Page 26 of Atonement

When the door opened, I didn't raise my head at first. I didn't care to see the face of the man who was going to end my life. But at the sound of a soft gasp, my eyes flew open. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the change in light, but even before they recovered I knew who was standing in front of me.

Madeline stood in the doorway with the light shining from behind, like a golden halo around her head, looking for all the world like the most beautiful sight I’d seen in my life.

When I spoke, it was nothing more than a rasp. “Why didn’t you run?”

Maddie

I tried to crawl across the table, but the damn chain was still too short. I pulled at the collar, my blood slick on my hands. I’d finally broken the skin.

“Be a good girl and stay quiet for us, will you?” Conrad nodded at me, and Joshua released Meyer long enough to come around the table and yank me back to sitting. He pushed me back into my chair and slipped some sort of fabric between my lips, like a horse’s bridle, and tied it tight at the back of my head. I reached for the knot the moment he let me go, but it was pulled too tight for me to pull apart. I’d have to cut it, but I had nothing, not even a butter knife.

“Don’t make me tie your hands,” he muttered in my ear. Ignoring him, I leaned over the table again, not caring about the pain in my neck. If I couldn’t get out of here, none of this would matter. Meyer was on the ground on the other side of the table, looking up at Conrad with rage. But every time he tried to stand, Conrad kicked him, or shoved him in the chest with the bat, and he fell back to the floor.

There was so much yelling, I couldn’t keep track of it all. The only thing I could focus on was that bat, the one I suspected had been used to break Meyer’s arm so many years ago, and how close it was to his body now. Ready to break his spirit as well as his bones. All I wanted to do was reach out and destroy the damned thing and burn the splinters until they were nothing but ash. But I couldn’t, not while Conrad was threatening him with it, ready to beat him to death.

Meyer’s back was against Joshua’s front, trapped by his former friend and his father with nowhere to run. And still, he talked about me. “Just unlock her,” he pleaded with his father. He made his way to his feet, only to step back into Joshua a moment before the bat swung once more.

I was so busy staring at Meyer, I almost missed Joshua’s glance toward me.

Just unlock her.

The key!

I fumbled in my back pocket as Conrad stalked closer to Meyer, the bat pressing against his chest. I grabbed the key from my back pocket and nearly dropped it; there was too much blood on my fingers. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I got a firmer grip on the small metal piece and began fumbling with the lock.

“Why would I do that, when I can have you both?”

The hole for the key was too small, and between my panic and not being able to see what I was doing I thought I wasn’t going to be able to free myself. I almost lost it three times while I worked, but finally the key slipped in. I twisted, the collar fell away, and I was out. Reaching across the table, I grabbed the steak knife Conrad had been using and used it to slice away my gag, the serrated blade dragging through the smooth fabric with a menacing sound. My breath was ragged, but my voice didn’t shake a bit.

“STOP!” I yelled. Conrad looked at me, turned away, then snapped his head back as he realized I was no longer bound by his chain.

“How the fuck—”

“Let him go,” I said, brandishing the knife as if it were any threat to the man across the table.

Meyer gripped his arm as he stared at me. “Maddie, just run, it’s okay.”

“I’m not leaving you!” Despite my words, I jumped away from the table and backed toward the door, escaping Joshua as he turned slowly toward me. He was still on the other side of the table; if I sprinted, I might be able to make it out of the house. And if I could get out of the house, I could hide. But that meant Meyer would be left behind. Again.

“Let Meyer go,” I demanded, the blade shaking in my hand. What was I doing? Was this my plan? Demand his release with nothing to bargain? I had to runnow, or Joshua would catch me before I even left the room. But whatever had pulled me to Meyer in the first place kept me rooted here now, despite the futility of my threats.

“You set that knife down and take your seat, and I’ll leave you enough skin on the bottom of your feet for you to be able to walk again tomorrow.” Conrad swung the bat toward me, keeping one hand around the back of Meyer’s neck to hold him in place. “But if you try to run out, you’ll get to experience every punishment your mother endured over four years in the course of one night.”

Pain scared me. Conrad scared me even more. But at the moment, I wasn’t afraid of Conrad. I was afraid of leaving Meyer. Leaving him like my mother did, leaving him like he left me.

“Meyer,” I whispered.Please tell me what to do.

“Just go.” He pushed his father away, and leaping for Joshua just as he screamed, “Madeline, RUN!”

With one last look at him, I turned and sprinted out the door.

I burst into the foyer and raced for the heavy doors leading outside, hauling one open with both hands and slipping into the night as soon as there was a large enough opening. The door clipped my heel as I hit the concrete; the cold ground reminded me I had no shoes.

The door swung open behind me, casting long shadows into the night. “Madeline,” Joshua roared, and I sprinted faster. I had to get into the trees before he caught up with me. There were woods here for acres; miles of brush and undergrowth that would conceal me in the dark. Even with a flashlight, Joshua would never find me as long as I stayed quiet. And I had to hope he wouldn’t be looking for me too closely, since he was the one who gave me the key in the first place.

Twenty more feet. The asphalt was nearly frozen; my feet burned with the familiar too-cold feeling. But the trees were growing closer by the second, and then it was ten feet, five, and finally I left the concrete and stumbled over the uneven earth before tumbling into the brush.

I didn’t slow, not even as branches caught at my clothes and scraped against my frigid skin. Joshua crashed into the underbrush noisily enough that I could hear him over all the sounds I was making, and I forced myself to dig deeper for the strength to get far enough into the dense trees that I could hide. I cut one way, then the other, trying to confuse my pursuer without completely losing myself. The lights of the house were still visible through the tops of the nearly bare trees, but only just. My skin stung where sharp branches had cut me; welts rose on my fingers as I pushed my way through the bushes.

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