I think of the baby. The thought is soft and hard at the same time. A hand I can’t hold yet. A name I haven’t said out loud. I press my wrists together and imagine my palm gently rubbing a tiny back. I tell myself that I’m not dying here. I have to live for my baby.
My fingers brush fabric. A thin edge trapped under the tape. I freeze. I roll my wrist and feel it again—a silken snag. The ribbon. Somehow it stayed with me, caught beneath my sleeve and the tape, staying there through the grab, the ride, the room. It’s promise gives me new resolve.
I work it with my nails, tiny pinches, clumsy from blood loss and fear. It slides a millimeter. Another. I turn my wrist, pull, turn again. The ribbon is smooth and sturdy; the tape is not. Silk against adhesive makes a soft hiss. I feed it under the band, back and forth, sawing. The tape warms under friction. The glue starts to give.
My shoulders burn and my fingers shake, but I keep going. I picture Damien’s hands tying the ribbon around my wrist. I use the same gentle patience against this knot. I slide and slide until the tape loosens just enough that I can curl one hand and wedge the tip of my thumb between skin and glue. I push until I see spots. It rips a little. I push again.
The tape peels with a sound like tearing skin. Painful but also beautiful.
My right hand pops free. Blood rushes back so fast I almost groan with relief. I clamp my jaw until my teeth ache and pull my left wrist out.
Ankles next. I bend and work the ribbon under the bands at my shins, sawing again, whispering apologies to my skin. The tape warms, gums, slips. One ankle, then the other. I stand too fast and the room tilts. I catch the back of the chair, the uneven leg chattering against the concrete. I freeze and listen. Nothing but the buzzing of the bulb and the corner drip.
My hands tingle like a thousand pins. I flex them and make my way across the floor to where a triangle of glass leans against a rusted rail. It’s slick with grime. I test it with my thumb and nick myself. I slide it into my palm like a blade and go back to the chair. I sit and cut away the hanging tape, so nothing snags when I run.
I try not to look at Raquel, but eventually I do, because not looking at her feels like denial. Her hair is matted with blood, and her mouth is open. Her eyes are still pointed at the ceiling. The diamonds at her neck and wrist flash every time the bulb swings. She looks like a fallen display. I wait for guilt. It doesn’t come the way it should.
What comes is clean, cold recognition: She wanted to kill me. She admitted it with a sinister smile. This is Damien’s world—kill or be killed. Sometimes it’s a dress rehearsal and sometimes it’s opening night.
“I’m not part of your show,” I whisper.
I tiptoe to the doorway. To the left it’s dark, a long throat of shadow. The right side is lit up by a crooked and buzzing fluorescent strip light. I listen. Voices to the left, low and male. The sound of their laughter causes bile to rise in my throat.
To the right, another sound—Ivan. He’s not shouting, exactly. It’s more like slicing. “Vote.” “Crown.” “Bleed.”
I go right, sliding along the wall, shoulder to peeling paint, eyes darting all around. My steps crunch the grit beneath. I lift each foot and set it down like it might trigger a mine. I try to control my breathing.
Doorways spit out shadows, but I keep moving. Five doors. Six. I pass a room with a line of broken lockers and a dented vendingmachine full of expired candy. A calendar from a year that starts with nineteen flips back and forth from a draft.
Then I see it. The sign is old, but the word is still clear: EXIT. The door below is steel with a bar across the middle. There’s a small red light at the top right corner.
I want to run. I don’t. Instead, I glance back. Empty hall. No sound of footsteps behind me. Ivan’s voice is a muted echo down another corridor. I move, crossing the last few feet and putting my palm flat on the cool metal. I press the bar.
It doesn’t move.
I press harder, putting my shoulder into it. The metal gives a little, then stops. A tiny click sounds overhead, like a camera shutter. The red dot glows to life for one second, then goes dark. Locked. Not a deadbolt. Electronic. Controlled by someone else’s finger on a switch that’s not in this hall.
I push again, stupid hope doing what it does. Nothing. My ribs tighten. My breaths turn shallow. I think of the baby and push the panic down like a lid on boiling water.
“Just because it looks rundown,” a voice says behind me, amused, “doesn’t mean we don’t have good security.”
I turn around and face him, raising my chin in defiance. The corridor stretches long and mean, Ivan at the far end, half in shadow. He carries the gun lazily, as if it were a cup of water.
He takes one step.
“Maybe I should just kill you now,” he says, thinking out loud, like he’s ordering lunch. “It would be easier.”
I don’t look at his face. I look at the gun. I try to step backward, only to be stopped by the steel door I just tried to escape out of. The ribbon is in my palm, damp and warm.
I picture Damien’s eyes. I picture the way he says my name when he’s bringing me back from the edge. I picture our lovemaking. I press the ribbon into my fist.
Ivan lifts the gun a fraction, aiming carelessly. The light in the ceiling hums. Somewhere a rat starts skittering again, then changes its mind. Out of the corner of my eye, the red light above the door blinks once like a wink.
I keep my eyes on the gun. The hallway seems to grow narrower. I breathe deeply through the fear and decide not to close my eyes.
He smiles wickedly, like a man enjoying a private joke.
He doesn’t move.
