Chapter 7 - The Break
I didn't waste a microsecond.
I grabbed the brass key with fingers that suddenly felt light and precise. I jammed it into the heavy padlock attached to my ankle cuff.
Click.
The heavy iron ring popped open. For the first time in four months, my leg was free. The skin beneath was raw, scarred, and black with old bruises, but the pain meant nothing. Freedom was a surging heat in my veins.
Across the room, Marcus was crawling toward his dropped knife. Silas raised the crowbar to finish him, but Brenda—seeing her only chance at survival—grabbed a heavy clay flowerpot from the window sill and smashed it over the back of Silas’s head.
Silas grunted, stumbling forward from the impact.
"Run!" Brenda screamed at me, her face pale, her hands shaking hysterically. "Run now!"
I didn't hesitate. I didn't try to play the hero for Brenda. I knew the rule of survival: when the exit opens, you take it.
I forced my weak, starved legs to stand. My knees buckled instantly under my weight, sending me crashing against the wall. I gritted my teeth, forcing my body to obey, holding my pregnant belly tightly with one arm. I shuffled out of the room, past Toby’s unconscious body in the hallway, and slammed through the back door into the freezing rainy night.
The storm outside was vicious. Mud churned around my bare feet as I stumbled down the wooden porch steps. The cold rain lashed against my torn clothes, washing away months of filth, cold and shock stinging my skin like tiny needles.
Behind me, screaming and the sound of breaking wood shattered the night air from inside the house.
I ran toward the treeline. The mud pulled at my legs, trying to drag me down with every step. My chest burned; my lungs felt like they were tearing apart. Every instinct shouted that my body was too weak to make it, but every heartbeat of my child echoed in my ears: Keep moving. Keep moving.
In the distance, through the heavy downpour and thick trees, red and blue lights began to flash.
Sirens.
The federal trace had worked. The police were coming down the main access road. But they were still a mile away, and between me and the road lay a dark, flooding ravine filled with jagged rocks and overgrown brush.
May you like
Behind me, the back door of the slaughterhouse flew open.
Silas emerged into the rain, holding his crowbar, blood dripping from the cut on his head. His cold eyes scanned the dark yard, locking directly onto my silhouette at the edge of the woods.
