The first day, she waited.
Every footstep outside her cell made her lift her head. Every voice, every clink of keys—she listened for her name.
It never came.
By the third day, hope had thinned into something fragile.By the seventh—it was gone.
Mallory sat on the cold stone bench, her back against the wall, her eyes open in the dim light. She had stopped expecting rescue.
No one was coming not even her cousin,no one.
The food they brought her was barely enough to be called food—stale bread, hard at the edges, and a thin broth that tasted more like water than anything meant to sustain life. She ate slowly, not out of hunger, but necessity.
Weakness was not an option.Not here,not now.
Interrogations came without warning.Morning. Night. Sometimes both.They would drag her out, sit her under harsh light, and ask the same questions over and over again.
"Why did you kill them?"
"Who helped you?"
"Confess, and this will end."
Mallory never gave them what they wanted."I didn't do it."
Again."I didn't do it."Again.The words became routine. Empty to them.But not to her.
Each time she said it, she held onto something small and stubborn inside her—the truth.
By the fifth day, she stopped answering immediately.She started listening,watching,counting.The guards changed shifts twice a day.The one with the scar on his jaw always lingered too long at the far corridor.
The keys hung loosely from the older guard's belt.The locks—heavy, but not silent.At night, the prison quieted… but never completely.
There was always a pattern and patterns could be broken.
Mallory leaned her head back against the wall, her eyes closing briefly.
For a moment,her mind drifted somewhere else.To a time before all of this.Her mother's voice Soft,Warm.Her father's laughter—rare, but real,gone, both of them.
The memory hit sharper than she expected her chest tightened, but she didn't let the tears fall.
Not here.
Not where weakness could be seen, even if no one was watching.Mallory opened her eyes again.
The darkness of the cell greeted her like an old companion.
They were gone.and no one else had come.Good.That meant there was no one left to wait for.Her fingers curled slightly against the cold stone.
She exhaled slowly.
If she wanted to leave this place—she would have to do it herself,and this time…she was ready.
———
The moment came quietly, not with shouting
, not with chaos.With a mistake.
A key left too long. A guard too distracted. A heartbeat that didn't wait.
Mallory moved.
The corridor stretched before her, dim and endless, lit only by dying torches that flickered like they were trying to warn her back. Every step felt too loud, even when she forced her feet to land softly. The cold stone bit through the thin soles of her shoes.
Don't run, not yet.
Voices echoed somewhere behind her—distant, careless. Unaware.
Her fingers tightened around the keys.
One turn. Another.
A door groaned open.
Freedom didn't greet her, darkness did.She slipped through anyway.
The night air hit her like a shock—cold, sharp, alive. It filled her lungs too fast, too deep, like her body didn't remember how to breathe without fear. For a second, she staggered, gripping the rough stone wall as the world spun wider than she was ready for.
She was out.
She was…
A shout cut through the night.
"Stop!"
Her heart slammed violently against her ribs.
Now she ran.
No more careful steps. No more silence. Just the raw, desperate sound of survival as her feet pounded against the ground, uneven, frantic. The world blurred—shadows, walls, narrow paths she didn't recognize. Her breath tore in and out of her chest, burning, but she didn't slow.
Couldn't, not when she could already hear them.
Closer, boots striking stone."After her!"
Panic clawed up her throat, sharp and suffocating. Her vision flickered and then she saw it.A carriage.
Dark. Unmarked. Waiting just beyond the curve of the road like something out of a dream—or a trap.It didn't matter.
Mallory didn't think.
She lunged forward, her hand slipping against the handle before catching, yanking it open with more force than she knew she had. The door slammed against the side as she dragged herself inside, collapsing onto the hard seat, her chest heaving.
"Please—" The word tore out of her before she could stop it. "Just—go."
For a single, suspended second—nothing happened.
Then the carriage lurched.
Wheels grinding against the earth. Horses surging forward.
Voices shouted behind them. Angry. Distant. Fading.
Mallory pressed back against the seat, her entire body trembling, every muscle still braced for hands to grab her, to drag her back into the dark—But they didn't come.They didn't.
The rhythm of the carriage swallowed the noise of the world, steady and relentless. Forward. Away. Alive.
Slowly, too slowly, Mallory lifted her head and realized—she wasn't alone.