She shakes her head. “I’m really sorry about everything. I know you don’t trust me right now, but maybe you can trust this.” She grabs a bag at her feet and dumps everything onto the bed: files, documents, USBs, and photographs. “This is everything.” She pats the evidence. “The kids she killed?—”
My stomach drops. “Kids she killed?”
“Those kids that were suspected to have run away found out what she was up to and wanted to report her, so she…” She picks up a USB. “I have everything, including illegal adoptions she was involved in to raise money to buy shares and take this place over. It’s all in here. I’ve been collecting it for a while. We need to leave now.”
I stare at her, really seeing her for the first time since finding out who she really is.
She might be an adult, but all I see is a scared child who never chose this life, a child raised and groomed by a monster.
If I don’t trust her, I have no other way out. That guard could be waiting for me at the gate as we speak. If the other guards find out what I did to Megan, I will be in a whole lot of trouble.
“I have something else for you.” She reaches into her bag again and takes out a phone. “I found it in the desk drawer. I knew it was yours from the screensaver.”
She means the crayon drawing Sadie made of me back in primary school.
“Thanks.” I take the phone from her and shove it into my own bag. “How do we get past the guards?”
“There’s a way out. It’s near the infirmary. Not many people know about it. My mother showed it to me once. It leads straight to the beach. My boyfriend will be waiting.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“He’s a guard here. He will help us get out.”
“Us? I thought you can come and go as you like.”
“I’m not sure that’s the case anymore. One of my mother’s friends, Quinn Prescott, found me in my mother’s office. She heard me talking on the phone with my boyfriend about my plans to expose her, telling him that I was searching for more evidence. Quinn confronted and attacked me, so I hit her with a vase. I’m sure she has reported me to the guards by now.”
“What about your mother?”
Alice’s mouth tightens. “I don’t think she’s in a position to stop us, do you?” She stuffs the evidence back into her bag. “We need to go now before they come after us. You want to get back to your family, don’t you?”
I nod and grab my things.
Alice leads me through a deserted hallway. Just before we reach the end, we hear footsteps and a man in a white coat, a doctor from the looks of it, appears from around the corner, but he’s looking down at a clipboard.
Alice pulls me into a side room. We press against the wall, holding our breaths and listening as his footsteps pass.
“Not many people come this way,” she whispers. “We should be okay.”
The infirmary sign appears ahead, but she doesn’t take me inside. Instead, she opens a door next to it. Then we’re in another corridor, and another.
Finally, we stop in front of a wall with a large landscape painting, taller than both of us. Alice glances back once, then slides the painting aside.
There’s a door hidden behind it.
She swipes her key card. The door opens, and warm, damp air rushes out. It’s not a room. It’s a tunnel.
She presses a button, and a weak yellow light flickers on, revealing narrow metal walls stretching into darkness. The place smells of mold and rust, and the walls are slick with moisture. She slides the painting back and closes the door behind us.
The tunnel is so tight and narrow that we have to crawl. My legs scrape against the metal, my palms burn, and the air is thick and damp, pressing into my lungs. Somewhere, water drips steadily, and each drop echoes like a countdown.
I don’t care if I bleed. I don’t care if my skin tears.
I’m almost out.
Alice crawls ahead of me, panting. “We need to hurry before they realize what’s happening.”
When we reach the end, she carefully pushes the door open.
