Page 21 of Flesh & Divinity

CINDER

I don’t sleep.

I lie in their bed in the dark and listen to the island breathe and run the plan through my head for the fourth time. I overheard brother explaining his plan to daddy and boyfriend with the efficiency of a man who has been strategizing in silence for years—detailed, ruthless in the way only someone who has survived on patience and fury can manage. Boyfriend filled in the gaps. Daddy sat quiet and watched them, the way he always does.

I stood silent in the hallway. Absorbing every word spoken.

I memorized every word.

And then, in the small hours when their breathing shifted and the cabin settled into silence, I made a decision.

I’m not waiting.

I can’t risk them not taking me with them, I need to save myself. I may be confused and feel things for these men I shouldn’t, but my freedom means more. I won’t give up my only chance to finally live a life free of tyrants. To live my life how I want to, without the fear of being hurt and hidden.

I don’t want the crown.

I just want peace of mind.

Free will to make my own decisions.

If I can get to the eastern bluff, disappear into the water before anyone notices I’m gone, I can escape. I don’t know what’s on the other side of that water but anything is better than waiting on this island for them to decide if they should take me with them when the time comes.

Escape is now or never, Cinder.

I slide out of the bed with the care of someone who has learned exactly which floorboards in this crumbling cabin complain and which stay quiet. I dress in the dark. I find the knife I’ve been hiding under the loose stone by the fireplace for two weeks, small, practical, lifted from the kitchen and never mentioned. I tuck it into my waistband.

I heard them talk about hiding the key. I made sure to distract them long enough tonight so they wouldn’t have the chance to hide it somewhere else. I know they keep moving the key to the collar so I’ll never find it. Tonight, they fucked up. I grab daddy’s discarded pants off the floor and fish the key out of his pocket.

I use the key to unlock the collar. I almost whimper out loud when it clicks open. I quietly place it on the dresser.

I don’t let myself look back at the bed.

I go.

The night air hits me like cold water. I breathe through the shock of it and orient myself toward the eastern bluff. I move fast, staying close to the cabin wall until the shadow of the structure can no longer cover me, then I cut into the tree line and use the dark the way I have learned to on this island, not fighting it but moving through it, trusting my feet.

I can’t risk going to the docks, even with them explaining the blind spots of the cameras that are there, I can’t risk being spotted. The only other place I can risk escaping is the eastern bluffs that they mentioned.

I am two hundred feet from the eastern boundary when I hear the horn.

It’s not like the one from earlier today.

Theirs.

One long blast, low and sharp, carrying across the island with an urgency that raises every hair on my arms. I know that sound. I’ve heard them test it. It means all hands.

They know I’m gone.

I run.

I can hear them behind me now, three sets of feet and I know their rhythm well enough by now to feel the difference between a search pattern and a pursuit. This is a pursuit. They’re not spreading out to cover ground.

They are coming directly for me.

I don’t have time to understand how. I break from the trees and the bluff opens up ahead of me, dark water churning fifty feet below. I skid to a stop at the edge, look down and feel the first cold punch of doubt land in my gut.

It’s a long way down.