Old ones.
New ones.
Recognition hits me like a blow.
One ofhisgirls.
She looks at me, really looks, gaze flicking over my pale face, my trembling hands, the way I’m holding my belly.
Her expression changes.
Softens.
Hardens.
The usual glint of lunacy in her sapphire eyes sparks to life.
Breaks.
Withers and dies.
“He called you in,” she whispers.
I swallow. “Yes.”
“And he asked you to-”
“Yes.”
Her own breath shakes, her grip tightens on my arms, nails cutting in. “Listen to me,” she whispers, voice trembling as though the walls might tattle. “You have one chance. One. I can’t give you more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks around, left, right, then pulls me closer until her forehead rests against mine.
“There’s a way out.”
My pulse thrashes, ears buzzing, “What?”
“A path he doesn’t know I know.” Her voice drops lower. “A tunnel beneath the medical wing, Amaranthine can show you. If you want to keep your child, if you want to keep him safe, you need to leave. Now.”
My world tilts.
“Why… why would you help me?”
Her eyes glisten, haunted and hollow and full of something like devotion turned sour. “Because I was you once. And no one helped me.”
I think back to what Dolly told me before, rain beating down on us, shovels in hand, hoods pulled up over our heads, but we were soaked through all the same, wet hair strewn across both of our faces in the blustering wind.
‘Sometimes there’s no time to think things through, Penelope. Only death can release us now.’
I didn’t ever understand the first part, it wasn’t said in reference to anything as we dug Thomas Avery’s grave, so I paid it no mind, instead only focussing on the words that came after. Those I understood.
Dolly’s voice fractures. “And because if you stay here, Penelope… he will take everything.”
My breath hitches. “Where does it go? The tunnel?”
She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them with brutal resolve.
