10
All men were terrible people and the ape lingering on the other side of that bathroom door only solidified that fact in Mia’s mind. But she couldn’t focus on the man she found repulsive in every way because for the first time in her life the one phenomenon that had always been out of her reach had shown itself to her like a bright, beaming beacon of light.
Hope.
Freedom.
As she sat on the toilet and did her business, the tinkles rising into the small bathroom and filling the walls, she gnawed her bottom lip. Her fingers trembled as she fiddled with one of the gold sequins on her dress. The very sequin she imagined had put that ugly gash on the neck of the barbarian standing on the other side of that door. Hands still tied, she twisted and wiggled the sequin as best she could, breathing a sigh of relief when she managed to get it dislodged from the fabric of her dress.
She lifted her bound wrists to take in the sequin, the bright bathroom lights gleaming over it like yet another beacon of hope—yet another lighthouse—a searchlight, assuring her that freedom awaited her just beyond the horizon—even if she had to fight to the death to get it. And fight to the death, she would. She turned the sequin and revealed the long rivets on the other side, one of which had gotten bent, leaving its sharpest end sticking out. This was the rivet that had cut that savage, no doubt.
It had made him bleed once before.
No reason it couldn’t do it again.
This time to kill.
She hid the sequin in a tight fist just as she finished emptying her bladder, which had seemed hell bent on ripping her insides to shreds just minutes earlier. A sigh of relief relaxed her chest as her eyes traveled over the bathroom’s cheap floral wallpaper and the handicap bars bolted to the shower wall. She wondered whose house this really was because the man on the other side of that door certainly had no need for a handicap enabled bathroom, seeing as he’d spent the better part of the night hauling her around like a rag doll.
It wasn’t until she flushed the toilet, the sharp rivets of the sequin still pinching at her palm in the most beautiful way, that her eyes moved to the far wall behind the cracked door of the bathroom and landed on a laundry chute.
“It’s the laundry chute,” Emma whispered. “I think it goes all the way down to the basement.”
Mia’s heart ground to an instant halt as the memory of Emma’s voice, just hours earlier, floated through her mind. The memory of the laundry chute that had been hidden away behind several thick layers of thick concrete. Layer’s that Emma had been slowly chipping away at as she dreamed of her own escape. Seconds after her heart stopped beating, Mia held her breath as well.
“You can come too! We can both fit, one at a time. I already checked the measurements.”
Mia’s eyes grew wider every second, drinking in that small white hatch bolted to the wall across the bathroom, and realized Emma had been right. It would be a tight fit.
But she would fit.
And just as Emma had predicted, Mia had no doubt the fall would lead her all the way down to the basement. She had no idea how big that house was, or how long that fall would be, but she didn’t care. All she could see, think, breathe, was the shining beacon that promised hope. The lighthouse that promise refuge.
The laundry chute that promised freedom.
She shot to her feet with a soft gasp and wiggled her unzipped dress—bunched up at her waist—back down over her naked ass. As she shimmied, her eyes flew to the tiny crack in the door where the savage still awaited her. He hadn’t made a peep since she’d disappeared inside the bathroom and his patience was surely running low with every second she wasn’t emerging.
She hurried to the sink, her frantic eyes never leaving that laundry chute’s reflection in the mirror, and turned the faucet on. The sink’s water pressure was strong, so much so that Mia nearly cried out in delight as it roared from the faucet and collided against the white porcelain sink, making more noise than roaring cascades at Niagara Falls. Loud enough to drown out even the most turbulent thunderstorm.
“Just washing my hands!” she cried into the tiny crack in the doorway, so small she was sure he didn’t notice her move away from the gushing sink, take hold of the silver handle on the trash chute and pull it down.
The door to the chute fell open without so much as a squeak, leaving a gaping black hole at the top. A gaping black hole just big enough for her to fit through. A gaping black hole to freedom.
“Let’s go.” His deep voice rang in, slightly muffled, from the other side of the door.
Mia jolted at the sound, and that jolt seemed to startle her racing heart as well because the shot of adrenaline that zoomed through her moved her body before her mind could catch up. Abandoning the running water at the sink, she shuffled across the bathroom to the trash chute and didn’t even take a second to look down into the cavernous black hole before she dove in headfirst.