The more her gaze followed the women in the group, the more bitter envy swelled deep in her gut. She didn’t hate them or bear them ill will, but she was so jealous of what they had and all that she didn’t.
Jenna dropped her head back to her knees in case anyone caught her staring, and especially if Gracie had a mental pathway into her mind. She huddled as far from the others as possible, trying to make herself invisible, all the while slowly scanning the room with eyes that were hidden from the people standing several feet away. She took in every detail, trying desperately to find some way of escaping. A hysterical laugh nearly spilled from her lips before she slammed them shut and sucked in deep, steadying breaths through her nose, willing herself to be calm.
How exactly did she think she’d ever manage to escape these men? Anger at herself surged hotly through her body. She’d already escaped the impossible and if she’d done it once, then she could do it again. She just had to believe in herself. But first she had to find a way out and secondly, she had to make her move when everyone’s attention was drawn away from her and focused on charting their course of action.
She softly blew out her breath over her knees in a nearly silent gesture of frustration. Who was she kidding? Only a few seconds ago she’d been all about being honest with herself and here she was contemplating that her odds of slipping away unnoticed were actually good. But she couldn’t decide which was worse. Being dishonest with herself or being a pessimist. Neither was going to help her out in her current situation.
Refusing to give in to defeat, no matter how inevitable it seemed, she resolved to stop sulking, wallowing in self-pity and acting like a pathetic, useless twit. There was always a way. She just had to find it.
Being extremely careful not to be obvious, she resumed the search she’d so quickly abandoned only moments after beginning. She’d learned infinite patience while imprisoned in the cult, knowing that if she ever grew impatient and tried to escape before she had a flawless plan in place, she’d never get another chance. Luck certainly never hurt, though, and she’d take all the luck available to her.
Remaining completely silent, not even the puffy exchange of air from her lungs able to be heard, she lifted her head so gradually it would be undetectable and peeked from beneath her arms to survey the room, looking for a way out that wasn’t barred by one or more of the DSS men. Ugh, the size that these men were, it would only take one to create an insurmountable obstacle to her.
Her breath caught when her gaze finally lighted on what looked to be an opening to a cellar in the floor. It was small, scarcely big enough for the large, muscled men to ever fit through. It would certainly be a tight squeeze for any one of them. But her slim figure could easily slip through the opening. The cellar door didn’t look as if it had been used in years. Since she knew this to be one of the DSS strongholds and the most secure of their safe houses, the cellar door was likely an escape route in case the house came under siege.
It wasn’t far from where she sat against the wall and if she could slowly, but most of all quietly, move the few feet between her and the cellar opening, she could quickly slip downward before she would even be detected.
There had to be a way out once she reached the sublevel of the safe house. These men would have planned for every eventuality, and in all likelihood had multiple escape routes in case the safe house was breached and any of the other exits had been compromised or blocked off by the enemy.
She mentally gave herself a pep talk even as panic threatened to overwhelm her to the point of breaking down into hysteria.Get it together, Jenna!All she had to do was drop down the cellar opening, slide the door back shut, hopefully not making the slightest sound, and then find the exit that led to the outside of the building and run as if her life depended on it.
Not her life. Isaac’s life. The lives of the men and women of DSS. People’s blood she refused to have on her hands when she was the sole reason they were all in danger.
She’d found her way around the city the first time, even if she hadn’t gone far before running into Isaac—and trouble. But that wasn’t the point. She’d done it once and she could do it again. She just couldn’t let terror paralyze her and she needed to realize that this wasn’t a game of hide-and-seek. Failure meant her capture, and it could also mean death for every single person in this room. Success meant she would continue to breathe and could disappear to where she’d never be a danger to anyone again.
That thought immediately sobered her and she vowed to take extreme care this time and not to trust anyone. She’d gotten lucky that Isaachadbeen someone she could trust, but what if she’d attempted to steal someone else’s vehicle? If not for Isaac she’d now be in the hands of brutal monsters. Not everyone was good like Isaac and his men, and from now on, she’d take no chances, thus not giving herself any opportunity to trust only to then be betrayed.
Fear had lent her strength before when she’d fled. It had given her the adrenaline necessary to go through with her plan. But this time she couldn’t count on those things to save her again. She had to be smart and use her head if she had any hope of getting out of this place and staying alive.
