Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I bring my hand to my side and lean a little to tuck the knife under my butt for now. Until I can figure out a better place to hide it. Options are pretty few with my only having on this hospital gown, and the bra and underwear underneath. When I look up, I meet Zarah’s eyes.
“Well, what are you gonna do with that?” she whispers.
“Cut our way to freedom.”
She raises her brows, but then her jaw sets with a determination I don’t understand until she speaks. “If you can find a way out, don’t you worry about me. You just go.”
I’m shaking my head before she’s even done speaking. “No way, I’m not leaving you behind.”
“I’ll be fine, dear. They haven’t broken me, yet, and they never will.”
As I watch the lieutenant lead the soldier away, and many others smartly disperse and leave the room, too, I ask, “How have you withstood it, all this time? How have you endured everything they’ve done to you?”
“They’d already taken the only thing that mattered from me, my daughter. After the loss of her, nothing they did could hurt nearly as much as that. She would visit and it was all the strength I ever needed to know I had to find a way to survive anything they did to me. To see her again, hear her voice, and witness her smile one more time. I lived for her from the moment she was born, and then when they locked me up, I lived for the next time I could see her. Now, I live in the hopes that one day she’ll come back here to tell me how happy she is. That’s all I need. All I will ever need.”
The hollow hole inside me where my own mother’s love used to reside aches at her words, at her love for her daughter. I had that once, until The New Order took it away from me. I won’t let them take another woman who’s cared for me away.
“Let’s go,” a soldier says as he grabs Zarah’s upper arm.
She smiles at me as they lead her away, and I have to swallow to hold back tears. Their beatings, the interrogations, and the humiliation … Nothing they’ve done in here has been able to make me cry, but the sight of them taking Zarah away to cause her more pain makes it hard to remain composed.
They leave the room, and with the remaining two soldiers putting their heads together as they whisper, probably about the fate about to befall their fellow comrade, I hurry to take the knife from under me and hide it in the only place I can think to put it. I lift the end of my hospital gown and push my underwear aside. I almost hiss at the coldness of the knife handle against such a sensitive part of me, but I grit my teeth and secure the knife in my underwear as best I can. And not a moment too soon, since one soldier breaks away from the other, motioning for me to rise as he approaches me. I stand slowly, dreading the knife will fall to the ground.
“Hurry up,” he snaps, and then he’s behind me, demanding, “Walk.”
I walk in front of him, feeling the only way out of here shift in my panties with each step. The hallway has never seemed quite so long. We reach the room, my cell, and he closes the door behind me the moment I enter. I’m glad for it. Knowing there’s cameras in here, even if I can’t figure out where they’re hidden, I go to the toilet and use my gown over my legs as a shield as I act like I’m wiping myself but take the knife out instead.
I get up and walk over to my bed, sitting on it with the knife in my hand. Whoever comes through that door next will meet their death at the end of this blade. And then, I’ll use their keycard to open the doors that will allow Zarah and I to escape. Sounds simple, but I know it will be harder than anything I’ve ever done. Staying here isn’t an option, though. Not one I’m willing to accept, anyway.
*
“Fucking stand up,” a soldier growls out as he opens my door.
But Zarah can’t stand, most likely from whatever is causing the blood that’s running from her left foot right now.
“Maybe someone should have considered that before they hurt her,” I spit out.
The soldier’s narrowed gaze comes to me as he gets Zarah to her bed, his lips curling in disgust. “As many times as you’ve been hit in your filthy mouth, and you still haven’t learned when to keep it shut?”
“According to The New Order, there’s never a time for a woman to open her mouth.”