Page 20 of Love You To Pieces

But also too fucking obvious. I’m not that stupid, I chastise myself. Not nearly that stupid, and probably not brave enough to actually use the door when the two men from before are most likely on the other side.

Fox’s face swims into my mind, obscuring everything else when I let my eyes close to focus on anything other than my current reality.

It could be worse, I tell myself. I could be dead, or dying, or getting chopped to bits. Though I guess if I don’t get out of here quickly, those possibilities are still on the table. Sucking in a breath, I move back to the window and immediately wrap my sore hands under the bottom sill. The room is nice, comfortable even. Part of me longs to stay, to curl up back in the bed and cry until I can convince myself this is all just a really awful dream.

Too bad it isn’t.

I hesitate with the window open in front of me, the breeze from outside fanning against my face in a mockery of how awful my day is going. It feels like it should be dark, stormy, or somehow ominous instead of just a really nice, slightly cloudy day. My hands splay out on the wood, and for a few moments I just stand there.

Wishing, pleading even, with a god who certainly isn’t paying attention if he somehow exists.

“It’s just you, Sadie-Rae,” I whisper to myself, flattening my palms on the sill until they sting. I don’t let myself look down before hoisting myself through the window, though I’m careful to set my feet on the slanted roof and test my balance before I rest my whole weight on it.

“Fuck, this is awful.” I definitely hadn’t thought enough about this plan before doing it. I saw the slanted roof, the shingles that look pretty rough and grippy, and with the door locked, this really feels like my only option.

It’s a shitty option, though.

I stumble along the edge of the roof, my heart racing in my chest with every step. It feels hotter than it should, like the roof is radiating heat through my sneakers, reminding me of the dangers of falling off the roof. If I’m achy now, I’ll be in agony if I fall. When I fall.

No, I tell myself, taking a deep, steadying breath and finding a place to balance where I don’t have to move for a moment. “I won’t fall.” The breeze takes the words out of my mouth, and I steel myself, walking toward the edge of the roof where I can see something peeking out from above ground level, but still below me.

“I won’t fall,” I yelp when I momentarily lose my footing, though I recover before I do, in fact, land on my face on the ground. It occurs to me how loud my steps must be, and I cross my fingers that there isn’t anyone in the house.

When I finally make it to the edge of the roof by taking small, sliding baby steps, I’m able to step down onto another roof, this one clearly an addition that creates an overhang along the back of the house. It’s low enough that when I drop to my knees and Hilll to the edge, the drop to the concrete patio is only terrifying, rather than mind-numbing.

Parkour has never, not once, been on my list of things to try, but maybe it should’ve been. I attempt to lower myself sideways, only to find that won’t work, then finally shimmy my ass backward until my knees are at the very edge of the roof and the shaking of my hands is impossible to ignore.

“I won’t fall,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “I will not fucking fall.” Bile rises in my throat, but I know the longer I hesitate, the harder this is going to be. “Fuck it.” In one quick movement, I shove myself backward, and my body falls through the air until I’m able to lock my arms and catch myself on the edge of the roof with just my hands, the rest of me swinging freely as I panic. My palms burn, the scabs breaking open under the bandages and causing them to tingle, the feeling like thousands of tiny needles stabbing into my skin.

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow.” Somehow, vocalizing my discomfort makes me feel less alone. At least until can I find Pearl.

Unless they⁠—

Stop. I put a stop to that and shock myself back into the present by dropping another few inches through the air. I will not go down that road until I absolutely have to. If I have to. While I haven’t heard her barking, I refuse to believe she’s dead.

I can’t be alone again.

With my whole body dangling in the open air, and my arms burn with the effort of holding me. Fear takes a foothold in my stomach, but luckily for me and any decision I might have to make, my grip fails on the edge of the roof, sending me falling downward faster than I can even process.

The jolt from hitting the ground makes me gasp before the pain actually hits, and I curl on my side as a sharp shock spreads from my lower back and hip. Well, I think to myself, eyes closed as I lay in the fetal position on a kidnapper’s back porch, at least I wasn’t stupid enough to put out a hand or something that could’ve broken more easily than my ass.

“Fuck, that hurts,” I grumble. But the pain ebbs as I lie there, mentally telling myself to get the fuck up. I can’t just lie here and wait for someone to rescue me.

Clearly, there’s no white knight or even any less-crooked cops in Wolf Lake, and I’ll have to do both the damsel-ing and the rescuing myself.

Tragic, really, but I groan and get to my feet to fulfill my roles as princess and knight, respectively. “Okay.” My voice comes out in a whisper, and I glance back at the still-closed door behind me. The screen is open, and in surprisingly good condition given that the house looks like it’s been standing here since the early twentieth century, at the latest. The wooden door itself is solid, but that’s not what sends a shiver down my spine.

No, that would be the trio of locks bolted to the door, all shiny metal, and in excellent condition.

Fuck that.

If Pearl is somewhere here, I reason to myself, she has to be out back here. If she were in the house, surely I would’ve heard her barking.

If she’s alive, my brain adds unhelpfully. If she’s not⁠—

No. Nope, I’m still not doing that. I refuse to entertain that for at least another ten minutes.

The little shed beside the weed-and-flower-patch is the closest thing with a door, though I don’t hear anything from inside it. But I open the old, creaky door anyway, having to support it and push it back into place when the only things I find are gardening tools that look like they’ve seen better decades.