Where the Blame Lies(75)
I’m free. I’m free. I’m free.
She came to her feet, her legs buckling beneath her as she grabbed for the wall.
Only she wasn’t completely free yet.
On legs that felt like jelly, Josie walked to the door, pulling on it with what strength she had left. It was locked, deadbolted from the outside. Her gaze flew to the window, to the stars blinking high in the deepening night sky. She thought she heard a sound outside—footsteps?—and scurried back to the bed, sitting down and putting her hand behind her back so it appeared she was still shackled. Her heart thundered, sweat dripping down her face. There was blood on the floor—large drips that led from her mattress to the door. They’d give her away.
I won’t be back.
Despite the memory of his promise, fear slammed into her as she strained her ears to listen, adrenalin pumping through her system. Nothing.
“Calm, stay calm,” she whispered to herself. The overwhelming need to weep, to panic, to scream overcame her, but she swallowed it all down. Her baby boy. A sob came up her throat. Her infant was out there and he needed her. She pulled herself up again.
I’m coming, Caleb. Mama’s coming.
She wasn’t going to get out through the thick metal door that locked from the outside. Her only hope was the small window high up on the wall. She stared at it for a minute. It suddenly seemed impossibly small. But it was the only way. Either that, or she waited for Marshall to return—if he ever did. But he’d assured her he wouldn’t. And she knew she was too weak for that anyway. She had no hope of overpowering him. And she was getting weaker by the day.
Moisture trickled into her eyes. She didn’t know if it was sweat or tears. She wobbled, bracing herself against the wall as a wave of nausea overcame her. There was no time to hesitate. Josie grabbed the end of the mattress she hadn’t moved from for so many months, the mattress where she’d delivered her own child, and dragged it to the wall under the window. She propped it at an angle and then attempted to climb it, letting out a groan of frustration when it folded in half and slid down the wall under her weight. She tried again, and then again, the same thing happening until her legs began to shake and her head swam. She could feel blood flowing slowly down her leg, the remaining life she had leaving her body in a slow trickle.
She was going to have to run up the mattress quickly, before it had time to bend under her weight, and grab onto the sill even while the one hand that had remained shackled until ten minutes before was weak and tingly. A Herculean task when she was having trouble simply holding herself up.
Josie took a deep breath and ran up the mattress, pushing off it just as it started to fold. She cried out in pain, missing the ledge by at least a foot as she collapsed to the ground with the mattress. For a moment she lay there crying, her body shaking. This is impossible. I’m going to die here. Die six feet from freedom, the stars blinking in at her as she bled out on the floor of her prison. No!
She pulled herself up. No. No. Surviving this long had seemed impossible too. Bringing her pregnancy to term, giving birth alone had seemed hopeless. Getting out of her shackles had been completely inconceivable. But she’d done them all. She’d done all those impossible things. And she’d do one more.
She would not die crumpled on the floor after giving up, when somewhere out there, her baby cried for his mother. For her. She’d brought him into this world, and she owed him to keep trying if she even had one single breath of life within her.
Josie picked herself up, propping the mattress against the wall, shaking her half-numb hand, and taking a deep breath before, again, running up it and propelling herself toward the window. She slammed into the wall with a cry, her fingers not even grasping the ledge.
But she’d gotten closer.
Again and again she repositioned that mattress and ran up it, her grunts of pain as she hit the wall mixing with the sobs she could no longer hold back. Her whole body shook, the room wavering around her, her brain pulsing, her shoulder throbbing with the incessant impact of hitting the wall again and again.
She mustered every bit of strength she had left and with a mighty battle cry that came from a place she hadn’t known existed inside her, she ran toward the mattress again, her arms pumping as her body flew up toward that pale patch of light. Her fingers made contact with the wide sill, clutching it, holding on. She was dangling from the windowsill. I did it. I did it. Her legs kicked against the wall and she realized the mattress hadn’t completely crumpled. With wild grunts of effort, she used her legs to press the mattress back against the wall, not at an angle this time, but so it was upright on the floor. Her arms shook, fingers slipping, as she used the flimsy frame of the mattress’s end to lower some of her weight. It began bending slightly but held. She panted, her whole body shaking, blood and sweat dripping from her, draining her further. Nausea rose up her throat in a sudden rush, and she leaned her head to the side and vomited bile. She was sure she’d pass out as she gagged and sputtered. But she didn’t and after a moment, she was able to gather herself.
She took a moment to breathe, to let her muscles rest before she tested them again. I can’t. I can’t. The streetlight outside blinked on, the milky glow mixing with the last traces of daylight and brightening her cell. Unbidden, that vision of her aunt’s farmhouse flashed in her mind, golden peace filling her mind with hope, the imagined sound of a child’s laughter—her child—filling her heart. She opened her eyes, looked up, ready for the final trial. There was a tiny crack in the corner of the window, a small spot of weakness. With her lower body semi-supported on the rickety mattress edge, she let go with her right arm and punched at the crack in the window. Once, twice, grunting and heaving. The third time caused the tiny crack to spider outward and the fourth punch shattered it, Josie screaming with pain as glass shards sliced her skin.