Being here on my own might’ve mentally broken me down … but I’ve only gotten more and more cunning because I’ll do anything to escape this predicament.
And I know Anna is just as desperate. She may not think it, she may not even say a word to me, but I know deep down she never wanted any of this.
And if she’s already lost, it’s on me to save her.
That’s what good people do, so that’s what I’m gonna do.
I poke at the lock, hoping, praying it’ll work. I’ve waited so long for this moment, and the guard is finally gone. It has to work. It just has to.
CLICK!
The sound makes me jolt back. I stare at it for only a second. Then a beaming smile pops onto my face.
“Yes!” I whisper to myself.
I rip out the bobby pin and tuck it into my other pocket. Opening the door feels like magic, like I’ve done something no one else ever has, and it feels so damn empowering that I could shout it off the rooftops.
But I have to stay quiet, play it cool, pretend I’m still in my room and that nothing is going on. I don’t want to alert the other guards who are still walking around. One of them saunters up and down the stairs regularly, and I need to stay out of his sight.
I only have a few more minutes left before the guard who normally walks these halls comes back from his toilet break. This was a big one. I know because I’ve watched him all this time to figure out his schedule—when he pees, when he eats, when he relieves himself, and when he changes shifts.
I know everything I need to know in order to make a swift escape. So I quickly go to work on Anna’s door, jamming the same bobby pin inside. It only takes me a few seconds to get this one too, and when the lock pops, my heart begins to race.
I swiftly open Anna’s door and burst inside, shutting it behind me.
She’s lying on the bed, but her eyes are open, and she leans up when she spots me.
“I thought Tobias was coming to—” she mutters.
“It’s me,” I interrupt, trying to keep my voice down. “Amelia.”
Her eyes widen, and she sits up straight, her black locks falling over her shoulder. “Amelia?”
My eyes water, and I nod. “Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
“But how?” she asks, shaking her head as though she’s utterly confused. “I thought only Tobias had a key?”
“They all have a key,” I reply, and I hold up my bobby pin. “But now I have one too.”
“That’s not a key. How did you …?” Her pupils dilate. “What’s your plan?”
“Escape,” I say as I approach her bed and grab her hand. “C’mon.”
When I try to pull her up, she resists and jerks her hand away. “No, I can’t.”
I frown. “C’mon, Anna, we don’t have time for this.”
“I can’t leave,” she says, folding her arms.
What’s wrong with her? “What? Why not?”
“Tobias told me to stay. Said I needed this,” she replies.
“Tobias is a liar. They all are,” I spit back.
She makes a face. “But you don’t know him. How could you say that?”
“I don’t need to know him. They trapped us here, Anna. We’re prisoners.”
“Only because we deserve it,” she replies.
I grab her shoulders. “Anna. Stop. This isn’t you. I just know it isn’t.”
“You don’t know me either.” She looks me dead in the eyes. “This is what I need.”
“You can’t be serious,” I say. “Look at me. You don’t deserve any of this. You did nothing wrong, you hear me? Those men are monsters, and they are using you for their own pleasure.”
“But … Tobias is trying to fix me,” she says, licking her lips as she looks away. “He told me this is what needed to be done.”
“They’re making you believe what they want you to believe. You have to trust me,” I say.
“I have to listen,” she says as a tear rolls down her cheeks. “You don’t know what I’ve done …”
“It doesn’t matter, okay?” I say, forcing her to look at me by matching her movements so our eyes connect. “Whatever you did, it’s in the past. You’ve been punished enough.”
She shivers. “I don’t know …”
“I do,” I reiterate. “You deserve to be home with your family. Remember your boyfriend?”
Her eyes light up. “My boyfriend?”
“Yeah, he’s waiting for you,” I say. “He wants you back home.”
“But he—”
“C’mon,” I say, and I grab her hand again and pull her up from the bed.
“Wait,” she says as I drag her to the door. “What about my things?”
“Leave them. None of it is yours. It’s theirs. Now, c’mon.” I drag her through the door before she can say anything else to delay us.
I check the clock hanging from the wall. The guard’s almost on his way back. There’s not much time left. Certainly not enough to open the rest of the doors and free the other girls. I spent too much time talking Anna into it. Damn.
I sigh to myself and close my eyes for a second to refocus. No time to dwell on my decisions. This is what I chose, so now I have to see it through.
“Follow me,” I say, looking at her over my shoulder. “And stay close.”
We walk toward the staircases, but I make sure not to take the main ones. We wait until the guard has his back turned to it before swiftly passing it. There is an elevator in a room just beyond the hallway to the right. A tiny one that ends up in a storage room next to the kitchen, which they use to get carts with food up and down.
I know because when I was allowed to roam the House a little, I made sure to check for alternate exits. Eli really should have known that letting me drift around freely would come back to bite him in the ass.
I may not be strong, and I may be a mousy type of girl, but I am resourceful. And there is nothing I won’t do to get my way.
