“How long have you been here?” She was the only one that I hadn’t spoken to about her life outside here, but she never volunteered any information.
“A little over six months.” So I had about six months. “I met him outside Top Shop. Apparently he’d met a couple others there too, so Rose said. It’s a homeless favorite spot because of the shelter.”
I played with my fingers, biting my lip. She was opening up, finally. “How did he…get you here?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t close up.
“He offered to buy me a coffee from a late-night café in the city. We never reached the café.” Shit, not only did he kidnap people, but also he pretended to help them to get them down here. He just grabbed me.
“I’m sorry.”
“I used to think living on the streets, scared, cold, and alone was the worst thing in the world.” She laughed humorlessly. “How wrong was I?” I wanted to ask how she ended up on the streets, but her eyes filled with tears and she clenched her fists; she looked like she was going to crumble.
“How do you want to escape?”
Her posture changed instantly; she stood taller, businesslike. “We need the key. He keeps it in his left pocket; I’ve watched him put it in there a few times while he’s walked down the stairs. I’m going to smash him over the head with a vase,” she said, laughing wickedly at something I didn’t understand. Either that or she was starting to lose it. “I have these in case things go wrong.” She pulled out a pair of scissors from her pocket. They were much smaller than I’d imagined; the blade was only as long as my thumb. Too small to cut material but he probably didn’t want to give us anything too big and sharp, and we didn’t have anything else.
“Okay,” I whispered. It all felt very wrong, Violet was leading with emotion, but I hadn’t been raped, so I wasn’t going to judge or try to stop her.
“You move by the bottom of the stairs when he’s in the room. I’ll hit him, hard, and grab the key. The second he falls you run as fast as you can to the top of the stairs. I will be right behind you. This has to work. I can’t go through it anymore, and I don’t want you to either.” She shook her head. “It’s only supposed to be lost women down here, not children.” I frowned. I didn’t think of myself as a child, but clearly she did. She said it as if he was breaking another law as well as kidnap, rape, and whatever it’s called for locking someone up in your cellar. I was the age that made me a child in the eyes of the law, but over the age that would make him sign a register. Age didn’t matter to me down here; it was all wrong.
I took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll run for the door.”
She smiled so briefly I almost missed it. “Good girl. We’re all set then.” Are we? I didn’t feel all set. I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the thing my dad told me to listen to when making a decision. It’s what made me go back and change a question on my test and not fail it. There was more at stake than passing a class here.
“Let’s get back out there. They’ll be finished soon and wonder what’s taking us so long.” She left the room and I wanted to pull her back. Surely we should go through it more than that? Shouldn’t we discuss what could go wrong and what we could do about it? We needed to think through more scenarios, like Rose and Poppy trying to stop us.
Violet left the door open and I watched her walk confidently over to the kitchen and cut the sandwiches that Rose put on the chopping board from the pan. She was doing a better job of pretending than she thought.
***
I felt sick as I watched him walk down the stairs. If Violet was right, the key would be in his left pocket right now. The means to my escape was feet away from me, but it was in the pocket of a psycho. Violet’s eyes flicked to me, and she gave me a quick nod. She hadn’t given me much to do—she was hitting him over the head and grabbing the key; all I had to do was, the second he fell down, run to the top of the stairs.
There should’ve been more for me to do, but she knew him better. I used to think I would be able to protect myself, but I was na?ve, so I was taking my lead from her and doing whatever she said. The butterflies in my stomach felt like bats. I was terrified that something would go wrong and we’d never get the chance to get the key again.
He stepped beside the table, the end farthest away from the stairs, greeting us and smiling like this was all normal. I had no problem moving away from him. He made me feel sick and I wanted to be as far away from him as I could possibly get.
Violet stood against the counter, her hand very close to the handle of a frying pan. My heart leaped. Please let this work. I wanted to go home so badly that I ignored everything telling me this was too risky.