Unbroken

Nineteen

Skye

Present

Don’t ask me how I get her knots undone, or how desperation led me to biting the ropes with my teeth and yanking—it’s all a chaotic blur. Once I found one end of the knot, I tugged at it, realizing quickly that it constricted just one set of knots. Whoever tied us did so with more than one knot.

The motherfucker.

“It’s going to be easier when you can use your hands,” I tell Fay, as her knots slowly come undone. My jaw aches as I use my teeth to pull. It would have taken me longer if I’d turned around and used my hands because I’d have been working on the knots blindly. At least this way I can see what I’m doing.

“I feel them loosening,” she says, her breath hitching. “Hurry, Skye.”

I’m going as fast as I can while Britney sits mutely beside us. She hasn’t said a word in a long time. Her lips aren’t even quivering, and her body looks deflated, like she’s given up the fight.

My heart sparks when the ropes give way and Fay is slipping her arms out of them. Her skin looks angry where the rope bound her. It falls to the floor like spaghetti, and she wastes no time using her fingers to dig under the blindfold to yank it off with furious tugs.

Our eyes meet.

She’s younger than me by many years, maybe still a teenager, I can’t be sure. There’s a hardness in her face, though, like she’s seen more than a girl her age should. While Britney is wearing a miniskirt and a white tank top, Fay’s in a black minidress. Like me, they’re barefoot and have no jewellery on.

“Hey,” I whisper to her, offering her a weak smile.

She just stares at me, her dark eyes deep and full of emotion. Then she blinks. “Turn around.”

I twist around, and a second later she’s tugging at my knots, her movements fast. She seems to know what she’s doing; her deft fingers trace along the ropes and, to my surprise, she mutters the knot they’re in. For a second I’m tempted to open my mouth and ask her how she knows this, but I choose not to. Knot tying might be a fun hobby, or part of some weird game. In the precarious situation we’re in, I don’t want to accidentally trigger unwanted emotions in anyone. I try not to wince when she tugs too hard at times, causing the rope to dig into my skin. I bite my lower lip, shutting my eyes as she works it off of me.

I don’t realize until now how constricted I’ve been feeling.

My heart pounds that familiar fearful beat—

“You want both of us at the same time, Skye? Or one at a time?”

“I want both of you.”

I relax at his voice in my head.

I can’t describe the relief when I feel the ropes come undone and I’m able to move my arms forward. It actually hurts and I have to slow my movements down so I’m not crying out. My arms are numb, my shoulders sore from the hours my muscles have been pulled back tautly.

Fay immediately works on Britney as I sit there for a moment, holding my breath through the tenderness. I look around again, trying to see past the mortifying desperation of the previous prisoner. I wind up crawling to the door, running my hands down the solid wood. Then I’m on my knees, twisting at the knob that doesn’t turn. There’s a keyhole, and I try to peer through the tiny hole, but it’s dim, and I can’t see anything.

“You guys have any clips in your hair?” I ask as I wrack my brain for ways out of this.

But you have to endure this, my mind reminds me.You have to—

I shove those thoughts away because I’m scared, and I have to run. I can’t do this. I can’t. It’s all wrong. If I’m right in my assumptions, if I’m where I think I am, then I’ve been deceived, and it’s all my fault.

No one who comes in here gets out.No one. Not even—

“I have a bobby pin,” Fay says.

As Britney wriggles out of her ropes, Fay crawls to me. She digs her hand into her hair, pulling at several of the pins holding her dark curls back. I unbend the bobby pins, pretending to know what I’m doing because I don’t want them to freak the fuck out on me. Sometimes the illusion can create order. Sometimes it’s necessary.

I shove two pointed ends into the keyhole. I feel around the lock as the girls come together behind me. Fay hugs Britney to her, consoling her, but Britney is still quiet. For a few minutes, it’s just me working the pins up and down. It was so much easier watching Hunter do this as kids, and even then he had a wrench looking tool that went with the pin.

There’s no running from this, my mind continues to torment me.The only way out is through, Skye.

I grit my teeth, angry tears rushing to my eyes. I’ve been tricked, I argue with myself. I have to get away—