Catching Pretty (Lovely Broken Doll #2)

38. Ava

AVA

T y’s movements were uncoordinated but fueled by sheer desperation as he chased me down the hallway, the echo of his uneven footsteps following me.

“Ava!” he shouted, the sound raw and cracked.

I didn’t want to look back, didn’t want to see the hurt I knew was there.

But pain and betrayal laced through his voice. It sliced through me, twisting like a knife as I pushed onward.

The hallways of Blackthorn loomed, shadowed and sprawling, each familiar corner seemingly foreign in the low light.

My mind spun, tipsy from the wine and adrenaline, and my steps wavered, but I tried to focus, tried to sort through my fragmented memories of this place. I had to find a way out.

The front door! If I could just find my way to the main foyer, I could get out through the front door .

My bare feet slapped against the stone floors as I ran, the cold seeping into my skin, sharp and grounding.

Behind me, I could hear Ty stumbling after me, banging off the walls like a pinball, his footsteps heavy and unsteady.

He should have been paralyzed by now, but he was still moving, still following me.

Realization dawned cold and sickening—the dose I’d given him wasn’t nearly enough.

Ty was precise. He would calculate and measure out the exact amount of paralytic required for me. The amount in the vial was designed for someone of my height and weight. He was ten inches taller and almost twice my weight of muscle.

Shit. The contents of the vial weren’t enough to fully take Ty down.

He was fighting through it, sheer willpower and fury propelling him forward.

“Don’t… do this,” he called out, voice thick with betrayal. “Ava…”

Each word seared into me, the weight of his voice making my knees weak, but I shoved the feeling down. I couldn’t let his words stop me.

My breath came in ragged gasps as I skidded around another corner, feeling the walls close in with every step.

I stumbled into the main foyer, the grand staircase looming above me, its sweeping curves casting shadows over the marble floor.

Desperation clawed at me as I sprinted to the front door, only to find it sealed tight—paneled in cold metal just like my bedroom door with no handle in sight. In its place, a sleek panel gleamed where the handle should have been, Ty’s fingerprint was the only key.

A shadow fell across the doorway to the foyer, and Ty’s voice, now a low, chilling murmur, drifted to me. “It doesn’t matter where you run, Ava. I will hunt you down.”

My mind spun, desperate and wild, as I tore up the stairs toward the second floor. Each step echoed up the spiral, a drumbeat of fear pulsing through me.

Shit. I was being forced farther into the house.

Ty’s heavy footsteps drifted up from below, steady and persistent, the sound digging deep under my skin.

An idea struck me—the secret passageway, the one Ciaran’s shadowed face had peered out from in the professor’s bedroom.

Maybe that passageway might lead out?

I had no idea if it would. Or if I could even discover the way to open it, but I had to try.

I tumbled onto the second floor, Ty’s sluggish footfalls following my panicked steps.

My bare feet slapped against the wooden floor, each step jarring as I tried to focus, to keep my balance. The hallways seemed to close in, the shadows deepening, as if the very walls were conspiring to trap me.

My fingers brushed against the rough damask wallpaper as I stumbled around a corner, the textured patterns catching at my skin, grounding me for one frantic second.

There was the professor’s room at the very end, its dark wooden door mocking me, taunting me with ghosts.

I pushed forward, lungs burning, my skin prickling with the chill of fear, my mind racing to keep going, to find a way to escape before he was upon me .

I burst into my foster father’s bedroom, into the vortex of my haunting, fighting the panic that threatened to claw up my throat.

This place would not break me.

I ignored the glaring red couch and ran to the far wall where I remembered seeing Ciaran’s face peering out from. I scanned the wall for a way to unlock the panel, heart pounding so hard it seemed to echo off every surface. Where was it? Where was the opening?

My hands scrambled along the wall, pressing at anything that might give, searching for some latch, some hidden lever.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, a heavy tread full of hurt and determination, growing closer with each second. Ty’s long shadow stretched across the threshold, his silhouette blocking out the hallway light.

Panic clawed its way up my throat.

I swiped my hands along the wooden panel, along the ornate moldings, willing them to yield under my touch, willing them to be the sanctuary I needed.

I felt a faint click under my fingertips.

Yes!

The panel swung inward, revealing a narrow, twisting iron staircase spiraling down into a black void, a thick, musty odor of trapped air rising up, mingling with the scent of damp stone.

Every instinct told me not to go down there. The shadows seemed to shift, whispering of terrible things hidden in the dark below.

But I didn’t have a choice—if I hesitated, Ty would catch me .

“Ava…”

He loomed in the doorway, his eyes finding me even in the dim glow. Fury and something far worse—a raw betrayal—darkened his expression, making my stomach clench. His gaze was relentless, burning into me as if he could pin me to the spot with just a look.

