Lifting myself off the floor, I did another sweep around the room, eyeing off each corner and seam of the walls, looking for a weakness, trying to figure out an escape route. When I reached the glass partition, I tapped it a few times, hoping for a flimsy sort of material. The sound had a high pitch … maybe there was a chance I could break it. Pulling off my sweater, I wrapped my hand and gave the panel a gentle smack. A low thud, followed by a slight reverberation, but no sign of cracking.
Cocking my arm even further back, I sucked in deeply and slammed my hand into the glass. Pain spiked across my hand and down my forearm and I bit back a cry. I rubbed my free hand across the glass … not a single blemish on it. It was definitely too thick for me to punch out; I’d only hurt myself if I continued.
But … maybe I could kick hard enough.
I still wore my school uniform, with the stupid dress shoes, but it was better than bare feet. Taking a step back, I yanked my skirt up and tucked it into the band at my waist. If anyone had been in here, I would have been flashing them a perfect view of the school-issued tights.
Falling into a balanced stance, I started to breathe as I was taught in all of my fight classes. Deep breaths, centering my body and focusing my mind.A fight is won or lost, most of the time, before the first punch is thrown. Lose your cool, lose the fight. Never let emotions control you. You always control them.
The mantras ran round and round my head as I took the time to calm down. There had been a lot going on in my life recently, and through it all, I had been running on autopilot. Now, it was time to take back my control.
Standing there, contemplating the right angle to slam my heel into the glass, my mind was finally quiet for the first time in days. I released another deep breath and swung my leg into a high kick. I channeled every ounce of power I had into the connection, satisfied with the solid thud. I could always tell if I’d landed a good shot by the sound of my hit.
The panel shuddered strongly; there was a creak as I connected, but no cracks yet. I tried again. And again. Not ready to give up. With each unsuccessful hit, my thoughts got darker. I blamed the moroseness on many things. The fact I was being held prisoner in a doorless room, that my mom was dead, that Daniel had made me reliant on him and now he wasn’t here. Which was completely unfair.
Slam. Slam. Slam.
I kicked that panel until my legs felt like they were about to collapse under me, but giving up was not in my vocabulary.
Slam. Slam. Slam.
My muscles burned, my eyes burned, my soul burned as screams racked me internally, begging to be let free. Finally, when I couldn’t contain my fury any longer, I dropped my leg, and reaching forward slammed both fists into the glass and screamed. The agonized sound came from my gut, deep and rasping.
My face and body were on fire, tears running down my cheeks as I screamed. The salty tears started to sizzle off my face, turning into streams of steam.
What in the…?
The glass under my hands caught my attention then, because it was now a dark red. I raised my palms up and a long strand of sticky material lifted with them.
What was happening?
The red of the glass started to fade as soon as I wasn’t touching it, so I dropped my hands back down, releasing more of my anger as I did. It burned red again, and as I asserted more pressure, my hands moved through the thick material. Almost like they were … melting it away.
How was this possible? My hands should be charred bones at this point – I was melting glass, which if I remembered correctly had to be done at some stupidly high temperature.
Logically, I wanted to stop, to wrench myself back, but since it didn’t seem to be hurting me, I continued channeling my fury, pushing through. It was soon obvious why my kicking had done nothing. This window had to be ten inches thick. No human could kick through that. Not even my idol, Bruce Lee.
And I was pretty sure he could do almost everything.
I was elbow deep when I finally busted out the other side, the resistance giving out, almost causing me to faceplant into the wall. The sparks of heat in my body started to fade away, so I quickly pulled my hands back through. Glass remained attached to me, but it still wasn’t hurting, and by the time I was free and my skin was cool, the long strings of glass had dropped off.
There wasn’t a big enough hole in the panel for me to crawl through; I’d only gotten two hands in, but hopefully it would be more brittle now. My kick might actually work. As my anger vanished, so did the last of the heat in my body. My brain was already trying to work out how I’d done that, and the only logical explanation I had was Daniel. He could turn into a flaming fireball. I was sharing some of his abilities.
Whatever it was, I’d just be grateful I at least had a chance to escape now.
As soon as the red faded from the partially-destroyed panel, I kicked it with all of my strength. This time it shattered, glass tinkling out into the dark world beyond my prison. The hole, which I was pretty sure I could squeeze through, was now completely clear. Well, there were a couple of little ragged edges, but I didn’t care. I was getting out of here.
It was not easy to leverage myself up and through the window. The only reason I somewhat managed was from years of being forced to climb that damn rope in the gym. Ignoring the cuts in my palms, I wiggled my top half through the opening. The fit was tight, and I didn’t like the sensation of being wedged in, especially with so much darkness on the other side. I couldn’t see a thing out there, no noises…
But the dark had to be better than waiting to starve in this prison. Twisting and squirming through as far as I could, eventually I let gravity do its job. My arms went out to prevent my head from smashing into the ground, and I managed to half roll, so landing wasn’t quite as painful as I’d anticipated. When I was standing in the darkness, my heart pounding rapidly, I waited for my eyes to adjust. Because despite my words about taking my chances, randomly walking in this level of darkness seemed kind of stupid.
I waited and waited, but that unnatural blanket of black remained. Dropping down, I ran my hands across the ground. It felt slightly textured, like a compacted dirt. Probably the same as my jail. I couldn’t see my hands to know if there was any sort of residue on them, but my fingers felt dusty as I rubbed them together.
My fear was getting harder to control. I’d never hated the dark, but I also wasn’t overly fond of it. And this was no ordinary night, this was magical in nature, and that was messing with my nerves. With no other choice, I started to walk away from the box with its small window of light, my movements slow, cautious, both hands out in front of me as my only option of stopping an obstacle from smashing me in the face. The entire time I walked my eyes strained to see anything. This darkness … I’d never experienced anything like it before.
This world was making me really nervous.
After walking for what felt like a few hours, I decided to sit for a moment. I hadn’t run into one thing, hadn’t seen another speck of light or felt any energy from a living creature. Where the hell had Laous dumped me? Would I ever find my way out of here?
