Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
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. Escaping her shackles had been completely inconceivable. But she’d done them all. She’d accomplished all those impossible things. And she’d accomplish 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 it to him to keep trying if she even had one single breath of life within her.
Josie picked herself up, propped the mattress against the wall, and shook her half-numb hand 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.
Cold air flowed over her drenched skin, and she gasped, a desperate sound of longing at the first feel of partial freedom. She used her arm to sweep the glass away from the window as much as she could before using the mattress edge as a springboard and pushing off it while simultaneously using her arms to pull herself up and through.
Her torso caught on the sill, and for a moment she simply flailed, half in and half out of the room that had been a dungeon of torture for almost a year. She let out another mighty yell, kicking with her legs as she pulled herself through the window, glass shards raking her naked skin.
Josie tumbled onto snowy dirt, groaning and gasping, as she crawled for a moment, unable to pull herself up but desperate to get away. Away. Away. Her sobs filled the night, breath forming white gusts of vapor, and she tried in vain to be quiet, but her body had taken over. She thought she heard a car in the far distance, and her heart slammed harshly against her ribs. Her head whipped around. She felt watched.