It little mattered where in the city she went, only that she kept away from darkened alleys and dimly lit streets. Neighborhoods that were suspect. Anything that fired the sixth sense for danger she’d always possessed. This time she’d damn well listen instead of plunging recklessly through the streets looking frantically for something, anything, to aid her in her escape.
She needed to make it a point to keep to crowded areas where she could blend in. Stick to busy parts of town. Shopping meccas. Places where there were plenty of stores, maybe a large mall. It would be so easy to blend in with the thousands of people who scurried along like ants in and out of an anthill.
But before she got too carried away with her plan, she had to make some very important changes or nothing she’d planned up to now would make a darn bit of difference. Her looks were simply too distinctive, too memorable. So she needed to change her appearance, and not by just a little bit.
Her hair and features weren’t forgettable. Isaac had called her an angel—his angel—in a tone of awe that made her think he truly did see her as an angel with her long, pale, almost white hair, her startlingly blue eyes and her nearly translucent skin.
She needed to dye her hair. She knew it made her sound not only vain but incredibly stupid, but she couldn’t bring herself to cut the long tresses. It was her one rebellion. The elders had threatened her time and time again with shearing every bit of her hair off as a way to humiliate her and bend her to their will, but each time she vowed that she’d kill herself before ever agreeing to heal another person in the cult if they carried out their promise.
The fear in their eyes told her they knew she wasn’t bluffing, and she wasn’t. She’d lost so much already. Why was she even hanging on anyway? It was a question she’d asked herself dozens of times over the years, only to cry herself to sleep because she didn’t have an answer.
Perhaps it was the sheer desperation etched into her features that convinced them, or the fact that she looked dully at them, like death was the ultimate freedom for her, one she wanted very badly. Though they hadn’t followed through on their hollow threat, security on her had been doubled, and she was forced to eat whether she wanted to or not.
Often they forced a feeding tube down her and held her down while they inserted an IV so they could administer fluids intravenously in addition to the nutrients administered via the feeding tube. It was as though they feared she would make good on her threat to go through with it and end all her pain, humiliation and misery.
It should shame her that she allowed them to think that of her. That she was so weak that she would end her own life rather than fight with every breath for her freedom no matter how long it took. But it bought her precious time, time she needed if she was ever going to make good on the vow she’d made herself when she was but a young girl trapped in an environment where she could smell the stench of evil, so much so that it sickened her and many a night, she threw up every single bite of food or liquids forced on her during the day.
So while she refused to cut so much as an inch off her hair, and it could very well end up the worst mistake of her life, she could alter her appearance in other ways. She could dye her hair a color so different from her own that no one would ever recognize her. Red was out. She simply couldn’t see herself as a redhead. But she could do dark brown or even black.
After consideration, she decided that coloring her hair black, like the sky at midnight when no moon or stars were visible through the inky darkness, was her best shot at being able to move through the shadows undetected. If luck and God were on her side, the sky would remain overcast so the moon and the stars couldn’t cast their light to penetrate even the best disguise. Then the odds of her remaining undetected would greatly increase. But even better was the fact that visibility would be limited to feet instead of much greater distances.
She’d need new clothing, and nothing like the ragtag clothes she’d fled the compound in but at the same time, nothing that would draw unnecessary attention to herself. No, she wanted to be ... normal. Blue jeans. Nice ones without rips or holes in the denim. Ones that fit her and weren’t several sizes too big, making her look like she’d dug them out of a Dumpster and had to settle for whatever she was lucky enough to find.
Her tops needed to be oversized, at least two sizes too large so they showed nothing of her curves. She’d long cursed her ample breasts, curved hips and plump ass that men seemed to like staring after with a look in their eyes that scared her almost as much as the elders did.
Sweaters would be perfect and it was wintertime, though the temperature never got that cold stretching from southeast Texas to well on the other side of Houston. And sweaters were bulky enough that she wouldn’t have to worry with a bra.
She winced because she’d forgotten all about shoes, and shoes were expensive. But maybe she could find some for a decent price at the Goodwill store or the Salvation Army when she went to look for the other items needed to complete her disguise.
