. He wasn’t cruel enough to do this job like the others. He wasted all his potential at this camp when he could have been doing something better, living a normal life, settling down with a woman just as beautiful as he was.
“Do you know where my sister is?”
The only response he gave was a stare.
“Please tell me where she is…”
“What good would it do?” he whispered. “Even if you get out of here and escape, there’s nothing you can do for her. This camp is just a small piece of this operation. There’s an entire militia out there. Just as you thought your ambition was enough to get out of here and it knocked you on your ass, it’ll happen again with Melanie. Let it go.”
I could never let it go, but I didn’t tell him that. Once I was free, I would go to the police and report this camp. We would burn it to the ground and then hunt down the man in charge. I didn’t need his help to do that. “I’m strong enough to go.” I was ready to get out of there, to leave this place forever.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Why?”
“We need to wait for the right weather conditions.”
“And how is now not the time?” It was snowing almost every day. It wasn’t a storm, but the snowflakes were constantly adding to the powder and making it difficult to traverse.
“Because now that you know where you’re going, you need to get there as quickly as possible—and not leave tracks.”
“Won’t the dogs smell me?”
“Not if you cross a river. They’ll lose the scent.”
Why didn’t I think of that? But then again, I didn’t even see a river, so…
“We need to wait another week. It’s supposed to be sunny and warm, and a lot of that snow will melt. If you ride hard and don’t stop, you can get there within a few hours.”
I squeezed my hands together, needing to convince myself this was really happening. “I knew that bell was real.”
He didn’t acknowledge what I said.
“Is that where I’m going? To the bell?”
After a long stretch of silence, he gave a nod.
“Oh my god…” My hands immediately covered my face, and I felt the tears well in my eyes. That bell had kept me going. It’d been calling me home. It’d been the light in the darkness. “Is it a church?”
“A chateau.”
“So, when I get there, I just—”
“You wait for me. I’ll be there a few days afterward.”
“You’re…you’re joining me?”
“We’re far away from Paris, and that’s where you want to go, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re going to need help getting there.”
“I can’t just ask someone?”
He shook his head. “The chateau is still in the middle of nowhere.”
“Then how does the bell ring?”
“A timer.”
“How do you know so much about this—”
“Because it’s mine.” He looked slightly irritated by all the questions. “We need to focus on getting there, not what we’ll do once we do.”
“Are you fleeing the camp too?”
“No. That’s where I’ll go when I’m scheduled to leave.”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. I felt guilty that I would be escaping while the others didn’t. I feel terrible I couldn’t even tell Bethany that I was leaving, just in case she said something to someone she shouldn’t.
“I’ll tie up a horse in the forest with everything you need.”
“How will you do that?”
He looked annoyed again. “Let me worry about it. After dinner that night, you’ll take the horse and run. You’ll need some daylight to see where you’re going to get past the river. Without it, you’ll never make it across. But once you get past that, you should be able to make it in the darkness. You made it as far as you did the first time, so this shouldn’t be hard for you.”
