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All three women gasped in excitement at the sound, and Eva immediately reached down to remove the clamp and rub at the raw bloody skin underneath.
Too long.
She had five more shackles to unleash, and then had to work the lock on the cell with her hands dangling outside the iron bars. Then they needed to actually find their way out of this dungeon and disappear into the surrounding woods.
She had to be faster.
Giving no margin of time to the small victory, she started on Eva’s left leg, trying hard not to nudge her broken ankle any more than necessary. Hard to do, when the skin was so swollen around Eva’s ankle it squished out above and below the iron clamp around her leg.
Biting her tongue, she concentrated so hard at keeping her fingers steady, sweat started to streak down Victoria’s face. Even in the undercroft’s cold clamminess that managed to infuse every pore, her body found a way to be hot.
Clink.
The next lock popped free.
No time to celebrate.
Victoria instantly motioned to Torrie. “Your legs.”
She stretched both her legs out to Victoria, but Torrie’s stare stayed worried on Eva’s broken ankle as Eva’s breath hissed when she unlatched the shackle from her ankle.
Victoria couldn’t look.
One problem at a time.
The locks on Torrie’s shackles popped free in quicker succession as Victoria was starting to grow accustomed to the heavy levers and how they reacted under the tips of the wire.
Onto her own. Lifting her right ankle onto her left thigh, she hunched over, working at the odd angle and blowing hair out of her face.
Too long.
Clink.
One free. One more to go.
Switching legs, she no sooner got the lever wire into place and she got lucky, finding the correct combination within minutes.
Though her breath didn’t quite come back to her at the freedom. Every step closer to freedom was another step that set panic into her chest.
She stood up, anxiety coursing through her veins.
What if a guard came back and saw the loose shackles? What if they were caught outside of the cell? What if they were caught in the tunnels? In the forest?
She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself but not able to mount a battle against it, and her breath quickened, heaving out of control.
A gentle hand—Torrie’s—settled onto her back, rubbing up along her shoulder. “You’re doing everything you can, Vicky. Everything. The rest is up to fate and you can’t change fate. So just breathe. Breathe and give us a chance to get ourselves out of here. That’s all we can do. Just the next step. Fight for it.”
Torrie’s soft voice calmed her, and Victoria nodded, shaking out the tightness in her arms and fingers before she moved to the iron bars and the lock hanging outside the cell.
The lever wires aimed away from her into the main corridor, Victoria set her forehead on the iron bars above the lock in the door and set to work.
This keyhole was trickier, not just because of the angle, but because it was a different sort of lock than the ones on the shackles. She reoriented herself to the odd angle of the inner mechanism.
Minutes passed. More. More.
The levers slipping right before she got them to move.
One clinking onto the floor.
