Page 68

Nate opened the curtains. He checked the temporary power supply. He set Bartholomew on top of the duffel bag with the toy’s stitched smile pointed toward the ceiling, as if it had not recently committed an unforgivable crime.

Leo tested the tether twice.

The first time, it caught him near the fireplace.

The second, at the doorway.

Nate looked up from his laptop. “Still there?”

“Obviously.”

“Just checking.”

“You don’t need to keep checking. I’m the one wearing the leash.”

Nate’s mouth tightened slightly. “I know.”

Leo had been prepared to say something cutting. The words lost their shape.

He turned away and drifted toward the foyer again. The tether followed, loose at first, then drawing tighter as Nate remained beside his laptop.

Leo reached the edge.

He pushed.

Nothing stopped him.

He moved another step.

Then another.

The sitting room doorway passed around him. The wall separated him from Nate. Leo stood in the foyer, farther away than he had been allowed to move since Miriam released him.

He waited for the tether to pull him back.

“Leo?” Nate called from the other room.

Leo went up through the ceiling.

The second floor opened around him in a rush of faded wallpaper and morning light. He passed through the landing wall, crossed two bedrooms without touching the floor, and shot upward again into the attic.

Dust hung in the beams.

A bird’s abandoned nest sat below the round window.

What a glorious sight.

What a glorious feeling of freedom!

Leo laughed. Loudly.

He crossed the attic in a blur, dove through three floors, and emerged in the basement with his shoes hovering an inch above the stone. The old furnace waited in the dark. The far corner remained exactly as it had always been.

Dark. Frightening.

He swept past it.

Up again.