Yes. Okay. So . . . she was proposing using the piece of pencil she’d stolen to start a fire in the outlet somehow? That seemed . . . highly unlikely. Then again, he actually had no idea if that could even be accomplished, but she seemed to think otherwise. He could do nothing except trust she knew something he didn’t.
Something occurred to him. Wasn’t her father an electrician? Maybe she’d picked up some knowledge on electrical from him. His hope soared.
He blinked once. I understand. Enough, anyway.
He saw her lip curve slightly before she turned it against the arm her head was resting on. They were both very precise now with their movements and signals. This second language they’d created had been built on fear and necessity and therefore honed in a way Evan didn’t think he’d be able to teach someone if he had months to do it. They had no idea where the cameras were in this room, so they had to assume they were everywhere.
He quickly filtered through what they had as the outline of a plan. So far they had two maybes. Maybe they could unknowingly gain access to the codes to their locks. And maybe they could start a fire that would . . . what? Provide a distraction while they attempted to input those codes and escape?
Yeah, that, or burn them alive.
The hope that had blossomed a moment before deflated. Several problems still remained. Even if they were able to obtain the codes to their cages, the bars at the front crossed both vertically and horizontally near the top, making up small squares. It wasn’t as if they were made of wire. The bars would not bend, even under the greatest of pressure. He’d have to shrink his hand to the size of a child’s to force it through. Or use a tool of some sort that could fit through the smaller section of bars and then bend to reach the keypad. Given that it was impossible to collapse his hand, they’d need to find or steal the perfect item.
The problems were stacked up far higher than any potential solutions.
They spoke about the possibly made-up or possibly real troublesome kitten for a while, brainstorming on the things he’d just considered, finally running out of ideas. All they could do now was wait for more opportunities. He reached his arm out, and she did the same, their eyes meeting as their fingers linked.
“We leave here whole,” he said to her, not caring who heard that, figuring they imagined it to be an empty promise anyway, something they said in a useless effort to keep their spirits up during hopeless circumstances.
“And we leave here together,” she added as they were both pulled in to sleep.
They slept; they woke. They ate bread and they drank water. There were no extras, and there hadn’t been for days. He felt weaker, and he could see by her movements and the listlessness in her speech that she did too.
Still, they sang, they discussed possibilities that seemed unachievable, and they fell asleep, fingers linked.
Their hands fell apart as the man in red shoes woke them three days later as he walked toward Evan’s cage. He blinked with sleep, his head foggy, and yet, he knew what he had to do. Now. This is your chance. He threw himself forward, grabbing the bars at the front of his cage and shaking them just as the man raised his hand to enter the code. He had ceased announcing that either of them had been rented, assuming correctly that Evan and Noelle knew the drill. “Please,” he begged. “I can’t take it!”
The man blew out a breath, appearing bored. “Move back.”
“Please help,” Evan begged. “It’s not too late to let us out of here. It’s not too late to do the right thing.”
“Move back now, or I’m going to tase you,” the man said, pulling the Taser from his outside coat pocket.
Evan threw his body on the floor of the cage, his face turned and pressed against the front grate as he kicked the top with his feet, rattling the bars and sending waves of pain through his legs but causing no damage whatsoever to the enclosure he was in. The man’s mouth set, and even through his fear and the performance he was putting on, Evan saw the look of excitement in the man’s eyes. Finally, he was going to be allowed to inflict pain. Still, he gave Evan one last warning, and Evan put his hands flat on the floor as he braced for the jolt.
When it came, it felt like hot lightning flowing through his veins and rendering him incapable of movement. He gritted his teeth and rode through the agony, his eyes locked on the man’s tie pin, the small blurry reflection revealing the man’s finger as it stabbed at the keypad. 9906.
Evan let out a sound that was something between a sob of victory and a growl of pain and anger and horror at what he had to suffer before he could use what he’d just obtained. Because they didn’t yet have Noelle’s code, and he wouldn’t even attempt to leave without her. He’d made a promise, and one thing Evan had learned as he’d sat in the bowels of hell was that he could be stripped of everything and still keep his word. It was his. No one had been able to steal it, and he wouldn’t allow them to now.
The man with the red shoes grabbed Evan’s arm and yanked him back before Evan could even attempt to force his limbs to work. The man slammed the door of his cage and then stepped back, allowing Evan to slowly pull himself to his feet. “Enjoy that, meathead?” the man sneered.
Evan let out a feigned whimper as he followed the man toward the door, hanging his head but shooting Noelle the smallest of covert winks as he passed, a movement that, if seen, would be construed as nothing more than a blink. She was at the front of her cage, her hands gripping the bars, her eyes following him as he moved by. At his signal, her lips parted, eyes widening slightly. She knew.
She knew he’d been successful. One step down, about ten more to go.
But they’d moved one space forward.
Both he and Noelle were so much weaker, physically and emotionally, and he had no idea how long they could remain hopeful on so little. What he did know was that if breaking free was possible, they were very quickly running out of time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Collector swirled his drink, tipping it back and closing his eyes as the liquid burned down his throat. He rarely drank alcohol. He didn’t enjoy a dulling of his sharpness, and he didn’t require being anesthetized, either physically or mentally.
But some things required a special celebration, and so the Collector toasted Noelle with one shot of Old Fitzgerald Bourbon, a specialty liquor of which only a finite stock was still available to those bourbon enthusiasts who could afford the $6K price tag.
The Collector set the empty shot glass on the bar cart in his office and then opened the french doors to the patio. He took the bottle with him, smashing it against the outside stone wall of the house and watching as the amber liquid pooled on the flagstone floor.
There was much more where that came from.
The Collector’s lips tipped, and he brushed his hands, reentering the house and then sitting down at his desk. He’d been delivered back to his home that morning after a day of travel. Somewhere south, he thought, based on the few clues he was able to pick up, even in his drugged state. The organizers insisted on it, and though the Collector was loath to put his narcotized body under someone else’s control—someone else’s ownership—he’d made an exception.
He hoped the girl and the boy appreciated it, but he could see why they might not. Even if they knew what he had sacrificed.
He pulled the envelope forward that they had left with him, the souvenir he’d paid for. If others enjoyed mementos of their time spent with a contestant, he imagined they chose a piece of clothing or perhaps a lock of hair. Soiled underwear no doubt went for a pretty penny. But he’d chosen what he had for a reason, and she’d already impressed him greatly by committing the theft he’d hoped she would. He’d watched from a screen on the wall outside the room as she’d stared at the camera defiantly, breaking the pencil in two, and—he thought at least—slipping the piece of graphite under the wristband of her filthy sweatshirt.
He hoped she’d managed to steal a long enough piece.