So I string Anna along for the ride and press the buttons to go down. Sweat drips down my back as we wait for the elevator to arrive on the ground floor. Anna squeezes my hand tight, and we look at each other. I fish my shard of glass from my pocket and hold it up.
The doors open.
I’m ready to fight, but luckily, we’re alone.
I breathe a sigh of relief and step out with Anna following suit.
It’s only a small room with one exit. Not at all a safe space to be for two wanted girls on the run, but it’ll have to do. I wasn’t ever going to go down those main stairs with all the guards lined up, ready to jump us. This was the only other option. That, or somehow finding a way to destroy the bars on the windows and making a grand escape there. Not the greatest idea.
“Wait here,” I whisper to Anna. “If they come … hide in the elevator and go back to your room.”
She swallows and nods. “I just hope this will work. I don’t want to anger Tobias.”
I pray the same, as I definitely don’t want to get on their bad sides. We just have to get far enough away from them so they can’t catch us anymore when they find out we’re gone.
My hand pushes against the door, opening it just a tiny bit. I peek through and spot two cooks stationed at the far end of the room chopping vegetables for a soup.
It’s now or never.
I glance back at Anna and beckon her to come.
With one big push, the door opens wide right as Anna grabs ahold of my hand.
We run across the room to the other side of the kitchen, where a door leads out back into a garden. The two men haven’t noticed us yet, as they’re too busy chatting and making noise with the pots and pans. So I push down the big door handle and make our great escape.
The fresh outdoor air hits me like a brick, and I suck in a breath as we run. The grass tickles my bare legs, but I pay no attention to it as we head for the forest right in front of us. I don’t know where we’re going, and I don’t even care as long as it’s as far away from this Hou
se as possible.
“Where the hell are we?” Anna asks as we run into the woods.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Eli never showed me how I got here. I was drugged.”
“Right,” she responds. “But what’s your plan?”
I shrug as we move through the woods, the bright sun lighting my path. “I don’t know. But there must be a road somewhere.”
“What if a wall surrounds the property?” she asks.
I pause among the fallen leaves because I hadn’t even thought about that yet. I swallow back the nerves. “We’ll think about that when we get there.”
I continue running, but Anna remains put. “But what are we gonna do if there is? What if they find us first?”
The panic is starting to show on her face. I have to pull her out of it.
“Don’t think about it,” I say, and I go back to grab her hand. “You’re here with me now. I’m going to get us through this. You just have to trust me.”
“Okay. I’ll try.” She nods a few times, and I turn around again and make sure she follows me. I don’t want to lose her. I spent way too much time trying to save her, so now I have to push through and make it happen. I have no other choice. This is it.
However, these pumps are really starting to wear me down. Grunting, I tear them off my feet and chuck them away. “Good fucking riddance.”
Anna pauses and giggles. “Why didn’t I think of that?” She quickly rids herself of her high heels too.
“We have to be careful, though. Barefoot can be dangerous, so be aware of where you step,” I say. “Let’s go.”
We run through the forest together, across the many puddles and dead leaves that rustle beneath our feet. We jump over thick logs, which is hard when you’re wearing an extravagant dress. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence we had no other outfits to wear. These clothes definitely weigh us down.
Suddenly, I hear a crackling noise behind me. The noise makes me glance over my shoulder.
Two eyes catch mine. My breath falters, and my throat clamps up.
It’s a guard.
What feels like minutes is actually mere seconds before the guy starts running toward me.
I don’t think twice and run like hell.
“Get back here!” the guy yells at me.
“Run!” I squeal at Anna.
The sheer terror in her eyes is too much to take, but I can’t console her now. We only have one shot to make it out. We have to escape this man before he catches either of us and alerts the others.
Suddenly, I hear his voice. “I got eyes on the two. Over.”
“What’s your twenty? Over,” another voice replies.
The scratching noises every time someone speaks reveals what it is. A walkie-talkie.
“Forest. North. Headed toward the beach. Over.”
Beach? There’s a beach?
“Copy that. Over.”
My heart beats in my throat at the thought, but I have to calm myself. It could be a riverbank.
No time to think about it. I keep running across the mossy floor, and I even jump over a few rocks just to stay ahead. Every time I look over my shoulder, he’s a little bit closer, and it only pushes me to run faster. Adrenaline rushes through my body, forcing me to stay in the here and now and to keep going no matter what.
Anna is right in front of me, a few feet away, her ragged breaths filling the air with panic. One glance over her shoulder, and she’s infected me too.
“Behind you!” she yelps.
I don’t even have to look to know. He must be close.
I run so hard my feet become numb, narrowly escaping the trees in my path. In a few seconds, I’ve managed to pass by Anna. I glance over my shoulder to see if the man is still catching up.
But the earth suddenly disappears from underneath my feet.
I shriek.
Tumbling down, I try to catch myself, but it’s no use. I land headfirst on the ground.
Dizziness overtakes me. My eyes feel like marbles rolling across the floor as the earth spins around me. Two feet jump down next to me.
There was a cliff. How did I not see it in time?
