Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
The message came wrapped in a scrap of linen, tucked inside the bread basket Betsy brought to my room.
Three nights. Kitchen garden.
Four words in handwriting I’d never seen but somehow knew was his. No signature. No explanation. Just the when and where, and the weight of everything unspoken pressing between the letters.
Three nights.
I had two days to prepare.
The widow watched me constantly now—at breakfast, during Philippe’s lessons, even when I thought I was alone in the schoolroom. Her presence felt like a hand at my throat, tightening incrementally.
Soon it wouldn’t matter.
Betsy helped me without asking questions. An extra chemise was left folded on my chair. A chunk of hard cheese wrapped in cloth and hidden in my drawer. Small things that could be explained away if discovered, but that added up to survival.
“Be careful,” she whispered when she came to collect the dinner tray. “Margaret’s been watching the halls at night. She reports everything to the widow.”
“I know.”
“And Maddie?” Her hand touched my arm, brief and warm. “Whatever you’re planning—I hope it works.”
After she left, I sat in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to the plantation settle into its nighttime rhythms. Voices fading. Footsteps diminishing. The distant sound of singing from the slave quarters, low and mournful.
I thought about my apartment. My job at the tour company. Jenna and Marcus, wondering what they’d told everyone when they went back home?
I’d spent so much time running from life after my dad died, that when I finally fell into this one, I didn’t know how to run toward anything.
Until now.
Until him.
The first night passed. Then the second. Philippe’s lessons felt surreal—conjugating Latin verbs while mentally preparing to flee through the jungle in darkness. The widow served tea and smiled.
The third night arrived like a breath finally released.
I waited until the house went silent. One hour. Two. The candles in the great house windows winked out one by one until only a single lamp burned on the second floor—the widow’s chambers.
She never seemed to sleep.
Moving through the dark house felt like swimming through tar. Every floorboard threatened to creak. Every shadow held an overseer or Margaret or worse. My heart hammered so hard I was certain everyone could hear it, drumming out my guilt and fear and desperate hope.
The kitchen was empty, still smelling of the evening’s meal. Through the back door. Down the stone steps. Into the kitchen garden, where herbs grew in neat rows and the jasmine’s scent was thick enough to taste.
He materialized out of the shadows like something I’d conjured from a dream.
“Maddie.”
Just my name, but relief hit me so hard I nearly staggered.
Even in the darkness, I could see he was moving differently—carefully, stiffly, like every step required thought. The whipping. The scars Abena had tended were still healing, still tender. And he was about to run through the jungle.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I whispered.
“I told ye I would.” His hand found mine in the darkness, calloused and warm and steady. “Ready?”
No. Not even close. But I nodded anyway.
We moved through the garden, keeping to the shadows between the outbuildings.
Brodie’s grip on my hand never loosened.
He knew the path—had clearly memorized it, planned it, prepared for this moment while I’d been conjugating verbs, trying to pretend I’d learned my lesson, was the perfect meek servant.
Past the stables. Through a gap in the fence that bordered the indigo and then the cane fields. Into the sugarcane itself, the stalks towering over us like walls closing in.
That’s when the bell started ringing.
The sound cut through the night as my chest seized.
“Go!” Brodie pulled me forward, no longer careful, no longer quiet. Just running.
Behind us, voices erupted. Shouts. Dogs barking—the distinctive bay of hunting hounds catching a scent.
“They know!” I gasped, stumbling over roots I couldn’t see.
“Aye. Keep moving.”
The cane gave way to jungle, and the blackness became absolute. I couldn’t see anything except Brodie’s form ahead of me, pulling me forward, his hand the only thing keeping me from falling. Branches whipped my face. Vines caught at my dress. My breath came in ragged gasps that burned my lungs.
Behind us, the dogs grew louder.
“I can’t—I’m slowing you down—”
“Don’t talk. Save your breath.” His voice was hard, urgent. “We’re almost there.”
Almost where? I had no idea where we were going, just that we were running toward it through darkness while death chased us with teeth and torches.
My foot caught on something—a root, a rock, I never saw it. I went down hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs. Pain shot through my ankle.
Brodie turned back immediately, hauling me upright. “Can ye walk?”
“Yes.” Maybe. I had to.
He pulled my arm over his shoulders, taking most of my weight despite the way I felt him wince—his back, still healing, protesting every movement. But he never slowed, never complained. We lurched forward, slower now but still moving.
Too slow.
The dogs sounded closer. Much closer.
“Brodie—”
“I know. Just a bit further. Thomas said—there!”
Ahead, barely visible in the darkness, a structure emerged from the jungle. Small. Rough-hewn timber. A farmstead, half-hidden by trees.
The door opened before we reached it.
A man stood silhouetted against the lamplight—tall, broad-shouldered, his skin dark against the warm glow behind him. Beside him, a woman with intelligent eyes and hands that moved to usher us inside even as she scanned the jungle behind us.
“Inside. Now.” The man’s voice was low, urgent. “They’re not five minutes behind you.”
We stumbled through the door. The woman was already moving, shoving a table aside to reveal a trapdoor in the floor.
“Down. Both of you. Don’t make a sound, no matter what you hear.”
A ladder descended into darkness. Brodie went first, then reached up to help me down. My ankle screamed when I put weight on it, but I bit down on the sound and kept moving.
The space below was cramped—a root cellar, the walls lined with shelves of preserves and hanging bundles of dried herbs. There was barely enough room for the two of us to crouch without touching the low ceiling.
Above, the trapdoor closed. The table scraped back into place.
Darkness. Complete and absolute.
Brodie’s hand found mine again, and I clutched it like an anchor.
