Chapter 4 - The Rat in the Walls
Julian’s response didn't come via email.
It came at 2:15 AM on my fourth night in the dark.
By then, my fever had spiked to 103 degrees. The autoimmune flare was attacking my chest wall; every breath felt like swallowing broken needles. I had rationed the rusty water by taking single capfuls every three hours, but the dehydration was making me hallucinate. I kept hearing the piano my father used to play in the parlor.
Then, a faint, rhythmic tapping sounded not from the door, but from the low air vent near the baseboard.
*Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.*
I froze, dragging myself closer to the vent grate.
"Una?" a low, rough voice whispered through the metal slats.
"Julian?" My voice was nothing more than a dry croak.
"Keep your voice to a whisper, sweetheart. I'm under the crawlspace foundation beneath the laundry floor."
I began to sob, silent, wracking tears of sheer relief. "The door is bolted... she took my immunoglobulin... I can't move my legs, Julian."
"I know. I've seen the security footage you sent. Jesus Christ, Una, she really tried to exterminate you." Through the narrow metal louvers of the vent, I saw the beam of a small penlight. "Listen to me very carefully. I brought Dr. Sarah Morales with me. We have six replacement vials of Privigen and a saline line out here in my truck."
"Get me out," I pleaded, clawing at the metal grate. "Please, break the door."
"If we break that door right now," Julian said, his voice hard as granite, "Sheila’s security alarms will alert her private security firm. By tomorrow morning, her high-priced fixers will have a court order declaring that I broke into the house and abducted you while you were mentally unstable. She has Tony’s political connections locked down tight. She’ll file an emergency conservatorship from Paris, and within forty-eight hours, you’ll be locked in a sanitarium where no one will ever see you again."
"Then what do I do?" I trembled, the fever making my vision blur. "I can't survive sixty-four more days in this filth."
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"You aren't going to stay in the dark, Una. We are going to turn this room into your bunker. And when Sheila Barrett steps back across this threshold, she is going to walk straight into her own execution."
***
