For my lies.
For my art.
For my freedom from death.
And I still don’t know if I’m sorry. I still don’t know if I wouldn’t escape all over again, even if I knew what would happen to everyone else.
Swallowing back my tears, I resume my walk, remembering how weak my legs felt by this point. Not from fatigue but just…disappointment. Hurt.
I stop outside the jail, stomach churning as I assess its gated windows. Some of the bars have been pulled clean out and discarded on the ground. Then I see the half-broken front door, and the porch marred with dark stains I can only imagine are from blood. With a bracing breath, I enter, slowly walking past the sheriff’s office, then down the hall to the cells. My breaths come faster now, sharper, as I approach the open cell at the far end.
This is it.
This is where I was held.
Where I escaped.
I stop outside it, closing my eyes for a few moments to gather mycomposure. Once I’ve gained some semblance of control over my breathing, I open my eyes and step inside.
It’s just how I remember it. Stone walls, the farthest affixed with iron bars, two of which still bear the shredded ropes I cut myself free from. Moldy straw all over the floor.
And blood. So much blood, dark and discolored and…everywhere.
I smother my mouth with my hand and take a few more steadying breaths.
Everything inside me wants to run. How could I make myself relive this experience?
But I must relive it. Because already I can feel my memories stirring, sharpening, brightening. They’re right there, waiting for me to pull them forward and confront them at last.
On trembling legs, I move to the far wall, press my back against it, and raise my arms, just like I was forced to then. Visions flash through my mind, of the guards tying me to the bars. My sobs and wails, unheard as I was left to wait alone for hours.
Hours.
Hours.
Then him.
Henry.
That hope and happiness that soured as I learned the truth of what he was. What he’d become.
Then the rage. Hatred. My steely resolve.
I angle my fingertips toward my wrist, recalling how I’d pulled a sewing needle from my cuff. The way I fought the pain of every inch of skin Henry sliced through while I worked my needle against my bindings, fraying every fiber of that rope until my hand came free. I remember the second needle I extracted from my cuff.
I slash out with my hand, just like I did when I cut his neck.
And then…
A chill moves through me as the next memory becomes clear. One that was only a blur until now.
I heave forward, recalling the searing pain that lanced through my gut when Henry…
He stabbed me.
I splay my palm over my abdomen. Over the wound I forgot. The wound I bear no scar from.
What the fuck?
