28. Im Sorry
Chapter twenty-eight
I'm Sorry
Astoria
The iron door howls open and wakes me with a start then his steps pound on the dirt as he walks closer to my cell. I tighten my hold on the chain and on the piece of mirror. This is my one chance. I hold it tight even when I feel a significant piece of it inside my palm. I'm so fucking scared. My heart races as fast as my thoughts. There's only a twenty percent chance I'll get this right. He’s coming. Twenty fucking percent, and if I don't, he'll kill me. Better to be dead than continue like this. I have to do this. He’s given me no choice. When he walks in, I don’t move.
“Astoria?” The concern oozes through the syllables.
“Astoria. No!” He probably saw my blood. He kneels next to my body and pulls me up. “No!” His voice breaks into the beginning of a sob.
I take advantage of his concern, bolt up and wrap the chain around his neck as fast as I can. Then I walk behind him as I choke him with it. Julian is always too strong but this time, when he manages to yank the chain away from his neck, I jam the piece of mirror right where his neck meets his shoulder. His hand immediately grabs for the wound, trying to cover it. Blood trickles through his fingers. I choke him with the chain again. He gasps and tries to pull it down but I use all my strength. His blood wets the chain and trails down his chest.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You gave me no choice, Julian. You gave me no choice,” I sob. “I’m so sorry.” I reach for the key in his pocket and unlock my collar. Julian takes out the mirror from the wound and falls to the ground as I rush out of the room.
Maybe some stronger bitch would torture him, like he has done me but I just want to escape, I want to start a new life. While Julian gasps for breath and struggles on the floor, I push the door closed behind me and run. The other three doors are open. I’m only wearing the nightgown from earlier, no shoes but I don’t care.Luck wins. I open the first lock on the front door but end up having to go through all twenty five of them to find the second one. Three more. Just three more. Almost there.
I’m panting from climbing all those steps, plus the fear of him somehow surviving the stabbing and coming after me. My heart is hammering so hard and fast it hurts. It doesn’t help that my right hand never fully recovered from when he stabbed it. Most of it is numb and it’s now covered in both our blood so it’s also slippery. The key falls from my hands twice. Fuck, come on!
I keep checking behind me, ensuring he’s not coming after me but the only noise in the room is my panting and the jittering of the keys from my shaking.“Please God. Please let me leave. Please.”
When I open the door, it’s frisky and dusk outside. I run down the steps toward the barn where I hope he keeps his car. The car door is unlocked but the vehicle doesn't turn on. "Come on!" I scream while pounding at the steering wheel. "Fucking turn on!" I try again and nothing. Fuck it, I'll run.
Sprinting on the grass towards the line of trees like earlier, my lungs burn. I’m so thirsty, exhausted and hungry but I don’t stop. When someone is chasing you, never look back. I focus on the the trees ahead and try to take the widest steps ever to cover more ground.
The trees are two feet away. In the same exact second, I hear a snap, I gasp as I fall, and an excruciating pain shoots from my leg to my spine. The ground pounds onto my chest. Blood trails from my inside my mouth. With the fall, I accidentally bit my tongue, but that's not what's causing the most pain. Something has cut through my skin and it’s squeezing with an unimaginable pressure into my femur. God, it hurts so fucking bad.
I gasp again and again and again.
The agony intensifies with the most subtle movement. I can’t even take a full breath. I can't scream. Slowly, I turn to lie on my back then sit upwhile trying not to move my leg. When I see what it is, I want to die.
It's a steel leg-holding trap. That sick son of a bitch!
No. There must be a way to get out of this. There must be. I can’t die like this. The lack of oxygen burns through my every vein. I’m growing dizzy and blotches are filling my vision. The world falls around me. Something hits my head and everything goes black.
A throbbing, hot pain slowly wakes me. I moan from it. "Julian," I whisper wondering what's happening. Then it all comes back to me. I killed him but now I'm going to die right here, alone.
There's a canopy of trees filtering the night sky. Some tiny stars flicker in between leaves and thick gray clouds. The forest is to my right and the empty grass field is to my left. The house in the distant is a small shadow. A breeze rakes through the field and shakes the trees. There's that long woosh sound. The tremble pulls a scream out of me that echoes in the forest when the pain shoots through me again because I dared to move.
"He-help me! Somebody help me!" I scream again and again and again despite the hell that's my leg, despite the wind picking up and drowning out my voice. Like every single other day in my stupid life, no one is coming to rescue me. There must be a way out of this. Slowly, I sit up, and grind my teeth at the pain as I lean forward, trying to get a hold of this thing. As I expected, no matter how much I pull it apart, nothing happens. This time I gather all my strength. Come on. I pull with all my might but the only thing I accomplish is moving my leg and thereby intensifying the excruciating pain. I try to catch my breath and suddenly hear a not too distant car driving by.
"A–h! Help! Help me!" My screeches echo through the trees again.
Nothing. I lie back on the dirt. The chilly night draws another shiver from me and then fat drops of water whip at my skin. I'm shaking violently as my warm tears form new trails mix with rain on my temples. The dirt quickly becomes mud and then a puddle forms beneath me. The wind keeps thrown leaves, and dirt at me. I don't want to die. I don't want this to be the last time I see them. Please God! Please!
"Someone please help me," I sob. "Please." I cry until I'm too exhausted to keep my eyes open. The last thing I see are the dancing tree branches above me looking so beautiful.
A sound startles me awake, drawing my gasp from the subtle movement and the anguish that follows. There's a shadow walking toward me. The rain is not as violent before but the wind won't cease making me shiver.
I hear Julian's laughter. Of course he'd laugh at my state after what I did to him. "No…" I only have the energy to whisper. He can't be here. I killed him. "I didn't want to." The pain in my heart almost equals that of my leg. "Julian," I sob. "I'm sorr–"
A flashlight clicks on, blinding me, then slides down my body. "Oh fuck." I hear the concern when he rushes and throws himself on the ground, kneeling by my feet.
"God fucking dammit, Astoria," he cusses through his teeth while trying to open it and failing. There's a relief from the pressure on my leg but it comes back stronger. It's as if I got caught in it again. I scream, gasp, and blackout.
For minutes at a time, I wake in his arms as he walks back to the house. My leg hurts even more now that it's free and every step he takes reverberates the pain through me. Every breeze caresses my raw wound, deep inside. It draws my sobbing but that only worsens it. I grimace and bite my lips.
"Almost there, pretty bird, then I'll see how bad it is."
He must've been searching for me while it was raining hard because his shirt, skin, and hair are soaked. I stare at his bandaged neck, but when he takes a deeper step I can't help gasp at the pain. I have to keep it all in to not risk moving more. My gaze swerves and catching sight of the sky.
I try hiding from the pain in the colors up above in between the clouds. Like the last morning, half the sky is dark and the other full of different shades of orange, yellow, and pink. I remember reading how pink is not a real color, just an illusion to a certain blend of colors. "Lambda equals the speed of light over frequency," I repeat in whispers every time there's a new bounce to his step. Sometimes I can't help it, I have to moan or whimper, but swallow my sobs.