A Thousand Heartbeats

Once he was gone, I allowed myself to cry.

I told myself it was better to know. I wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. I had answers.

Your mother is dead, Annika. She’s not coming back. Now you know.

I supposed some corner of my heart should be comforted by the knowledge that she didn’t suffer, and that she was properly buried. But all I could do was miss her more.

If anyone should be in possession of my mother’s final moments, it was me. Not him. I hated that he knew things I was desperate to hear and that he was viciously aware of how much it meant to me. It was surreal to speak so calmly to the man who killed the person you loved the most in the world. I’d expected someone more sinister, more ogre-like. He was all but a child. Like me.

She was close.

If I handed over numbers, even more false ones, maybe he would take me to her grave. Maybe I could finally say goodbye. The only problem was that I didn’t want to give him anything now. I wanted to take from him. I wanted to find a way to make him suffer as no one could. Even if he’d given me a sword and a chance to fight him, I didn’t know if I could inflict the pain I was imagining.

I wiped at my tears, trying to summon the ability to think clearly, if only for a moment. How could I get out of this? Think, Annika.

I pulled a pin from my hair and went to work on the shackles. I closed my eyes, trying my best to focus on the feel on the mechanism. I was shaky and tired and hungry, and if I’d been safe in the library next to Rhett, it would have been a different experience entirely. As it was, it took all I had to concentrate.

I imagined the smell of old books, the sound of Rhett’s unguarded laugh. It brought a smile to my face; it slowed my breathing. In less than a minute, I heard the lock click and felt it fall from my left wrist.

I quietly walked over to the door. The lone torch left in its holder on the wall lit the better part of the hallway. It seemed he’d left me without any sort of guard. I supposed he didn’t think me capable of escape.

The lock on the door was another beast entirely, and I’d need something much stronger than a hairpin to get through that. I peeked into the hallway again to confirm I was alone. This castle looked so old that it seemed a well-timed sneeze could knock it down. I gripped the handle with both hands and placed a foot on the wall, putting all my weight into pulling it from its place. The door wobbled a little, but there was no way of getting it to come loose.

Fine, then. I’d try the window.

This thing could hardly even count as a window. A round hole with one bar up the middle, no glass, no anything. If it rained, it would drain straight down onto this pitiful excuse for a bed. I could see the stains of where it had before. I took the bar and pulled on it with both hands, shaking it around. The bar certainly wasn’t moving in or out . . . but it was moving from side to side.

I crawled up, looking at the base closer. This space had been so poorly tended to. The rock was all but crumbling sand, and it looked like I could chip away part of it at least. There was no way a grown man could get out of a space that wide . . . but if I moved it even an inch, I stood a good chance.

He said he’d give me an hour, but I couldn’t count on him keeping his word. I used the opened cuff of my shackle and started chipping at the rock. By the time he came back, I could close the cuff, climb back down, and be lying on the bed with my restraints in place. He would be none the wiser.

“This is possible,” I whispered to myself. “This is possible.”