He'll have to break all the rules to keep her, but first she has to break just one and let him in...
It's taken four years, but Anna Fray has finally put the past behind her. Mostly. She fills her days working in a bar and her nights watching bad ro...
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Hours passed, and with them I watched with bated breath as the cloudy grey sky darkened. Now the only light came from the silver glow of the moon, sucking the colour from the world until everything around me existed in shades of grey.
The pain in my wrist burned as I dragged the rope against the glass.
Again.
I'd lost count of how many times I'd ragged the ropes over that serrated surface, but I guessed a decent mathematician could work out the correlation between the number, and the damage I'd inflicted on myself.
The first few tries had been clumsy. I'd hissed in pain when the glass tore at my skin on the first attempt. By the time it happened on the third, I'd learned to bite my tongue. It wasn't long before my fingers and palms had felt damp and sticky with sweat and blood, but by then I'd figured out where I'd been going wrong. Once I'd stopped shredding myself to bits, the only thing I had to fight was the burn in my muscles and the sickening sting when the ropes twisted against my skin. It was a small price to pay for freedom.
They make this look so much easier in the movies.
Another ping tremored against my skin as more fibres gave way. The ropes slackened slightly. The spark of hope, which had started to grow dim, flared and flickered. Not long now.
I faltered on the next pass as a low rumble broke through the hush. It was an engine, a car.
The pop and crackle of icy gravel joined the low purr as it got closer. The bright beam of headlights passed over the room like a searchlight.
Cold sweat laced my skin, and my breath clouded in front of me. I didn't have time to get back to where I'd come from. He would know what I'd been doing. Maybe that was his plan all along, to leave me here, just long enough to think I stood a chance at escape.
Frantically, I ripped the rope over the shards, again and again. I didn't care if I hit skin, if the pain from the ropes was so sharp that it sucked the breath from my lungs. If these were my last moments to make a difference, I was going to take them.
Outside, a car door shut with a heavy thunk and footsteps crunched towards the door.
The ropes were looser, but it wasn't enough.
Fuck.
The large wooden door creaked opened while I wriggled and writhed in the chair. The ominous echo bounced off the walls and resonated in the angles on the ceiling. Unsteady footsteps followed.
A tongue clicked disapprovingly, but I didn't spin to see R's face. Instead, I settled back in my chair and turned my head slowly towards him. So what if I'd been caught in the act. If he was going to kill me, he was going to do it either way. Better for him to know the lengths I was willing to go to; to know how close I'd come to getting out of here; to know I wasn't going to go down without a fight.
