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My heart sinks into my shoes. “So no baby … with me?”
She snorts and smiles at the same time, shaking her head. “No, silly … I mean … not … here.” She blushes. “I never said I didn’t want one with you.” She clears her throat. “I just mean that it’s not right. We can’t make another soul suffer. We can’t do that, right? Tell me I’m right. Please.”
She doesn’t want to have a kid here in this cell. Doesn’t want it to become me, which I understand, a little. Blood and killing are in my veins, but should it be in my kid’s too?
That kid will be hers too. It will have her blood too, and she loves the outside world. She craves freedom. She’s so different from how I am. What if he was more like she is? I couldn’t even imagine her fighting, let alone a kid who’s like her. No, I can’t do that. She’s right; it’s wrong.
But what can we do? Run?
“You want to leave?” I ask.
She twists and places her hand on my face, cupping me, caressing me. It feels so good … my whole body fills with warmth and need for her to touch me more like that.
“Don’t make me say that, please,” she mumbles.
I place a hand on top of hers. “But you do …”
I know it’s the truth. She doesn’t need to say it, but I just want to be sure. I want to know, so I can decide.
“Yes,” she says, sighing. “But it’s not that easy. I like you too. I don’t want to leave you.”
“Right,” I say. I can tell she really does care about me, but it’s tearing her in half. I can’t let it happen.
“We go together.”
Her lips part, and she frowns, her eyes widening. “What?”
“We run,” I say.
She puts a finger on my lips and then looks around at the cameras. “Don’t.”
“Why?”
She glances back and forth between me and the camera a couple of times. “It’s too dangerous. What if he finds out?” she whispers.
“He won’t,” I say. “He doesn’t care.”
I know because I asked him about it once. He told me he only looks through it to see if I’m doing what he wants me to do. He rarely listens in, maybe once or twice a week. Doesn’t like the sounds.
She sighs and sits up straight, clutching the edge of the bed. “I don’t know.”
“You want this?” I say, putting a hand on her back.
“Yes,” she says, smiling at me. “More than anything.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“You mean … you want to make a plan? To escape?”
I nod again. If that’s what she wants, I will do it. Anything to make her happy.
Her face lights up, and she jumps on me, wrapping her arms around my neck and hugging me tightly. Only after a few seconds do I wrap my arms around her too. I didn’t expect her to be so … grateful. So sweet and kind. So welcoming to my devotion to her.
She whispers in my ears, “Let’s do it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Accompanying Song: “Freeze All Motor Functions” by Ramin Djawadi
Cage
For a few hours, we talked about how to do it until we’d made up our minds. We’re going to trick Graham into coming into the cell and then trap him inside while we run. It’s not a good plan, but it has to work. It’s the only plan we have.
To make it work, he has to come here, though, and there’s only one way to make him come. He can’t gas us both and put us both in that single wheelchair, so we have to be in the same room for this to work. He has to feel like there’s no other way.
There’s one thing Ella doesn’t know, though. He put something in my body a long time ago. If I ever misbehave, he’ll just push the button and electrify me. I’ve felt it once before when I tried to save a girl from his grasp. It was excruciating, and I don’t want to ever feel that again. So I’m going to make sure that once he’s here, he won’t be able to use it.
I’ll tackle him and snatch that thing out of his pocket, breaking it into a million pieces. I’m done listening to and following his words as if they’re law. I want more. I want the things she’s shown me. I want to see the world with my own eyes. Experience what she’s experienced. I want it all.
With her.
I nod as I try to visualize the plan in front of me. She’ll go with me into my cage and protect me from him by holding me. That way, he won’t use the device because he doesn’t want her hurt in the process.
If he actually tries to gas us both, it won’t work. I’ve already punched a hole into the ceiling above my cage and ripped out the wiring that causes the gas to flow inside. We even searched for a way for us to exit through there, but the tubes are so tiny, there’s no room.
