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I had no phone, no shoes, no money and no idea what street this was. The plan was away.

I shuffled to the door. The double socks helped, but not enough. I twisted the knob. It turned and kept on turning, until I pulled at it and it opened. Relief made my shoulders sag, and I placed one foot outside. Then the other.

Left. Then right. All clear.

I leapt into action.

Black flashed before me and I smashed into a man’s chest.

I bounced off him. He did not move. He looked down at me, and he didn’t look happy. Or angry. Or even bemused.

He just stood there with his arms crossed.

Oh.

I turned and went back into the room, my face burning, the knife sliding uselessly against my wrist.

It hadn’t been locked. He had told me to lock mine, and he had not locked his. He had simply stood outside it and waited to see what I would do.

Room 118.

Shit.

Chapter 10

Tau

Three minutes and forty-two seconds. That was how long it took her to escape. It was not bad.

I followed her back into the room and shut the door behind us. She was busy putting my knife back in the bag, her movements quick and guilty, my sleeve sliding down over her wrist. I was busy retrieving the jute rope from my suitcase.

Three-strand, thick as a finger, dried to the colour of straw and oiled until it no longer bit. It smelled of earth and hay and a faint trace of oil. The fibres whispered dry against my palms, and the moment my hands closed around it, the noise in my head went quiet.

Order was required. I could not gain it while she was outside running around in socks and a shirt. I could not run a simple errand without her placing herself in danger.

I turned to face her and began to unwrap the rope. It fell in coils against the carpet with a soft, dry rasp. She watched it fall. Mouth open. Eyes full of accusation. I almost defended my actions.

“Roll my sleeves up and place your hands and arms together as if you’re praying.”

She didn’t move. The window unit rattled in the wall. The neon pulsed red through the curtain, painting and unpainting her face.

“You want me to place my hands together so you can tie me up?”

I did not respond. I waited.

I liked what she had done with my scarf. Charcoal cotton wound around her head, a few curls escaping at the temple. It suited her.

Her face moved through expressions like weather. Outrage. Calculation. Something close to exhaustion. Then her stomach rumbled, loud in the quiet. She swallowed once. I saw the movement travel down her throat.

She slid one sleeve up her arm and then the next. The cotton whispered against her skin. Another gulp, and she placed herself palms and arms together, wrists aligned, a girl at prayer in the wrong church.

I held the rope against her forearm, gauging how much length I wanted before I began to loop and weave. Her skin was warm. Her pulse jumped beneath my thumb, quick and light as a bird’s. The rope hissed through my fingers, each turn laid flat, each wrap parallel to the last. I slid two fingers beneath every loop. Snug, never tight. Enough to hold, never enough to hurt. You never took what you could not give back.

I tied the knot and cut the tail with the knife she had tried to run off with.

Her skin was darker than the jute. It almost glowed against the straw-coloured fibres in the red wash of the neon. Supple. Restrained.

I was a terrible human being.