Chapter Four: The Escape
Anna's POV
On the first day, I pounded the basement door until my knuckles split open. Blood streaked across the metal in long, dark lines.
"Let me out!"
"I won't marry him — do you hear me? I would rather die than marry him!"
No one came. I could hear the servants moving back and forth on the floor above, the click of my stepmother's heels, Mia's voice bright and sweet: "Mom, can you help me pick a dress for tonight?"
They all heard me. Not one of them came.
The first day passed. Then the second. They slid food and water through a gap at the bottom of the door. I didn't touch any of it. If they wanted to sell me off to the Kingsley family, they needed a living bride — a corpse was worthless to everyone. So I sat with my back against the wall and watched the food on the tray grow cold, turning the thought over quietly in my mind: this is the one thing they cannot force me to do. This is the only choice I have left. I would starve to death before I gave in.
By the second night, the hunger had become something else entirely. My stomach cramped so badly I had to press my forehead to the floor and breathe through the pain. My hands were shaking. My lips had cracked. The water sat three feet away. I stared at it and did not move.
On the third day, they noticed I hadn't eaten.
The basement door swung open. My stepmother walked in, four servants filing in behind her.
"Hold her down," she said.
Two of them hauled me up from the floor and pinned my arms. A third pried my jaw open. I thrashed and twisted my head, but I had nothing left. A spoonful of something was forced in, then another — thin congee flooding the back of my throat. I choked. Food and tears and saliva ran down my chin.
I gagged. They forced in more.
My stepmother stood to one side and watched without expression. "Be careful. Don't choke her to death. The Kingsleys want her alive — if she dies, we'll have a very difficult time explaining it."
When they let go, I vomited most of it onto the floor, my stomach convulsing. My stepmother turned and walked out with the servants. The door locked behind them.
I lay there as something almost like absurdity settled over me. A hunger strike. How naive. I wasn't even allowed to die on my own terms.
The fifth day. Deep in the night.
I sat in the corner with my back against the wall, staring at nothing. My thoughts kept circling — is there any way out? Do I really have no choice?
Then I heard a faint sound at the door. A key sliding into the lock, turning slowly.
The door opened. An old woman stepped inside — white-haired, wearing a faded apron.
Mary.
My eyes burned instantly.
Mary had worked for the Grey family for decades. Before my parents' divorce, she was the one who raised me — fed me, bathed me, walked me to school, sat at my bedside when I was sick, always singing the same song: an old folk tune about a bird finding its way home. I used to grab fistfuls of her apron just like this, tugging at the hem: Mary, sing it again, please, just one more time. She would pretend to be exasperated. She always sang it again. When the divorce came, I left with my mother. I never said goodbye to Mary. I was seven years old, and I didn't understand yet that leaving could mean forever. I never saw her again. When I returned to the Grey house a year ago, she had been demoted to the lowest household duties. We had barely spoken.
She stood in the doorway, looking at me where I was curled in the corner. "Oh, Anna… you poor child."
I threw myself at her feet, gripping her apron with both hands. "Mary — please, help me. I can't marry into the Kingsley family. You know what people say about him — the third son — you must have heard the rumors. Mary, please, I can't —"
"I know, child," she said, and her voice broke. "I know."
"Then help me get out. Tonight. Before they —"
"Hush." She glanced back toward the corridor. "Keep your voice down."
I could see the fear in her. If the family found out she had let me go, they wouldn't simply dismiss her. My stepmother would make sure she never found work again. Or worse.
Mary was old. She had no savings, no family. This position was everything she had.
"If they catch me…" she began.
"I know," I whispered. "I know what it would cost you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
A long silence.
Then she drew a slow, deep breath. "Everyone's asleep," she said, and bent down, her trembling hands pulling me to my feet. "Come with me. I'll take you out through the back."
"Anna — run. Run as far as you can."
I followed her through the basement corridor, past the kitchen's side entrance, around the low garden wall. Every step felt like walking on the edge of a blade. My heart slammed against my ribs.
The back gate. Mary pushed it open, then pressed something into my palm. I looked down: a small fold of crumpled bills and a few coins — roughly half a month's wages, I guessed. Everything she had been able to scrape together.
"Take it," she said, her eyes wet. "And don't come back. No matter what happens, don't come back to this house."
She cupped my face in her hands. Her palms were rough and warm.
"Go, child. Go now."
I looked at her one last time. Then I turned and ran into the dark.
I ran barefoot on asphalt. Sharp gravel cut into the soles of my feet. The night wind cut through my thin clothes and I shook with cold. I didn't stop.
But my body had nothing left. Eventually my legs buckled, my vision blurred, and a low ringing filled my ears. I hit the ground hard. Through the narrowing tunnel of my sight, I saw headlights in the distance, an engine's roar filling the empty road.
That car was going to hit me. I was too weak to move. It was going to hit me, and that was how this would end — I was going to die on this road.
The brakes screamed. The car stopped less than a meter from my head.
Before I lost consciousness, I could make out only a blurred silhouette: someone stepping out from the driver's side. Tall. Broad-shouldered.
He was walking toward me.