“Don’t move,” he breathed against my ear, so quiet I almost didn’t hear. “Don’t speak. Don’t breathe louder than ye must.”
We waited.
My ankle throbbed. Sweat cooled on my skin, making me shiver despite the cellar’s warmth. Above us, I could hear footsteps as they moved around the house, going about some evening routine as if nothing was wrong.
Then, closer. Voices. Pounding on the door. Boots on the wooden floor above our heads.
“—saw them heading this way. Dogs picked up the trail clear as day.”
The overseer. I recognized his voice from the plantation, sharp and suspicious. “Jonah. Ruth. Tell me true, did you see them? The widow will pay handsomely.”
“Ain’t nobody here but us.” Jonah’s voice was calm and even. “Been here all evening. Heard your dogs, though. Heard the bell. Figured someone was running.”
“You figured right. And they came this direction.”
The man, Jonah, cleared his throat. “Plenty of jungle to hide in. Dogs’ll find them if they’re here.”
Boots walked overhead. Stopping. Starting. A door opened—probably checking the other room. My heart was going to explode. I was going to pass out or scream or—
Brodie’s hand squeezed mine. Three times. Steady. Rhythmic. Breathing.
I focused on that. On the pressure of his hand. On counting the seconds between each squeeze. On anything except the boots moving directly overhead, so close I could have reached up and touched the floorboards if I dared move.
“What’s under here?”
“Root cellar. Want to check?” Ruth’s voice now, unconcerned. “Got nothing down there but preserves and potatoes.”
A pause that stretched until I lost count of heartbeats.
“Nah. If they’re in there, they’ll suffocate by morning.” The boots moved away. “You see them, you report it. Widow’s offering fifty pounds for their return. More money than you’ll see in a lifetime.”
“Fifty pounds,” Jonah repeated. “That’s a fortune.”
Ruth added, “We sure could use. I hope we see them.”
“It is a fortune. Think about it.”
The door closed. Voices faded. Dogs barked once more, further away now, moving deeper into the jungle.
We waited. And waited. Long after the sounds disappeared, long after my legs cramped from crouching, long after my lungs burned for deeper air than I dared take.
Finally, the table scraped again. The trapdoor lifted.
Lamplight spilled down, and Ruth’s face appeared, lined with concern. “They’re gone. For now. But they’ll be back come morning. The widow can’t have slaves and servants escaping, it’s bad for business.”
Brodie climbed up first, then reached down to help me. My ankle nearly buckled when I put weight on it, and I couldn’t quite hold back a gasp of pain.
Ruth was there immediately, guiding me to a chair. “Let me see.”
While she examined my ankle with gentle hands, Jonah stood by the window, watching the darkness.
“Thomas said you’d come,” Jonah said quietly. “Said you were worth the risk. That you were different.”
“Different enough to get a lot of people killed,” I said, voice shaking.
“Different enough to try,” Ruth corrected. She wrapped my ankle with strips of cloth. “It’s not broken. Badly twisted, but it’ll heal. You’ll need to stay off it for a few days.”
“We don’t have a few days.” Brodie’s voice was flat. “They’ll come back at dawn.”
Jonah nodded. “They will. Which means you can’t stay here. It puts us at too much risk—not just Ruth and me, but the whole network. If they find you here, everyone we’ve helped gets exposed.”
“Where do we go?” The question came out smaller than I had intended.
“There’s a Maroon settlement. Three days’ travel into the mountains, maybe four with that ankle.
” Jonah turned from the window to face us.
“It’s rough terrain. Dangerous. But if you make it, you’ll be safe.
The widow’s men don’t go that far inland.
Too many ways to die up there, and the Maroons don’t take kindly to slave catchers. ”
“Three days,” I repeated. Through the jungle. With a twisted ankle and hunters on our trail.
“Can ye walk?” Brodie asked me directly.
I met his eyes. Saw the question there, the concern, the determination.
“Yes.”
“Then we leave at dawn.” He looked at Jonah. “They’ll expect us to run at night. We move in daylight, we might stay ahead of them.”
“Maybe.” Jonah didn’t sound convinced. “But you’ll need supplies. Food, water, and something to treat that ankle properly. Ruth can put together a pack.”
“We’ll pay you back,” I said. “Somehow. When this is over.”
Ruth’s smile was sad. “Child, if you make it to the mountains and build a life there, that’s payment enough. We don’t do this for coin. We do it because everyone deserves a chance at freedom.”
They gave us the bed—a real bed with a straw mattress and blankets that smelled of herbs. Insisted, despite our protests. Jonah would keep watch at the window, Ruth in the chair by the door.
“Rest while you can,” Ruth said. “You’ll need your strength come morning.”
But rest seemed impossible. I lay in the darkness, feeling Brodie’s presence beside me on the far edge of the bed, both of us careful not to touch despite the small space. My ankle throbbed. My mind raced.
We’d escaped. We were alive. But for how long?
“Brodie?” I whispered into the dark.
“Aye?”
“Thank you. For coming for me.”
A pause. Then, so quiet I almost missed it: “There was never a question. Never a choice.”
I wanted to ask what he meant. Wanted to reach across the space between us and find his hand again the way I had in the cellar. Wanted to say all the things that had been building inside me since that first day in the courtyard when our eyes met and something shifted in my chest.
But exhaustion pulled at me like a tide, and the darkness was warm, and his breathing was steady beside me.
Tomorrow we’d run again.
Tomorrow there would be mountains and hunters and a hundred ways to die.
But tonight, for this one night, we were together.
We were alive.
And that would have to be enough.