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Silas’s hand found my ankle, and I took the cue, lifting my hands straight up and placing one foot into his hand.

“On three,” I called, trying not to let my panic overwhelm me.

“One,” I counted, taking a breath.

“Two,” another breath.

“Three!” I bent my knees, using his hands and my own leverage to push upward into the darkness. Suspended entirely within the narrow chimney, I reached high above my head, my palms scrambling against the slick walls. Panic spiked as my fingers slid, threatening to send me crashing back down. But then my arm broke through into open air, and I grasped desperately for anything to hold on to.

I ignored the freezing snow biting into my skin and focused entirely on the climb. Digging in with my elbows and leveraging my hips, I slowly hauled myself up and out. It took another grueling minute of wriggling, but my head finally cleared the opening.

I gasped deeply, the cold air stinging my lungs, but it was the greatest feeling.

My elbows held me up as I took a few deep breaths and glanced around.

“Focus,” I muttered. I may have been out, but we weren’t free yet.

I strained to focus on my surroundings, but was shocked by how difficult it was for my eyes. After two months in isolation, it was as though my brain had forgotten how to see distances. I squinted around me, making out distant shapes that looked like trees, but nothing that resembled a man.

I looked down to see Silas staring up at me, his eyes expectant. “I don’t see anyone. Let me climb out, and I’ll help you.”

He nodded, and I leveraged my elbows to army-crawl out of the hole. I collapsed once I was free, my back in the snow, and gave myself a moment. I stared up at the stars as they glittered in the sky like jewels.

I had done it. We were out. Not free, but on our way.

I closed my eyes for a breath. And then one more, before opening them and rolling to my side. I crawled on my hands and knees to the hole and dropped to my belly at the edge, reaching my arm down. “When you’re ready, jump! Count it down so I’m ready!” I called.

We had talked about it a dozen times, but I still relayed the instructions.

“Okay!” he called up.

“One!” he yelled, and I braced my knees into the ground, sinking them through the snow into the dirt.

“Two!” I grasped at the ground with my left hand, hoping to keep myself from falling back in.

“Three!” I reached down as he yelled, and less than a second later, his hand was in mine. My body tried to slip in, but I used the little strength I had left to keep myself anchored.

I gripped him tightly and pulled with everything I had. I was going to get this boy to freedom if it was the last thing I did.

A raw, guttural scream tore from my throat as I threw every remaining ounce of strength into pulling him up. Reason said it was impossible. My body was a hollow shell after two months of starvation in captivity, my muscles withered and shivering. Silas had a good foot on me in height and outweighed me by a solid fifty pounds of lean muscle—hauling him out should have snapped my spine.

Yet somehow, bone by bone, muscle fiber by straining fiber, I dragged him upward. The air burned in my chest like liquid fire as I fought for every inch of progress, my cloth covered feet skidding uselessly against the ice until, finally, his shoulders cleared the edge.

The moment his torso tumbled free onto the surface, my legs gave out completely. I collapsed hard into the snow, my face burying into the freezing crust as my lungs heaved in violent, ragged gasps. Beside me, Silas hauled the rest of his weight over the lip, collapsing onto his back and swallowing down giant gulps of freezing air.

“We did it,” he whispered.

I nodded and looked at him. His eyes were squeezed shut, scared of what the sun would do to him. I reached out, grasping his shoulder. “Open your eyes. It won’t hurt, I promise.”

He listened, reluctantly, and peeled his eyes open impossibly slow. He was met with the sparkling sky above.

“Wow,” he murmured. “What are those?”

I smiled and stood up slowly, my legs wobbly from the adrenaline. “The stars.” I wanted to give him all the time in the world to stare up at the stars, to appreciate the glittering jewels, but we didn’t have time. We still didn’t know where we were or if Father was close by. I reached my hand out to him. “We gotta go.”

He looked at me and nodded in understanding, taking my hand and letting me pull him up. He stood by my side and looked around. “Which way do we go?”

I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, kid.” I glanced around, looking for any tracks in the snow or any indication of which way the road would be. I looked up again and saw the moon peeking through the trees. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t care why, but I decided to walk toward the moon.