Chapter 19: Rose
She forgot to lock the door.
I must have agitated her so much that she’d just walked off with the key still in her pocket. Dropping the fruit, I eased the door open and looked either way along the dark corridor. Seeing nobody there, I stepped out, careful to shut the door again behind me.
Barefoot, I made my way back toward the staircase I’d just come up with with Frieda. I crouched down by the banister and looked down to see if anybody was on the stairs below. Satisfied that there was nobody, I began my descent to the ground floor. My breath rasping, my heart hammering against my chest, I managed to make it to the bottom floor without anybody noticing. It appeared to be empty. I ran straight to the oak doors and tried to turn the heavy metal door handle. It wouldn’t budge, no matter how much I twisted it.
Damn it.
Windows.
I left the front door and moved to my right, into the first room that was open. It appeared to be some sort of dining hall, with high towering ceilings, stained-glass windows and a long oak table in the center.
I threw myself beneath the table and crawled beneath it until I reached one of the windows. I grasped the handle and it pushed open easily. But again, I found myself staring down at a steep drop, hardly any less steep than outside my balcony. There was nothing to hold onto, no way to climb down.
There’s no way I’ll survive that. Even if I did by some miracle survive the drop, I’d freeze in the snow before I could even reach the woods.
The only escape seemed to be out the front door.
I made my way to the staircase and began climbing back up. I passed a couple of male vampires on my way up, but thankfully they didn’t pay much notice to me. They must have assumed that I had permission to walk around.
Instead of returning to my room, I climbed up one more flight of stairs until I reached Caleb’s floor. I inched toward his door and placed my ear against it. I couldn’t hear anything.
I gripped the handle and tried to open it, but it was locked. I knocked.
I heard a low groan and footsteps walking toward the door. The door unlatched to reveal a half-naked, bleary-eyed Caleb. His dark hair was ruffled and he wore a sheet wrapped low round his waist. My breath hitched at his bare torso.
“You… How did you—”
Before he could say another word, I pushed the door open wider and slipped inside.
“If you accidentally leave that main door open,” I said, forcing my eyes up to his face, “I’ll escape and the witch will never know.”
He walked into what was presumably his bedroom and returned wearing a black robe. “Who let you out?”
When I ignored his question, he reached to open the door but I slammed my back against it.
“I’m not going anywhere until you give me some answers.”
He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed heavily. “I don’t need this hassle. Get out.”
“Open the main door, and I’ll disappear into the night. Nobody will ever know you let me escape. It could have been anyone in this castle who left the door open.”
He shook his head and glared at me.
“You really think it’s that easy for a human to escape this place? There’s a spell around this island to keep it cold. Even if you made it down to the sea without getting caught or dying of hypothermia, and somehow broke into one of the submarines and figured out how to navigate it, there’s another spell preventing anyone getting out unless they have permission.”
“Then why don’t you just leave with me now?” I said, tugging on the sleeve of his robe. “Or when the witch is doing something else. She never has to know.”
It seemed that he’d had enough of the conversation. He marched me outside and dragged me down the stairs.
He stopped outside of my door and pushed it open.
“No!”
I clung onto the doorframe as he tried to bundle me inside.
“You’re not locking me up in here again.”
He grabbed both of my hands and pried them away from the door. I leaped at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist. My sudden motion made him lose his footing and he stumbled backward into the hallway, his back slamming against the wall.
He gripped my legs and pried them away from him. Then he did the same with my arms.
I stood in the hallway, glaring at him. He glared back at me.
“All right!” he shouted. “I won’t lock the door. But if you attempt to escape, you’ll end up getting yourself killed or worse. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
I didn’t nod, but I didn’t object either. He turned on his heel to leave. I was tempted to shout out after him why he couldn’t just escape with me and why he had to listen to what the witch said, but I figured that this was a good first step. I was no longer locked up in that little apartment like a prisoner.
Instead, I was locked up in the castle.
I can’t believe he couldn’t smuggle me out of this place if he really wanted to.