Escape

LYRA'S POV 

The guard brings a tray up twenty minutes later. Toast, eggs, a mug of something that's gone lukewarm by the time I actually pick it up.

I eat slowly, because a person planning to run doesn't wolf down a meal like it's her last one for a while. I eat exactly as much as someone settling in would eat, and I keep the fork.

Nobody notices a fork missing off a tray. Nobody thinks to.

Once the guard's footsteps fade back down the hall, I go looking for the clothes I came here in. They're folded at the bottom of the wardrobe, washed at some point without me asking, my hoodie and the trousers I ran the border in, smelling like someone else's detergent instead of nights of fear. I check the pocket out of habit more than hope.

My phone is still there.

I almost laugh. It's such a small, stupid thing to feel anything about, a dead phone I haven't thought about since the night I crossed into North Ridge, and for a second I just stand there holding it, thumb running over the cracked corner of the screen. It won't turn on. Of course. It hasn't held a charge in days. I quickly put it back in my trousers.

I change quickly, my trousers on and hoodie over my head, the fabric familiar in a way Kael's shirt never quite was, no matter how much I liked wearing it.

Then I head to the window.

It's small, set high in the bathroom wall, barely big enough for a grown man to consider and exactly big enough for me. I noticed it earlier and dismissed it as useless. I don't dismiss it now.

The screws holding the frame in place are old, painted over more than once, stubborn the way anything ignored for years gets stubborn. I work the fork's edge into the first one and twist. It doesn't move. I try again, harder, until my palm aches from the pressure, and something finally gives, a quarter turn, then half, then enough that I can feel the frame loosen under my hand.

It takes longer than I want it to. Longer than feels safe. Every creak of the house makes my heart stop for a full second before I remember to breathe again. By the time the last screw comes free, my fingers are raw and my legs have started shaking from crouching too long in one position.

I ease the window open. It groans, once, and I freeze, listening for footsteps that don't come.

Getting through it is worse than I expected. I have to turn sideways, push my shoulder through first, feel the frame scrape against my ribs on the way down to the ground outside. I land hard, my ankle protesting the impact, the same ankle that's barely finished healing from the ravine. I bite down on the sound that wants to escape and force myself upright.

I look around.

There's barely anyone outside. Just one guard standing at the other end of the grounds.

Then I see the gate.

I've never seen it before.

I don't know anything about it, but something catches my eye. One side sits slightly lower than the other, leaving a narrow gap where the two wooden panels meet.

My brain notices the weakness before I can think about it.

Old hinge. Loose latch.

I run toward it.

The guard turns at the sound of my footsteps.

I reach the gate and grab the latch.

It sticks.

For one horrible second, I think I'm trapped.

I pull again, using whatever strength I have left.

The latch jerks loose.

The gate swings open.

I squeeze through before the guard can reach me.

Then I run.

I don't have a direction. I don't have a plan beyond distance, beyond putting the house and the guards and the whole idea of being protected as far behind me as my legs will carry me. The morning air bites through the hoodie. My stomach, only half fed, cramps somewhere along the way, and I push through it because stopping isn't a real option. Not yet. Not until I'm far enough that nobody's search radius reaches me.

I don't know how long I run. Long enough that the trees start to blur, that my breath turns ragged and useless, that the ground under my feet stops feeling steady the way it should.

I tell myself it's adrenaline. I tell myself I can rest once I find somewhere that feels safe enough to stop.

My vision narrows at the edges first, dark creeping in from both sides like a curtain closing. My legs go next, the strength draining out of them all at once instead of gradually, and I don't so much decide to stop as discover that I already have, my knees hitting the ground before I understand what's happening.

The last thing I register is the cold press of dirt against my cheek, and how quiet the forest sounds when there's nobody left inside my head to run.