Chapter 2 - The Razor’s Edge
I didn't think. Instinct, forged over two hundred days of pure terror, took control of my broken body.
I dropped to the floor, rolling beneath the kneehole of the heavy executive desk just as Eleanor’s silk slippers shuffled across the hardwood floor. The mahogany apron hid me completely, but my chest rose and fell so frantically I was terrified she would hear the rattle of my breath. The baby inside me gave a sharp, violent kick against my bladder, sending a wave of nausea crashing over me. I bit down into the meat of my left hand until the metallic taste of my own blood coated my tongue, using the pain to anchor my silence.
The progress bar on the screen above me made no sound, but the soft blue reflection shifted across the wood as it completed: Transfer Complete. 100%.
Eleanor paused by the doorway. I could see the hem of her emerald-green silk dressing gown and her manicured bare toes through the gap beneath the desk modesty panel. She smelled of cold rosewater and gin.
"Careless boy," she muttered to herself, her tongue slightly slurred.
She stepped toward the desk. Her hand reached out above me. I braced for the drawer to open, for her eyes to glance downward into the recess. Instead, her fingers clinked against Bradley’s empty tumbler. She picked it up, along with his brass keychain.
She took the keys. But in her drunken state, she did not notice the small black thumb drive still protruding from the rear USB hub behind the tower.
"Leaving the monitors on while the GPU overheats," she grumbled, reaching for the power strip switch on the wall beside the desk.
Her slipper was six inches from my face. I could see the spider veins on her ankle, the same ankle I had seen pacing beside the stained mattress while she held the funnel and told me I was nothing more than an incubator for an heir she would take the second it drew breath.
Click.
The surge protector went dark. The hum of the fans died. The room plummeted into pitch-black shadow.
Eleanor turned and shuffled back out of the room, her slippers dragging against the hardwood runner until the distant click of her bedroom door signaling she was gone.
I waited sixty agonizing seconds. Then I slid out from beneath the desk, reached behind the tower, and pulled the hot thumb drive free. I wrapped it tightly in a piece of torn fabric from my hem, tucked it into my bra alongside the burner phone, and moved toward the kitchen.
The back utility door had no electronic deadbolt. It was secured by a mechanical sliding bar that led to the mudroom and out through the storm cellar into the garden. Eleanor kept the key on a brass hook behind the apron rack.
I reached the pantry. The air was colder here, smelling of winter squash and old potatoes. My fingers brushed the apron rack—empty. My heart plummeted into an icy void.
Then I saw it: sitting on the kitchen island was Eleanor’s handbag, left unzipped beside a half-eaten plate of cured ham.
I reached in with two fingers. Cold brass met my skin. The key was there, attached to a silver fob shaped like an angel—the sickening hypocrisy of her public church-going persona.
I unlocked the utility door. The latch slid back with a soft, clean snick.
I stepped into the mudroom, cracked the exterior storm door, and felt the bite of the midnight autumn wind against my bare skin. It was freezing, wet, and sharp with the scent of pine needles and damp earth.
For seven months, my world had been four square yards of uninsulated drywall, the yellow glow of a bare bulb, and the taste of plastic tubing.
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The sky above was vast, dark, and endless, scattered with cold, brilliant stars.
I didn't stop to cry. I ran.