“I will,” Kendall said. “It’s only temporary. You have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust people who lock me up!”
Kendall kept hammering. I kept banging my fists. The rain kept pounding the roof. The racket was worse than a bunch of children given drumsticks and empty garbage cans, but above the angry din, my banging heart was the loudest. No wonder the door had been the only one in the hallway to open outward. No wonder the frame had looked like Swiss cheese.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you!”
“Once, yes. As a safe house. For a client who was in danger. I’m headed back to Dark Haven and I’m going to call the cops and clue them onto Caesar. I’m going to get this whole mess sorted out so you can go back to your life.”
“Take me with you!”
He stopped hammering and put his mouth up to the door. “I’m sorry Rosie. I can’t bear to see something bad happen to you.”
“This is bad! This is against my will. What if I have to pee? Or worse?”
“I’m sorry. It won’t be long. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”
“You don’t have to lock me up. I won’t go anywhere.”
He didn’t answer. I panicked.
“Kyle?!”
“I need you to stay quiet,” he whispered through the door.
“I will not be quiet!”
“Please, Rosie. If someone comes while I’m away, don’t make a sound. Stay absolutely quiet.”
“What? Who’s coming?”
He didn’t answer. I thought I heard a shuffle, but it was hard to tell in the racket of the rain. I might have heard the jangle of a tool bag. I might have heard his footsteps on the stairs. I put my ear up to the door and listened hard, but all I could hear was the rain.
“Kyle!” I screamed. “Who is coming? The cops? Do they know where I am?”
No answer.
I banged, I clawed at the edge of the door, I kicked, I screamed, but I couldn’t get the door open. He had barred it well.
I paced the small space beside the bed, the darkness in the window gradually turning to gray. I sat on the bed, I sat in the devil chair, I paced. I wasn’t one to do pushups, but this must have been how Mettle felt when he was locked in that tiny cell. My go-to escape had always been my books, but with my phone’s battery down to ten percent, it wasn’t an option.
Sometime after the gray completely replaced the black of night, the rain slowed. The morning was cloudy and dark and a rain-streaked misting covered the window.
I checked my phone. Still no signal. Eight percent left. I turned my phone off completely to save what was left of the battery.
Later, after what must have been three miles of pacing, I heard a loud whir, like fans spinning down. The whir was followed by a loud beep and then the only sound was the faint patter of gentle rain.
I grabbed the remote control and tried the television. Nothing. I pressed the power button repeatedly. Still nothing. I pulled the chain on the lamp. Nothing at all.
The power was down. All those clouds and rain yesterday must have kept the solar panels from recharging the house battery and now the entire cabin was dead. Even if Kendall actually returned with my charger, I wouldn’t be able to charge my phone, not until the sun came back out.
I flopped onto the bed and draped my arm over my forehead. I had to pee. I had to eat. I had to get out of this prison. I got up again and went to the window and pressed my forehead to the cold glass. If the power was down and the heat wasn’t working, then I couldn’t even open the window or I’d let the cold inside.
I tried to see down below. The bedroom was on the second story, a straight drop to the ground, made even higher by the concrete steps of a walk-up basement beneath me. I couldn’t remember seeing a door to the basement anywhere inside the house.
Then I realized: if the power was down, then the security system was down too. The security cameras would be off. The thought sent a ripple of anxiety through my system.
Escape. My only chance.
I could try the cartoon prison thing and make a rope out of my bedsheets. That might get me half the way down, far enough to drop the remaining story.
How bad would a ten-foot drop hurt?
It depended on the landing. Defying my own survival instincts, I yanked the bedspread off the bed, rolled it up, and tied one end to the bedpost. Then I ripped off the sheet and tied that to the end of the bedspread. As if I were showing a display of strength with a pair of nunchucks, I grabbed each piece of cloth on either side of the knot and yanked them as hard as I could. The makeshift rope gave a snap and the knot held.
This was a truly terrible idea. Yet, I didn’t stop working. I yanked open the window. A cold mist blew into the room and I shivered. I pulled the devil chair over to the window, grabbed my prison-rope, climbed up, fed the rope out the window like Rapunzel letting her hair down, and put one leg over the sill.
I clenched the rope with all my strength. I had never been good at the rope climb in gym class. But this wasn’t climbing, I told myself. This was going down. I leaned back, my full weight pulling on the rope. I stuck my second foot out the window, but the bedpost creaked and shifted and my weight dragged the whole bed skittering across the room. The end of the bed slammed into the chair and I jerked backward and dangled out the window.
I swung there in the gray mist, my muscles tightening and growing weak. My heart thumped against the siding and panic stole the rest of