“Stop!” His voice was hoarse, urgent, his hand reaching toward me just as I slipped through the gap, slamming the panel closed and plunging myself into the darkness below.

The darkness in the narrow twisting staircase enveloped me, cool and close, the musty scent of damp stone and dust thick in the air. The only light came from a faint skylight far above my head, revealing the fading dusk.

Ty’s muffled voice echoed faintly from the other side of the panel, calling my name, laced with an anger that rattled me to my core.

He couldn’t see me now. He couldn’t reach me here. But it would be moments before he figured out how to open the panel. Then he’d be on my heels again.

I hurried down the twisting staircase. The only sounds were my shallow breaths and the faint pounding on the other side of the hidden door.

At the bottom of the stairs, another secret panel opened into an unfamiliar room.

I stumbled forward, the automatic sconces casting a faint yellow glow as they flickered to life, illuminating a gothic laboratory steeped in shadows. The air was thick with the sharp, metallic tang of chemicals, mingling with an all-too-familiar herbal musk—the same sickly-sweet scent from the drug I’d found in Liath’s room.

My stomach twisted as I took it in .

Everywhere, there were rows of workbenches cluttered with glass beakers and vials, some filled with strange, glinting substances, others empty but stained with dark, dried remnants of experiments long past.

I could almost hear the hollow clink of glass as I brushed against one of the benches.

Shelves lined the stone walls, each crammed with dark bottles labeled in Latin, some with peeling labels that revealed the sinister symbols and names of toxic plants.

As I passed the heavy mahogany desk at the far end, I saw it held a chaotic sprawl of journals and notebooks, each bearing a familiar emblem.

This… this was the emblem I’d seen on Dr. Vale’s signet ring.

I froze, my pulse racing as I flipped open a page on the nearest journal.

My eyes darted across the notes in the professor’s unmistakable handwriting.

Evidence was here, I could feel it.

This place—it held answers.

My hand trembled, torn between the urge to stay and uncover everything, to piece together what the professor and the Society had done, and the need to keep moving, to escape.

Ty’s voice echoed down the passageway behind me, angry and desperate, the sound slurring, but still close. He’d found the secret panel.

A knot of fear twisted in my chest. I had to go.

Leaving the journals scattered as they were, I turned and sprinted for the other door, bursting through it, and to my surprise, the cool glass and greenery of the greenhouse swallowed me in a rush.

I staggered forward, nearly tripping over a loose stone on the greenhouse floor, my hands pinwheeling for balance.

I tore through the rows of purple nightshade berries, drooping dark hellebores and tangled vines, my bare feet slipping on the mossy stones as I sprinted for the greenhouse exit.

My heart pounded with each desperate step, Ty’s footsteps echoing behind me.

I shoved past the last towering plant and burst out the door into the clean open air.

The garden stretched out around me, vast and eerily quiet under the night sky, and there—in the distance—was the fence. Half-hidden in ivy, its metal edges glinting faintly in the shadows, it felt as unreal as a mirage.

But it was real. A path to freedom, a promise of escape, so close I could almost touch it.

My breath came in gasps as I stared, the garden stretching between me and the fence like some kind of twisted maze.

My pulse raced, and yet a paralyzing fear clawed at me. What if he caught me before I made it? What if the fence wasn’t climbable, wasn’t strong enough to hold my weight?

I glanced back, knowing Ty was just steps behind, his footsteps growing louder, steadier. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t pause to dwell on my fears. I had to act.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed forward, my legs carrying me across the soft grass toward the distant glint of metal.

I was so close to the edge of this property, this prison.

But I was nowhere near freedom. Not by a long shot .

I crashed into the fence, the iron bars cold and unyielding as my chest collided against them, knocking the air from my lungs. My breath left me in a sharp gasp, and for a moment, I could barely think, could barely breathe.

I clutched the bars, fingers trembling as I looked up, my heart sinking.

The fence stretched high above me, each iron bar slick with rain and rust, topped with cruel, twisted spikes that glinted in the dim light.

My chest tightened, the chill of hopelessness seeping in as the reality of the barrier loomed over me.

There was no way I could climb it; a fall from the top would mean a broken ankle, maybe worse.

And then I’d be right back in his hands.

I swallowed, fighting down the frustration clawing up my throat.

There had to be a gate.

I closed my eyes, digging deep into my memories of this place, trying to summon anything that might help. A faint recollection flickered to life.

The front gate.

West. I had a memory of a gate somewhere west.

It felt hazy, like something half-forgotten, but it was all I had.

I turned and hurried along the fence, my fingers grazing the metal and then the thick ivy that covered half of it like it was trying to swallow up the boundary of this cursed place.

