I passed the time by lying in bed with the knife beside me, staring at the ceiling as the night deepened. Carter had never burst into my bedroom in the middle of the night, but I wanted to play the part just in case his behavior was different. The more I rejected him, the more he pursued me. He might take it a step further and come into my bedroom unannounced, naked and hard.
There was a clock on my nightstand, so I kept glancing at it, waiting for the time to pass.
Waiting until three a.m. seemed to take a lifetime.
Carter was usually awake before eight in the morning, so he had to be asleep by one at the latest. But I waited a few extra hours to make sure he was asleep before I made my move.
When three a.m. arrived, I finally got to work.
My heart was beating hard in terror. Panic was heavy in my throat, and my breath came out shaky despite how hard I worked to stay calm. My hands were shaking, both from fear and excitement. The thought of breaking free tonight gave me a kind of high I couldn’t come down from. It was what I wanted more than anything in the world. I couldn’t let this opportunity slip away from me.
That wasn’t an option.
I pulled a stack of towels to the bedside and prepared for the first step.
Removing the tracker.
I’d never done anything like this in my life. My fingers felt exactly where the tracker was under the skin, the definitive shape it made when I pressed my fingers down. It wasn’t very big, so it should be easy to remove—if I cut myself in the right way.
I was scared of what might happen, but I reminded myself I’d been through worse—at Egor’s hands. He’d whipped me until I bled all over the bed. He’d punched me in the face when I resisted him. He even broke my leg when I slapped him. There was nothing I could do to myself that would hurt more than that.
So I held my breath and did it.
It hurt like a bitch. There was blood everywhere. But I kept calm and finished the procedure, setting the small tracker on the bed beside me. I bandaged myself up and ignored the pain shooting up my leg. There was a possibility of an infection, but when I was free, I could visit a doctor to get what I needed.
Now, I had to move.
I placed the pillows under the sheet to make it look like I was still sleeping there. I placed the tracker there too, just in case he checked my coordinates randomly. I tossed the bloody towels into the bathroom then crept into the hallway.
His bedroom door was still shut.
The hallway was dark because all the lights were still out. I didn’t risk turning them on and gripped the wooden rail to guide myself down to the bottom floor. Without breathing and with small movements, I descended without making the wooden steps creak. When I reached the first floor, I made my way to the kitchen.
The alarm pad was outlined in blue light, each of the buttons easily visible in the darkness. I’d memorized the five-digit code he entered yesterday, so I typed in the code without having to check twice. There was always a possibility he’d changed it since yesterday, but I took the gamble.
The alarm gave a slight beep before it was turned off.
Yes.
I knew where his garage was even though I’d never been inside. My inspection of the house had left me empty-handed in regard to his car keys. I had no idea where he left them. They were nowhere in the house, and unless he took them to his bedroom, there was only one place they could be.
In the garage.
I opened the door and stepped inside the large garage. I flicked on the lights, revealing six different sports cars. Two were black, two were red, one was blue, and another yellow.
I grinned, tasting freedom on my tongue. I didn’t even notice the pain in my ankle or the blood dripping down my foot. Now that I’d gotten this far, there was nothing that was going to stop me.
The hardest part was over.
I hit the garage button, so the large door slowly rose and revealed the front driveway.
I could see the stars. Could feel the breeze. Could smell summer in the air. It was so quiet I could hear myself breathe, hear my loud heartbeat. My hands shook slightly, either from the loss of blood or from the rush of excitement.
On the wall hung six different sets of keys.
Perfect.
All the cars were in a row, one next to another, so I needed the keys to one of the last two, the two farthest from the house so it would be quieter. They were all the same make, so I couldn’t figure out which key belonged to which. Based on the order in which the keys hung, either the first set of keys was to one of the last two cars, or it was the opposite.