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Behind Cat was a small linen closet. The shower and tub shared a wall with the hallway, which put the linen closet at the opposite end of the bathroom, sharing a wall with another room of the house. She opened the door and quickly pulled out the piles of towels. I joined in and helped remove the wood shelves. We put everything on the floor in front of the door. The tiny closet was actually deeper than it appeared. It was only eighteen inches deep or so, but there was extra space to the left of the door. When the shelves were in, it was pretty much unusable, but without them, a single, slender person could fit tucked inside the gap.
“Hurry,” Cat hissed as I slid inside the tiny closet. I could feel the panic rolling off my friend in thick waves.
“I am hurrying.”
It took some maneuvering, but I managed to crouch down in the limited space. Near the floor, I tugged on a washcloth tucked into a hole. It slid out of the hole I had made in the wall a few inches from the ground.
“I’m going to look first,” I said.
With my neck bent at a weird angle, I lined my up eye with the fist-sized hole. Just like it was every time I checked, the spare bedroom was dark, with no sign of life inside. Our bedroom backed up against another, unused bedroom and the hole I made in the drywall using a mattress spring was hidden by the enormous bed and flowing bed skirt. Both stood between us and the bedroom door.
“We’re good.”
“Go, go,” Cat said, urging me to move.
I tugged at the drywall and it crumbled in my hands. Punching it out would be easier, but also louder and messier, leaving evidence in the bedroom. Within a few minutes, the hole was large enough for me to slip through the sixteen-inch gap between studs.
Thank God we’re both small.
It took Cat several more minutes to return the shelves and towels the best she could from inside the small space, then pull the door shut. When she was done, I turned and helped Cat wiggle through, still clutching her glass weapon. Hopefully, when they checked our room, they wouldn’t know which way we went. I was certain they’d never think to look in the spare room on the opposite side of the house.
Not that we planned on staying long.
I crept to the bedroom door and laid my cheek on the floor, peeking under the gap. No feet, no noise, no lights, no sign of anyone.
“It’s clear, Cat.”
My best friend shuffled across the hardwoods until she was behind me. I put my hand on the doorknob and glanced over my shoulder.
“Are you ready?”
She shook her head. “No. But I have to do this. Like you said, I’d rather die than stay here.”
“Use your weapon if you have to. Slash, don’t stab, Cat. If you stab someone too deep the glass could get stuck inside the person and you won’t have anything to use.”
Cat paled, which was shocking, because she was already the same color as the white cotton pillowcases.
“I don’t know if I can kill someone,” she said, trembling all over.
“Cat, you can. Think about what they did to you.” My friend pressed her lips together in a tight line. “They’re nothing but scum. If one of them has to die for us to get out of here, then that’s what we’ll do.” She gave me a quick dip of her chin in acknowledgement.
I held up my makeshift knife and slowly turned the knob.
Cat lifted her own weapon and whispered in my ear. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I opened the door and stepped into the hall.
“Come on,” I waved Cat out of the room. “Stay close.” I didn’t have to tell her that—she was stuck to my back like glue.
We crept quietly down the hall, pressed flat against the wall as we went. The house was silent. Unusually so. It made me nervous. Whenever Raoul came for me, we always passed multiple men on the way to what I now called the torture chamber.
At the end of the hall was a set of stairs. We had to go down—it was the only way out. What we didn’t know was where the stairs led or what we would find at the bottom.
I sucked in a deep breath and descended one stair at a time, Cat practically on top of me as we went. At the bottom, I held my knife up high in case I would need it, and peeked around the corner.
Shit.
“It’s the kitchen,” I whispered to Cat.
