As if I had a choice.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
He hesitated, like he wanted to say something else, then thought better of it. “I’ll be back this evening.”
He closed the door behind him, the lock engaging with a heavy click.
I was alone once more.
I waited, counting heartbeats, making sure he was really gone. I heard his footsteps above, moving toward what I knew was the front of the house. Heard a door open and close. Heard the distant sound of a car engine starting, then fading as he drove away.
Only then did I move.
I turned my attention to the lunch plate he’d left. Scrambled eggs, perfectly fluffy. Spicy sausages. Toast, cut diagonally. Fresh fruit, already washed and sliced. All of it seasoned and presented perfectly, prepared with care.
No one could say that Tom didn’t take care of his pets.
But beside the plate, partially hidden by the napkin, something else caught my attention.
A knife.
Small, serrated, for cutting the fruit probably. But a knife nonetheless.
He’d likely forgotten it, left it there in his rush to get to work.
My heart began to pound.
This was it. This was the opportunity I’d been waiting for.
I reached for the knife, the chains clinking softly as Iwrapped my fingers around the handle.
I brought it to my wrist, to the cuff encircling my left hand. The metal was thick, the lock mechanism complex. But maybe, if I could wedge the blade into the locking mechanism, if I could pry it or break something crucial—
I worked at it for what felt like hours. The knife blade was too thick, wrong for the job. I tried forcing it into the keyhole, twisting, prying at the hinge, trying everything I could think of with increasing desperation.
My hands were slick with sweat. My breathing came hard and fast, loud in the empty basement.Come on. Come on.
Then I angled the blade differently, using just the very tip, and felt something shift inside the mechanism. There was a small click, barely audible but unmistakable.
My heart leapt.
I worked the blade carefully, feeling for the internal pins. The tip of the blade caught on something, a spring, maybe, or a locking pin, and I applied gentle pressure, twisting slightly, feeling for the sweet spot.
Another click.
The cuff on my left wrist sprang open.
I stared at it for a moment, hardly believing it was real. My wrist was free, red and raw where the metal had chafed, the skin angry and inflamed. But free. The remaining cuff still circled my right wrist, chain dangling from it like a leash, and I made quick work of that one too, my hands steadier now that I knew it could be done.
I stood on shaking legs.
There was no other way out other than going up those stairs. The window in the basement was too small to climb through, and I didn’t even bother to try, knowing it would be futile andcost me precious time.
I crossed the basement on silent feet, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might crack my ribs. Each step felt monumental and dangerous, like the concrete might crack beneath me, like alarms might sound, like Tom might somehow sense what I was doing and materialize to stop me.
The stairs loomed before me—wooden, old, and creaking. I’d counted them before. There were thirteen steps that stretched from the basement to the main floor. An unlucky number.
I started climbing.
