Page 42 of Freeing Hook

The carriage is a wreck, Vulcan limp, his head hanging to the side as it presses against the carriage door, now resting on the ground. I can’t tell if he’s dead. I don’t really care. There’s a roar of panic outside on the street, people scrambling to not only help but leer at the tragic accident.

Outside, someone shouts for everyone to clear the way. A pause, then the door above me flings open, hinges squealing in protest. Inside stares an unfamiliar face—thin and unassuming, slightly balding. He’s the type of man you’d hire to do work you want to go unnoticed. The kind of face even witnesses wouldn’t recall.

I feign confusion as he reaches in and loops his arms underneath my armpits. In the hours since being poisoned, theability to use my limbs has returned, though I’m still weak. Teeth must have given me a low dose, or a diluted one. As the man struggles to haul me from the cabin, it takes all my self-control to maintain my dead weight and keep from assisting him. I’m caught between wanting to escape the scene before Vulcan wakes and needing the henchman to believe I’m still unable to move.

When I finally surface, the balding man heaving, I let out the tiniest of sobs, shaking off the awareness that if something had gone awry, I’d be dead.

Around me, villagers gather to speculate underneath dingy faerie dust lamps. We must be a village or two over from where Zane runs his business. That would make sense, given we’d been in the carriage for almost an hour. Zane would have wanted to make sure the accident happened outside of city limits, to keep Vulcan from suspecting him.

Assuming Vulcan’s still alive.

I hadn’t bothered checking.

“It’s alright, I’ve got her,” says the weaselly man pulling me from the wreckage. I lean my head onto his shoulder, limping as he keeps his hand around my waist to help me walk. I’m sure that in a few hours, everything will ache, but right now I’m operating on adrenaline. I allow my head to loll around until I can see back to the carriage. The wreckage is awful. A mare slammed into it, now neighing as she kicks her feet wildly in the streets, bystanders steering clear. I can’t help but notice that Vulcan’s driver is pinned under the carriage, his eyes wide and empty to the dark sky.

Guilt rolls over in my stomach.

I did that. I planted this idea in Zane’s mind.

As Zane’s henchman drags me through the streets, drawing me away from the crowds, I wonder if anyone will notice.

No one does.

When the shadows of a dark alley obscure us, I notice another carriage parked there, waiting for us. I’ll have to be quick.

Thus far, I’ve exaggerated my lack of control over my limbs. They’re still weak, some of my control over them lost under the influence of the rushweed, but not to the extent that I’ve made my enslaver-turned-rescuer believe.

When the henchman forces me into the carriage, I make him work for it, tripping and fumbling, making him drag my limp, dead weight into the cabin. He’s human, and certainly not in his first half of life, judging by the number of wrinkles forming on his balding head. By the time he’s got me onto the floorboard of the carriage, he’s huffing and doesn’t have the energy to scramble over my body and drag me into my seat.

Instead of climbing over me, he slams the door, dousing the inside of the cab in shadows. The latch clicks into place behind me. Mercifully, there’s no secondary click of a lock. Cheek pressed against the wooden floorboards, I wait for the sound of the henchman’s huffs to round the carriage.

I’ll have a very small window to make this work. My muscles protest, but I use the seat to drag myself to my feet.

As soon as I hear the man reach the anterior of the carriage and tell the driver I’m secured, I unlatch the door on my side, willing my legs not to give out on me when I open the door and jump.

The impact should be simple, but it feels as if I’ve fallen from the top of the nearest thatch roof. It doesn’t matter though. The aching in my muscles will be nothing compared to the pain of the punishment awaiting me if I’m caught.

The henchman is still talking to the carriage driver. “Just give me a moment, why don’t you? Need to stretch my legs before getting crammed back into that cab.”

“Zane said—”

“Yes, well, Zane isn’t who had to drag that girl through the streets or drive that horse into a carriage rounding a corner, now is he?” The henchman adds, under his breath, “I’m getting too old for this.”

Relieved at the henchman’s stalling, I limp down the back of the alley, following the gentle glow of light from what I hope is the opposite street. If this alley turns out to be a dead end, I’m in trouble, but I don’t allow my mind down that sullen path.

Once I reach the end of the alley, I turn the corner and toward the light, my stomach clenching when I realize the light is from a faerie dust lamp hanging over a doorway at the back of a building that jams up right next to another.

There’s no way out.

As of now, I’m out of sight. I rush toward the nearby door, still limping, and tug at the handle, but it’s locked. Around the corner, the henchman swears loudly.

He knows I’m gone. And that I couldn’t have gone far.

For a fleeting moment, I wonder if my punishment will be lessened if I stumble back, head hanging, and turn myself in. If he’ll keep my almost-escape to himself, thinking it’ll reflect poorly on his expertise that he let me escape to begin with.

It could work, but then I’d be in a worse position than what I began with, property to be sold to whichever male bids the highest.

No. No, I won’t turn myself in. I’ll fight back. Make the henchman kill me if I have to.

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