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Yes,he insisted.Yes.
Oh God, oh the sacrifice.She clenched her eyes shut, picturing what he’d described in fewer than five words. She couldn’t allow herself to grimace, in case they were watching closely and her expression tipped them off that they weren’t merely mumbling nursery rhymes. She lifted her shoulders and let them fall.Okay.They had no choice.
She turned and he looked up, their eyes meeting. He picked up the mallet and dragged it over the bars, certainty in his gaze.
Oh, Evan.
On a silent exhaled breath, she turned away. He was right. The plan must be enacted now, before things got bloodier. Before they were each missing parts of themselves that would make an escape attempt impossible. These two new tools had made the decision for them. They had what they needed to try.
It was now.
Or never.
Noelle came to her knees, and so did he as she joined him in song. They sang loudly, belting out their certainty, Evan dragging the mallet along the bars. They sang on and on until their voices were hoarse, laying out their plan, the entirety of it.
This was it. Things would only get worse from here. They would break free—or not—after the lights had gone out.
There would be cameras on them, just as there were now. They had to act quickly and without hesitation.
Exhausted, they sank down on the floor, reaching for each other, fingers linking, gazes locked as they waited for the darkness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It seemed forever until the darkness came. And even longer that they lay still and silent, feigning sleep. A small squeeze of her fingers, and then Evan sat up and crawled to the front of his cage, and she watched as he reached for the mallet.
Oh God.She was so scared she was shaking, her heart in her throat for him, for herself, for the risk they were about to take and the possibility of failure—when failure was not an option.Go time.
Evan’s deep yell broke the silence, and he picked up the mallet, pounding on the bars and grabbing hold, shaking them as much as possible.
If you’re watching, you sickos, watch Evan.
Just long enough ... just long enough ...
She pulled herself to the back of her cage, cringing and letting out a small whimper when Evan placed his hand flat on the cement floor and slammed the mallet down on his knuckle, howling with pain. The benign-looking instrument wouldn’t pose too much threat to another person, but oh, the damage it could do to one singular hand ... all those tiny bones.
Noelle took the small hidden piece of graphite from her pocket, the one she’d extracted from the pencil, willing her hands to stop shaking. She heard the hard smacks of the mallet and the wet sounds that told her Evan was pulverizing his own hand. He wasscreaming, but he wasn’t stopping. She wanted to cry for him, but there was no time for that.
You’re up, Noelle.
Watch him, creeps. Don’t you want to see his pain? Doesn’t it excite you, you sick fucks?
She pressed her body to the bars of the cage, her heart galloping and a bead of sweat rolling down her cheek as she brought out the tiny pair of scissors as well, and the handful of rose petals.Gifts.Tools. The lights came on, and though she squinted, she did not pause.
The countdown had begun.
She had counted each time she was taken from her cage and brought to one of the men upstairs who had rented her. It had taken four minutes to make the walk down the long hallway and up the metal steps to another series of hallways above. If someone was in a similarly placed room upstairs, watching them, sending food down through the dumbwaiters, if they ran, it would take them a third of the time it’d taken her. One minute. Maybe a few seconds more. That was it. If they got very lucky, whoever was upstairs was in a room that was farther away—maybe even sleeping—and it would take them even more time. But they couldn’t count on that. They had no real idea of the layout. They only knew of the one room where they’d been taken.
She reached, reached, turning her head so she could press her face against the cold metal and shifting her eye so she could see the small outlet off to the side of the dumbwaiter. Her fingers barely brushed it, and she let out an exhale. She hadn’t been positive until now that she could reach it at all, though she’d attempted to measure it using her vision alone and hoped she was right in her calculations. She used the small pair of scissors to unscrew the outlet plate, each screw coming off easily and falling to the floor. She dropped the scissors and reached back through the bars for the small piece of graphite she’d set down, her breath coming shallow.Breathe, breathe, stay calm. One step at a time.
“Fuck,” she murmured when she dropped the piece of graphite, picking it up, letting those two precious seconds go. They were gone, she couldn’t get them back.Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Behind her, Evan had ceased pounding the bones of his hand to mush, only his small grunts and whimpers meeting her ears.You’ve got this, Evan. I know you do.She couldn’t look, though. She had her part, and he had his. They couldn’t afford to pay attention to anything except their own assigned tasks.
Noelle retrieved the graphite and the handful of fabric petals, reaching out with both hands now, her face pressed between the bars so hard her cheekbones hurt. One hand was poised to stick the graphite in the socket; the other held a rose petal as far toward the back of the outlet as she could manage in order to catch the spark.
Please please please.
Evan let out a roar of agony, and then she heard the beep of a button being pushed. He’d forced his collapsed hand through the smaller bars of the door. He was accessing the panel with his broken fingers. She held her hands steady as she jabbed the piece of graphite into the socket. Nothing.Oh God, oh God.She did it again, a little harder, but not hard enough to break the small tool, and a tiny spark shot off the back. She heard three more beeps behind her and then the sound of Evan’s cage door opening. A sob welled up inside her. But it was far too soon to celebrate.Stay calm. Keep going.She pressed the rose petal closer and then stuck the graphite in again. A bigger spark this time, that jumped to the edge of the petal, catching and glowing red.Yes yes yes yes.
