I pick up the shovel and plunge it into dirt too soft for a cave—a hole dug, then filled in. Then get to work digging beneath the cell door.
My heavy breaths ping off the walls and mingle with the scrape of metal against earth. Everything sounds so loud I’m certain I’ll hear anyone approaching. Every shift, every breath ricochets down the tunnel.
I try the hole too soon. Twice. The first time, I throw the shovel down and cry out when my body doesn’t fit. The second, I make it halfway before a metal bar stops me cold.
Panic sweeps my chest. I rock back and forth, my hips wedged between dirt and steel, going nowhere. After a torturous minute of pushing, my hips give, and I work my way into the cell.
I attack the dirt with the shovel—wild, frantic—and fling clumps against the wall in sharp, ugly jerks. When a candle snuffs out in the chaos, I force myself to slow down. Each jam of the blade turns sharp, precise, punishing. As if Mother Earth put me here.
Once I’m confident the hole is big enough for one of my brothers, I drop the shovel and cringe at my raw hands. Angry red, blistered and split.
I wipe my hands on my sweater, drop to my back, and shimmy beneath the bars.
This time, it works.
I’m free.
Gasping with equal parts exertion and relief, I thread the shovel through the bars. In one swift motion, I swing it over myshoulder and start down the cave. Blind. My shoulder bumps the wall. The shovel clanks against rock. Cold bites my toes as my foot sinks into a freezing puddle. I couldn’t see my own hand if I pressed it to my face.
My feet go numb before the tunnel finally twists and a faint light appears. I break into a run toward the light, shovel reared, half-expecting my captor to step in front of the exit with a knife and a grin.
I burst from the cave. Freeze. Scan for the smallest flicker of danger. Nothing. No one. Just a forest. A pair of squirls rattling a tree branch, autumn leaves floating to the ground.
It’s a trap.
My mind screams it, but adrenaline lights my feet on fire anyway. Precious energy squandered by impatience.
Sedatives slow me down. I can feel the extra weight in my legs, the slight stumble of my strides. But still, years of endurance training propel me through the trees. The shovel sways over my shoulder, heavy and off-balance.
Pain—sharp, dull, everywhere—stabs up through the bottoms of my feet and forces my focus downward. I hop over sticks and stones and roots, desperate for clean ground, and make the stupidest mistake. I don’t look up.
A voice snaps through the trees, an angry “hey,” too close. My head whips toward the man barreling after me, dressed head-to-toe in black, closing the twenty yards between us.
Fast. Too fast for my wobbly form.
He’s going to catch me.
Instinct fires before thought. I fling the shovel off my shoulder—stupid,it’s my only weapon—and my legs surge, arms pumping, form sharpening despite the drugs.
“Help me!” I scream as I launch myself over a raised tree root.
“She’s this way!” the man behind me shouts. The words hit my brain with a split of hope and anticipation.
Hope, because he’s losing confidence in catching me.
Anticipation, because it means there are more.
“Somebody please, help me!”
Stupid—giving them my location.
I’ve been running aimlessly, but when a stream flashes into view ahead, I lock onto it. With enough speed, I can clear it. The man in black: probably not. He’s too big. Too bulky. He didn’t grow up with a father who demanded physical perfection.
A second man appears in my periphery. Same black clothes, leaner fit, might be able to jump. He sprints from the right to cut me off.
A third, this time on my left. They’re an army of shadows peeling from the trees, as if they’ve been waiting for me. Yet are still unprepared.
One of them lets out a sharp, coded hoot. Signaling for more.
