Page 17 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

I ran my hands over my body, wincing at the bruises. The four-poster bed was clean, well, bloody now, but clean before, and the room was practically empty.

I wore a clean white nightgown, and my hair had been brushed free of tangles. Someone had taken care of me. I shuddered to think it was my daughter’s father. A sound in the corridor sent me scurrying to the bathroom.

There was a shower, a toilet, and a sink. What could I use as a weapon?

None of it.

Shit.

Searching the room again, my attention landed on the showerhead.

I reached upward, swaying with dizziness at the sharp movement. When’s the last time I ate anything? Trembling, my arms shaking with the effort, I tried to unscrew it from the wall. No luck.

Wait.I put my weight on it, bending it until it snapped.

Clang!I froze in fear, then realized it didn’t fucking matter, I’d already left a smear of blood from my wrists on the bed.

Success!

I held the metal pipe with the showerhead in my hands, determined to use it to win my freedom.

Footsteps sounded in the room, and I rushed out of the bathroom, heedless of the danger, knowing this was my one shot.

Taking advantage of the surprise, I swung the pipe at the man’s head. To my shock, he fell onto the bed with a grunt, and then didn’t move.

My eyes swept over him, identifying him as a Costa foot soldier I’d met before but unable to put a name to the face. No matter.

Dizziness washed over me, and I swayed on my feet. Shit. I needed to get a move on.

Fearful of waking the man from the slumber I’dinduced, I searched him for a weapon. He carried a gun tucked into the back of his waistband, thank fuck.

I grabbed it and checked the clip. Fully loaded.

I didn’t dare take his clothes, but when my eyes fell upon the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket, I snatched it. Credit cards and cash would get me home or to a hotel, no matter where I was.

And keys, shit. Did he have keys? I stuck my hands in his pockets. When he groaned, I slammed him over the head with the pipe again, and he stopped making noise.

Well, fuck. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it on over the nightgown and snuck out the door.

Moving on silent feet, grateful for the drills Lorenzo had forced me to run as a child and hoping muscle memory would be enough to get me out of here, I padded out of the room into a long, dark hallway.

A house? It had to be a house. Plush carpeting kept my feet silent as I explored. I followed the hallway to a staircase that led up to a closed door. Gun in hand, I listened at the door. Silence.

My heart pounding with trepidation, I tried the knob.

It turned.

No light shone under the door. Was it nighttime? Please let it be nighttime. I waited and waited some more, terrified to take the next step.

No, I was SofiafuckingRusso, and the worst that could happen to me already had.

Time to go.

The door opened soundlessly, and I slipped through, spying a window in the next room—a kitchen. And the kitchen had a door. Astounded at my luck, I snuck into thekitchen and watched the window to count the time between patrols.

No one.

---