the keyhole was. This was the easy part. My hand wouldn’t stretch any farther. A sob escaped me with the frustration, but I pushed my hand forward, watching my knuckle claw its way to the outside, leaving fragments of flesh as a sacrifice to the ancient wood.
I bit down on my tongue to keep from crying out. I didn’t know why Wallace hadn’t come for me yet, but for all I knew he was right around the corner and all he needed was a reminder that I was in here.
So I kept my mouth shut and ignored the pain, clenching my fist to try and shake the pain loose once my hand was safety free. I sighed. Now if I could only get the rest of my body out of there.
I held the bobby pin in my free hand and arched my back once again to help get a better look at what I was doing. Within moments, however, my torso and back hurt considerably and the pain caused my free hand to shake. I swore at my lack of sit-ups and lay back down. I counted back down from one hundred.
What if Charlie was dead? What if the others had decided it would be funny to let me rot in here? How long would it take me to starve to death?
What if? What if? What if?
I tried again, this time propping myself up on my elbows and trying to rest some of my weight on my good ankle. As the bobby pin entered the keyhole, I heard an audible crack and I gasped, thinking I had broken it. I remained completely still for twenty-seven pitter-pattering drops before I braced myself and began moving the end.
With a sigh, the last of the pins came undone. I wasn’t even sure I had done it until I heard something like a click ring out against the wind. I pulled back the hairpin and reeled in my hand as well, wincing but otherwise ignoring the pain. Excitement doesn’t even quite begin to describe how I felt as I worked my way out of there. Even though my ankle stung with fresh pain, I kicked the door with both feet. I kicked with the same viciousness one might use to hit a piñata, laughing and no longer caring if anyone could hear me or not. I felt dominant, victorious.
I pushed with both arms, though they felt like weak string, and my legs, putty. After endless moments, I managed to create enough space between the open door and the chains that held it shut to maneuver myself out. I arched and wiggled forward, my clothes and bare flesh sticking to the wood and velvet tapestry beneath me. I shuddered. It really could have been a coffin.
Once outside of the confessional, I collapsed to my knees. My legs felt sore and stiff from lying flat for so long, but the pain was not unwelcome. I reached for my face and felt the wet there. I was crying and hadn’t realized it.
Pulling the hair back from my face and neck, I craned my neck to the sky and tried to stretch that out as well. It seemed the rain had stopped and only leftover water dripped from the containers above. Clouds moved freely in the sky, tufts of white hovering around the blue and gray.
I put my hand to my chest and counted the beats. How was I so fortunate to escape death multiple times in a single week?
I pushed myself up with my hand, instantly regretting the act. Though it was still hard to see, I could make out the cuts I had given myself. Ironically, the damage I had done to myself seemed to be the worst of it. My head ached considerably, though it could have been from hunger in addition to being hit. And my ankle still ached.
I stood up and tried to walk. Dizziness overcame me immediately and my body threatened to black out. I took another step and felt the grinding pain in my ankle slip up my leg. I clenched my empty stomach. I hadn’t frozen, so didn’t need thawing out, but I could feel how weak my body had become.
I reached out for something to hold onto, my fingers tingling when I tried to wrap them around a pillar in the hold. They felt slightly more comfortable as they gripped the pillar, though my shaking failed to stop. I tried to count the pitter-patter of leftover rain off the