“I don’t know.” Something about the cadence of Malcolm’s answer implies a shrug, but I don’t let it go.
“I think you do,” I say, testing the words on my tongue and finding I believe them. It’s one thing to hesitate about turning over me and Mom, not knowing for sure what his actions would ultimately cost him. It’s another to be tied up in the dark for days on end. “You gave us more time than you had to. Way more,” I say with assurance.
I can tell he’s looking toward me—knowing that he’s free because of me, just like I know I got away because of him. He saved me before he even knew me.
I let out a shaky breath. For the first time since this nightmare started, I’m not tensed and ready to strike or bolt at the slightest provocation. I’m not sitting next to Malcolm with a weapon in my hand or smothered by my own fear of what lies ahead.
“I forgive you.”
He goes statue-still; even his heart seems to pause as my words sink in. “Yeah?”
“But don’t lie to me again.”
“No, never. I’ve seen you with a blade.”
Somehow, I know we’re both smiling.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
Malcolm talks in a normal voice about his goldfish back at home, Stan and Ollie, while I attack the remaining two sides of the stuck panel. He won them two years ago at a carnival for a girl who tried to throw them away at the end of the night, which consequently didn’t inspire him to ask for a second date.
I tell him about the café where I work and my best friends, Regina and Carmel. I grow a little morose thinking about them. By now, Regina will have convinced herself that she did something to warrant my complete vanishing act and Carmel, who’s all too familiar with my mom’s antics, probably thinks I’m in the middle of another impromptu move. She’ll be making herself sick with worry until I call and tell her I’m okay. And Aiden…he predicted I’d bail on him, so if anything, he’s blaming himself for not knowing better than to get involved with me. Maybe he’s even eyeing someone new by now. That’s what I should hope he’s doing. The alternative is that he realized something bad happened and he’s concerned about me. Or worse, he’s gone to the authorities.
I can’t deal with thinking about the people I care about right now, so I redouble my efforts with the panel. A minute later I stop. “Malcolm? I’m tired. Are you tired? I think we should try and get some sleep.” I might have injected too much force into the wordsleep,but the entire panel just lifted free from the last edge. I slide it to the side and rise on my toes so that the top of my head breaches the opening.
The attic, more of a crawl space really, runs the full length of the house, and under the canted roof it’s crowded with boxes and various junk. Based on the thick layer of dust blanketing everything and the assorted mouse corpses on the floor, no one’s been up here in a long time. Skimming past the rot and ruin, I see at last what allowed me to see any of it: a window.
The dim moonlight bleeding into the attic like a gloomy fog is barely better than the blackness below, but remembering Malcolm’s claustrophobia, I tug his hand and make room for him on the chair so he can see it: light, however weak, and more space.
Crowded together, I whisper, “Can you get up?”
He doesn’t answer. One second, he’s beside me, and the next, his elbows are braced on either side of the opening, snowing dust down on both of us. He pulls himself up and through without a sound and turns back to lock arms with me.
“Wait.” I step down and move the chair as close to the wall as possible while still letting me reach Malcolm. When our captors open that door—hopefully, a long time from now and not because we inadvertently make noise escaping—then every minute of confusion will count.
My cardio may be killer, but my upper-body strength is so pathetic that I find room on top of everything else to be embarrassed by how little I help Malcolm haul me up.
“Okay?” I ask when he clutches at his side. I can’t tell if it’s the poor light making him look so pale or the pain I know he just endured. He nods, waving me on.
My pace is glacial since I don’t know which floorboards will creak—or worse, considering the condition of the wood. I slide one foot ahead of the other, ears alert, and wince as it becomes impossible to avoid the heavy curtains of spiderwebs hanging thick from every surface. I suppress a squeak as the first one tangles in my hair and still more stick to my arms. Something squishes under my foot, and I close my eyes to ignore the instinct to look down. I know it’s a mouse. I know it. One not long dead, by the smell of it. I have to stop at one point to carefully and quietly migrate a stack of moldy boxes from my path. Malcolm moves the higher ones.
And then we see it clearly: our so-called escape. And I know without a doubt we’re both thinking the same four-letter word.
“Shit.” Malcolm says it out loud.
I’m still staring, so I don’t think to caution him about his volume. It is a window, but it’s gotta be prison-regulation, because there is no way that it can be crawled out of.
“I can fit,” I say anyway, and Malcolm’s eyes immediately drop to my hips.
“Not all of you.”
I spare a flicker of energy to be offended.
He lifts his hands. “I’m not complaining about the visual, just pointing out the size discrepancy between that child-size window and us.”
“Both of us can fit.”
He opens his mouth to protest again, then shuts it. “Okay. How?”