“Amelia!” Anna calls. “No! I need you!”
“Run!” I growl, barely able to see straight from the fall.
“I can’t … I can’t do this without you,” she says, her pitch fluctuating. “We were supposed to flee together.”
“You can still flee,” I reply. “Now go, before he’s here!”
“But I’m all alone …” she says, clutching a tree as she considers her options.
“You can do this. I know you can. I believe in you. You have to free yourself.” I muster the last bit of my energy and shout, “Don’t look back! GO!”
She hesitates, staring at me for a second. Then she runs off into the distance.
I groan from the pain and the whirlwind of emotions flooding my brain. I was so close … so damn close to escaping, but I didn’t look in front of me, and that was my greatest mistake.
And as I rise to my knees, the guard who was chasing us finally catches up with me.
He shoves me right back into the dirt and growls, “You’re not going anywhere.”
Chapter 24
Eli
I won’t let anyone in this House rest until Amelia’s back in my clutches.
No way I’ll let her escape. Not ever.
We’ve come way too far, made too much progress, for it to all end now.
And if she escapes, Lord knows what she’s going to do. A girl like her is volatile. She doesn’t know what she did, which makes it all the more dangerous if she manages to get out. If she doesn’t know the truth, no one else will. She’ll endanger my business, and I can’t let that happen.
So I grab some cuffs from my cabinet and head out for the hunt.
Ever since I took Amelia and brought her into this House, I’ve wanted nothing more than to indulge myself in a delicious chase.
Too bad this one might not end in devious sex … but in tears.
Amelia
The man grasps my wrists and pins them to my back while I cough and heave as he sits down on top of me.
He fishes the walkie-talkie from his pocket and talks into it. “I’ve got one of them. Amelia. Over.”
“Copy that. Owner on the way to your location. Over.”
Owner? As in … Eli?
As the guard puts his walkie-talkie away, I use my last bit of energy to wriggle my way out from underneath his grasp and fish the shard of glass from my pocket.
Without thinking about it, I shove it straight into his throat.
He gurgles and yelps in pain, his hand immediately rising to cover his throat.
My pupils dilate at the sight of all that blood oozing from his neck. I’m frozen in place as he grasps at his throat, blood pouring down on top of me. The glass shard stuck in his throat glistens, and in the light, it sometimes resembles a knife instead. I blink a couple of times, feeling as though the life is being choked out of me.
I quickly shove him off me and crawl away, my heart pounding. He falls backward into the dirt, struggling with his own mortality. For a second there, I feel guilty. Heinous for what I’ve done. But I tell myself I had no choice. That I had to do this in order to free not just myself but Anna too.
She’s waiting for me. I have to go. Don’t think, don’t feel, just act.
I scramble up to my feet and stumble away. My foot feels sprained, and every step hurts, but I keep going. I can’t give up. I won’t give up. Because if I do … it means I’d admit that he won. That Eli’s right about me. That I deserve this. That I did something terrible that deserves all of this …
And so what if I did? Who is he to judge me?
With renewed energy, I focus on finding my way out of this forest even though it hurts. My lungs suck in the air like nothing else as I go on as fast as I can, despite the fact that I can’t run anymore.
I can’t afford to wait until the pain subsides. The guy behi
nd me must be coming to. He’ll be right behind me in no time. I can’t get distracted again.
I push forward until I get to the edge of the forest. There’s another drop-off, but this time, I search for a softer slide, and I go down butt-first.
Only when I land do I look up … and my jaw drops.
This is not a riverbank.
It’s an actual sea.
My heart sinks into my shoes as the panic comes to a boil.
“No, no, no, no,” I mutter, tears welling up in my eyes as I stumble around, looking for another way.
But there is only water … for as far as the eye can see.
What do I do?
“Fuck!” I scream.
I don’t swear often, but when I do, I mean it.
I look out onto the horizon, wishing a magical boat would appear out of nowhere. That’s when I spot Anna. My eyes widen.
She’s wading right into the water.
With nothing to hold. No raft. No boat. Not even a plank of wood.
Nothing.
Just her against the waves crashing into her body, threatening to swallow her whole.
“Anna!” I call out, trying to run to her, but I’m not quick enough.
She’s disappearing fast.
“Anna! Stop!” I yell, pleading with myself in the hopes that she doesn’t go any further.
THUMP!
I’m coughing into the dirt, my face buried in the sand.
Someone toppled me right into the ground.
A knee pushes into the small of my back, and then my wrists are locked in place with cuffs.
I’m turned around on my back. But it isn’t the guard whose eyes are staring back at me. It’s Eli’s.
“Where is she?” he growls at me.
“I don’t know. She went into the water by herself,” I reply.
His eyes widen, and he scans the surface of the water to find her.
While he grabs his walkie-talkie, I try to free myself, but it’s impossible. The cuffs are too strong for me.
“Tobias. Need you here. Beach. Anna’s going in. Over,” he says.
Dark Wish (A Dark Romance) Page 16
