Nada's Escape: Fighters' lies

1.1 It's time

Escape plan 73 is finally ready. I sit with bated breath on my mattress, awaiting the scraping in the lock that will tell me its time. Scritch-scratch, it comes and I leap to my feet, pressing one hand to the wood. I pray the lock will turn easily under Amy's lockpicks but for several seconds it resists. I roll forward onto my toes, flimsy shoes flexing around the movement, sweat sticking my shirt to my underarms.

Finally the lock clicks and I duck beyond the swinging door, pulling it shut behind me with a whisper. With any luck I won't be forced back there again.

Just as planned I dive onto the nearest floor mat, closing my eyes against the cool darkness. A flash of distant torchlight burns into my eyelids and I try to calm my heavy breathing. Just for a second I have to appear asleep. The light leaves and the footsteps wait an agonising second before also fleeing. I allow myself one tiny, half-triumphant smile.

My eyes snap open as I push my body into a plank. I gaze along rows of sleeping girls, stretched out between me and the main doors. Great castle doors made of wood and heavy cast iron, impossible to breach. If only they weren't ajar.

The start of any great plan is some small, forgotten weakness. Like the fact that Perkins is a pacer, slipping out every night to patrol the empty grounds. And now that he's satisfied that we're all asleep, its time to get to work.

A pale shape shifts from the deep windowsill into the hall and I get moving. I roll the blankets as we'd practised, nervous. Is this taking too long? I am quick though, topping my bundle with shredded rag hair. Then I scurry to the doors, not needing to check my work. But I do check for light sleepers.

There are none. Just the childish rise and fall of sleeping chests. My gut tightens at the injustice of it. The concrete floor, the barred windows and castle-like doors. All this for a handful of girls, sleeping peacefully in the Huntsmen's dungeon. They need escape just as badly as us.

"We'll come back for them." Amy breathes in my ear. "What is it they say on airplanes again? Fit your own oxygen mask before helping others?"

I give her joke a half-hearted smile, letting some of my guilt go . We'll be back for them, I tell myself. If we manage to escape we can alert the authorities. A lie, maybe. Only time will tell.

Amy dances through the gap in the main doors and I follow, shaking off my doubts. I throw myself across the courtyard, stone blurring in my vision. The wind strokes my skin as I leap the half-wall and hit the dirt beyond, rolling, skidding, stopping.

I press my back to the wall beside Amy and count to twenty. My breath lurches its way out of my lungs as the torch beam reappears, slashing through the sky above our heads. But then it's gone, just as we'd planned. Like clockwork.

We sprint across the hard packed earth, toward a pile of wood. In the days of Clancy and the drovers it might have been called a shed but tonight it leans like a dying sailor, ghostly pale even in the darkness. Fern hunches over a stack of rickety wood as we enter, peering through the boards. I carefully pick out the two longest pieces and nod as Amy does the same.

"Just tell us when." I whisper, dancing on my toes.

"Now." Fern hisses back.

We manoeuvre out of the shed with aching slowness. All I want to do is run head long for freedom, but I control the urge, mindful of our great wooden obstacle. We measure our paces under the open sky, slowly increasing speed across compacted dirt of Camp Seven. I hear the scrape of Fern's feet behind me, making me feet chased, hunted.

We have chosen our spot on the outer wall carefully. It is a third of the way around from the wall gate and it's watching wardens. It's hidden from the view of even the pacing Perkins by the school room. The sliver of  moon ducks behind the height of the wall as we approach, spreading a pool of darkness beneath it. Amy slows so as to not run into the wall or the last two of our companions. Even with my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I can barely see beneath the wall's shadow.  

A voice calls softly, "The first two pieces are done."

Amy lays our piece of the ladder on the earth and I follow suit, reaching behind me to brush Fern's shoulder, letting her know where we are. This next step is slow, allowing my breathing to even out but not my anxious heartbeat. We have one tool with which to join our ladder pieces. I take the hammer from the others when its my turn, wrapping the cloth once more around the splintered handle. I take an old restraightened nail from my pocket and line it up.

I can just make out my fingers in the darkness, but not the tarnished nail. I swing and hit, the nail slipping though my fingers. But on the second try I miss terribly and swallow a curse, squinting my eyes and not moving a muscle. Before the stinging of my finger abates I lift the hammer for a third time, having to remind myself not to hold back. This will take too long if I don't hit the nail hard every time.

None of us wimp out on the hammer swings, despite our blood-filled fingers. Still it takes too long to finish. I tap silently on my leg as I wait against the wall, peering anxiously at the expanse of earth on either side. This is no place for worms or fence-sitters. Only a fighter could escape like this, battling against the very stone of the place. Just us five.

Finally, we can lift the completed ladder up the wall. It wobbles in my hands, a construction of hope more than wood and I pray that it can hold a person. It's weight grows as I lift it, and I grunt for the others to help, tilting it up past thirty degrees. No matter how light the wood, if you make a ladder tall enough it will resist you.

I feel it brush the wall, swaying in my fingers.

Fern hisses, "The top. It's crooked."

I ache to check, but I focus all my grit on steadying the base.

"Pull it up. Anyway." I grunt around my tightened jaw, mind whirling with the alternate plans.  We heave the ladder up in one last push, struggling to keep it steady. Fern quickly directs us to the gouged-out holes in the ground and we carefully lean it back against the wall. 

I survey the macabre silhouette of our makeshift ladder. It towers above us, my heart set to beating by its rickety-ness. I let my gaze drift higher, to the top section. Just as Fern said, it's crooked, broken at the join between sections. My lips tighten into a frightened line. One of the nails didn't quite hold. I measure the distance from the off-centre piece to the top of the wall. Perhaps I can fix it, if I can get high enough. But will it reach the top, even if I manage?