Shame washed through her as she tried to stand but found herself unable to place much weight on either foot. She desperately wanted to flee, to take this opportunity to run through that door and escape from this prison, but she didn’t have the strength.
Weak. Just as the Count had said.
Even without her chains, she did not have the strength to save herself.
Emotion thickened her throat, and she swallowed, anger building in her chest.
“Are you alright?” the stranger asked, still holding onto her.
“They’ll come for us,” Mina said, her voice weak. “We need to go. Wherever you’re taking me, we need to go now.”
That seemed to be all the confirmation the man needed, for he swept her off her feet, holding her like an infant in his arms.
Weak.
He opened the door, and even the dim lighting in the corridor felt blinding. Mina squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach queasy as he carried her down the hall.
It was still sinking in, the reality that she might escape that dreadful room. Yet she was still afraid to let herself believe it.
What if she was dreaming? What if she were to awaken only to find the blackness around her again? This felt different from her usual dreams, but perhaps her mind was simply growing more creative after so long in isolation. Perhaps her madness was festering, strengthening.
“Are you in pain?” the stranger asked, his voice low.
It was then that she looked up at him, taking in his features.
She froze.
“You,” she whispered. The man she’d thought of distantly since that night with the wolves. The decision she’d regretted nearly every moment since. The stranger who’d offered her an escape.
“Ah, so you do remember me,” he said, his gaze fixed ahead. “I was beginning to take offence.”
He turned down a hallway, the flames along the walls giving way to darkness once more. For a moment, panic flared—would she awaken now to find herself alone in that damp dungeon? But then she felt the warmth of his hands as he lowered her carefully to the ground.
“See if you can stand.”
She set her right foot down first, the muscles weak but responsive, some feeling returned to her leg. Then she tried her left, pushing through the ache. She held tightly to him, a part of her afraid he might vanish—that none of this would be real.
With one arm still hoisted over his shoulder, she walked for the first time in days, maybe even weeks. He moved slowly, allowing her to readjust to the sensation of taking one step after another, her eyes fixed on the ground ahead. When she looked up, she saw rows of benches in the distance—no, notbenches, pews.
The strangest sensation washed through her as she sat up, looking around the underground chapel where she and the Count had married. Tears pricked her eyes and she inhaled sharply, desperate to find escape before she let herself fall apart. She was so close to surviving, so close to freedom, and she would not allow anything to get in her way.
The two moved quietly down the aisle, turning toward a doorway to the right of the altar. The stranger opened it with his free hand and helped her inside. He shifted out from under her, helping her lean against a nearby wall in the darkness. Mina listened to the sound of movement, something tearing, and then a low hiss as a flame came into view. She watched as the man pulled a lantern into view, having been hidden behind some piece of furniture, and then lit it, the space filling with an orange glow.
“Hold this, will you?” He held it out for her, and she took it, watching as he lifted a small rug to reveal a trap door hidden beneath.
Mina’s chest tightened at the black abyss below.
As if reading her thoughts, the man said, “Do you want to survive?” She looked up at him, his face cast in shadows. It took a moment, her mind spinning, but then, slowly, she nodded. “Alright. I’ll lower you down first. I’ll be right behind you.”
She swallowed down the nausea in her throat, looking down into the blackness. But what choice did she have? Staying heremeant death—a slow, painful death at that. It was either die quietly or die trying to survive.
She exhaled sharply. “Okay,” she whispered.
Slowly, he lowered her down into the hole. Relief filled her when her feet hit the ground, though her ankle tinged with pain. As she looked around, she could see nothing but black, and all at once, she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. As though the darkness itself was suffocating her. But then he lowered the lantern, and she reached out, grasping it in her hands and stepping out of the way.
Her hands shook, the fragments of light flickering against the stone tunnel around her.
When she felt a hand on her back, she flinched. But as she turned, she found the stranger’s solemn expression. She looked behind him, seeing that he’d already made it down and closed the trapdoor behind them.
