Home > Timber (Hades #4)(9)

Timber (Hades #4)(9)
Author: Tate James

I gave him a dead stare and said nothing.

His jaw tightened, and his fists clenched at his side. "This isn't a game you can win, Darling. Whatever you think you're doing... stop it." He spat those last two words with enough frustration to completely contradict the statement. It was definitely working.

Furious, his attention jerked away from me, and he checked his watch. "I'll be back soon. And you'd better be ready to play, or I swear to God, Darling, I'll drag your pretty little sister in here and make you watch while I fuck her to death. Am I clear?"

I gave him a serene smile that was totally at odds with the panic flooding through me. "Crystal."

He glared at me again, but when his watch beeped, he growled a curse and stormed out of my cell. He flipped the lights off and slammed the door behind him, but it bounced slightly against the frame and didn't click shut.

I stared, wide-eyed, at the small crack of light from the hallway, holding my breath in anticipation. He didn't come back and lock it, though. Angry footsteps faded from earshot, and I slowly, silently, pushed myself back to sitting. All the while, my eyes remained locked on the unlatched door.

Was this the opportunity I'd been waiting for? Or just another game?

Fuck. Could I really afford to waste the chance if it wasn't intentional? Hell no. I'd just made a promise to myself to escape by any means possible, and after that threat about Seph? I needed to act now. And act fast. Even if it was a trap... well, anything was better than just giving up.

I made it a couple of steps across the room before my wrist tugged on the chain, reminding me that I was still tethered. Small hurdles, but at least it was only one wrist.

Moving back to the wall I searched with my hands until I found the anchor point and tested it for weaknesses. Totally futile, of course. The fucking thing was cemented into the wall, and I was sadly lacking in super strength.

I groaned to myself and collapsed back onto the bed. Just another fucking tease. Something scraped when I moved my foot, though, and I froze. It'd sounded metallic... And the legs of the bed were bolted to the floor; they couldn’t have made that noise.

Holding my breath, I stood up once more, then crouched down to pat around the floor under the bed. Concrete and more concrete. Great. Maybe Chase had dosed me up and I was starting to hallucinate again. Maybe this whole damn time was just one big delusion and none of it was—

There!

"Get the fuck out of town," I muttered, my fingers closing around the handle of Chase's knife, the same one he'd just used to slice my skin open. It must have gotten knocked under the bed when I got up to pee.

I pulled it out, bringing it up in front of my face and squinting. The tiny crack of light from the door still wasn't enough to see shit, but a light touch with my finger confirmed it was the same knife and not some dummy, fake one.

"This is definitely a trap," I whispered into the darkness. "There's no fucking way he dropped this without knowing. No fucking way."

But the darkness didn't reply, and somehow that made me more anxious than if it had. I was that familiar with my own crazy by now.

"It's a trap," I said again, like I was trying to convince myself. No hallucinations of myself appeared to tell me otherwise, or agree, but I could hear the voice of my own various identities as clear as day inside my head. Their message was unanimous.

Who fucking cared if it was a trap. A slim chance was better than no chance, and stuck in the cell? Strapped to the bed while Chase raped me, burned me, drowned me, choked me? There was no chance there. So... screw it. Escape or die trying.

Swallowing hard, I used touch to bring the knife point to the leather strap around my wrist. Chase hadn't used traditional handcuffs—he’d probably seen me escape from the last set he cuffed me with—and hadn't used zip-ties either, probably knowing I could get out of those, too. No, these were thick leather cuffs locked with an actual padlock. On the one hand, impossible to slip free of. On the other... not impossible to cut through.

Just really freaking hard. Especially when I was using my non-dominant hand to do the cutting, it was pitch black, I was weak, dizzy, panicked, and rushing, and the shoulder on that side was screaming in agony every time I moved.

Several times the blade slipped and bit into my flesh, but I ground my teeth together and kept going. If this was my one and only chance of escape, I wasn't quitting thanks to a few scratches.

I had no idea how long it took me to saw through the leather, but by the time it finally dropped away, my whole wrist was wet. I could only hope it was sweat... but the second I cracked the door open further, I sucked in a breath at the blood coating my hands. Crap.

Peeking out into the hall, I confirmed Chase wasn't just standing there waiting for me. Then I used the light from the hall to rush back to the bed and tear a strip of cloth from it to bind around my bleeding wrist. One of those slips must have gone deeper than I'd realized.

Too damn bad. I was out of here.

As silently as I could, I made my way down the short corridor and crept up the staircase at the end. Not a single stair creaked, and I made it to the top with nothing but the sound of my own pulse rushing in my ears. Chase's voice trickled out from further inside the house, and I stiffened, listening.

His words were muffled as he spoke to someone, too muffled for me to make out. Instead of going in the opposite direction, I crept closer to where his voice was coming from. Call it an instinct, but I silently sought out the room where his voice was loudest. The door was open because why the fuck would he need to close it? Especially if he really hadn't intended for me to break free just now.

I paused outside the room, resting my head against the wall. My fingers clutched the hilt of the knife tight, and I held my bleeding wrist to my chest as I listened. He was on a conference call, and I stood there for way longer than I should have. About ten times longer than any sane escaped captive really should. But goddamn, it would pay off if I really did walk away from this. Six names I committed to memory. Six men who were colluding with my psychotic torturer.

Satisfied with that much, I silently padded back through the house. It was a lavish, show-home style property, all white furniture and impersonal crap. My blood dotted the alabaster floors like a neon sign, and I mentally cursed myself out.

If I was going to go, I needed to do it now.

Luckily, the house was laid out in a semi-logical way, and I found the front door within moments. Not stupid, I grabbed a coat from the hook and picked up a pair of men's boots with numb fingers. They'd be too big to allow for a speedy escape, but at some stage they might come in handy if my feet got all torn up.

The door handle turned soundlessly, and I slipped out into the crystal-clear night. Instantly I saw why Chase was unconcerned with security. There was no driveway, no road... just a helipad. And a helicopter, but goddamn it, my driving skills did not stretch that far.

Past the helipad there was nothing but forest for as far as I could see.

Running blindly into that with no clothes, no shoes, no freaking clue where I was... it was suicide. But I'd never really been known for taking safe choices to begin with, so I barely hesitated a second before rushing past the dormant helicopter and delving into the treeline.

My heart was in my throat the whole damn time, but I didn't look back, just kept my focus on freedom. Who knew how long my meager strength would hold? I just needed... Fuck, I had no idea. I just needed to not be in that room of horrors any longer.

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