I moved as fast as I could without losing my footing in the dusk.

Time stretched endlessly, each step fueled by hope that was beginning to fray around the edges .

After what felt like hours of racing along the fence line, I stumbled upon it—the main gates of Blackthorn Hall, looming tall and imposing, crafted from wrought iron twisted into intricate, gothic patterns of thorned vines and dark roses.

Rusted over time, the iron had taken on a deep, weathered patina, sharp spikes crowning each bar like silent, menacing guards, flanked by heavy stone pillars.

Relief washed over me, but when I reached out and tugged, it refused to budge.

I shook the gates, yanked at the thick central lock, desperation overcoming me, the bars rattling in their place. But still they remained locked to me.

I stared up at the soaring gates, just as tall as the fence, if not taller, and just as unscalable, with spikes like a thorny crown.

My chest tightened, a surge of despair gripping me, the air cold and thick as I tried to think, to breathe, to not let the hopelessness set in.

I had thought I’d escaped Blackthorn Hall, but this cursed place had claws that reached far beyond its mansion walls, pulling me back when I least expected it.

My mind flickered to Mona—how she, too, had tried to flee, only to be thwarted at the gates.

A pang of empathy twisted in my chest for the woman I’d never met, separated from me by years, yet tied to me by a dark painful secret.

I could not quit. I could not fail. I could not let him recapture me.

I kept running down the fence line, wishing, hoping, praying for another way out .

Up ahead, a faint shape loomed into the sky, silhouetted in the fading sunlight filtering through the trees.

I squinted, and my heart lurched.

The treehouse.

Hidden among the dense branches, its faded boards and dark silhouette whispered of memories and broken promises, and a memory slammed into me.

I sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of the treehouse, doodling in my journal as I waited for Ty.

But as the hatch creaked open, it wasn’t Ty’s warm face that peeked through.

It was Ciaran’s.

He climbed up, barely sparing me a glance as he swung himself onto the platform. His expression shifted into a scowl when he noticed me sitting there, but he said nothing, just stepped over me, the slight smell of smoke trailing him as he moved toward the window.

I watched, confused, as he leaned out and threw one leg over the sill, perching on the ledge with a reckless kind of ease that made my heart stop.

“What are you doing?” I asked, leaping to my feet and grabbing his arm instinctively. “You’ll fall!”

He shook me off, his eyes glinting with defiance. “I’m a big boy, Ava. I know what I’m doing.”

I lost my grip on his arm, feeling the sting of rejection that came with his dismissal. My fingers fell away, and I looked down, heat prickling my cheeks.

He threw his other leg over the ledge, steadying himself with one hand on the frame as he turned to face in.

We were suddenly face-to-face, close enough that I could see the glint of determination in his eyes .

For a moment he just stared back at me, his usual hatred falling away, revealing something softer.

My gaze dropped to his lips, my heart fluttering as I imagined, just for a second, what it might feel like if he leaned forward.

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

Oh God. Was he going to…

“Ever ridden a motorbike?” His voice broke through my thoughts.

Surprised, I shook my head.

“Want to come for a ride?” he asked, a daring smirk on his face that sent a thrill through me.

I hesitated, a part of me painfully aware that Ty would be here any minute.

“I’m waiting for Ty,” I said, my voice soft and uncertain, feeling torn.

Ciaran’s smirk shifted into a scoff, his tone dismissive. “Suit yourself.”

He started to climb down, disappearing halfway out the window.

I leaned out the window of the treehouse, watching him climb down the other side of the fence using the overgrown ivy.

Below him a black motorbike stood waiting, half-hidden by the ivy.

This must be his escape route, the way he snuck out of the stuffy mansion to the world outside of Blackthorn.

“Wait!” I heard myself yelling.

He paused, glancing up at me, eyebrows raised, waiting. There was a challenge in his eyes, and I knew he wouldn’t wait forever.

I chewed my lip, torn. If I left with him, I’d be letting Ty down.

But if I stayed, I might lose my one chance to do something wild, something reckless with Ciaran .

“I’ll come,” I said, the words barely louder than a whisper, but he heard me.

To my surprise, his face softened into a rare, genuine smile as he held out his hand.

And before I could talk myself out of it, I reached forward and took it, feeling a strange sense of excitement and freedom course through me as his fingers closed around mine.

The treehouse had been my escape route then.

It would be my escape route now.

I sprinted across the grass, my bare feet stinging as they struck sharp stones and the rough edges of the pathway.

But I didn’t slow down.

The treehouse loomed in the distance, tucked near the high fence, just like in my memories. My heart hammered with a strange blend of hope and desperation—my way out was finally clear.

I just had to hope Ty wouldn’t realize that I’d found a way out.