Dad was right about one thing. Alice did need a time-out. But if he thought condemning her to a bedroom would be enough, he had another thing coming.

She crept around the hallway, her steps cushioned as she made sure to not make the slightest creak. The slightest peak. In the darkness of night, she blended in seamlessly with her all-black leather and shades. A ninja that needed no magic to remain out of sight. Freedom was so close she could taste it.

She seized as the lights flicked on, sirens blaring overhead.

“Son of a-”

She could already hear the dogs barking. They’d found her dummy.

“Alright, Plan B.”

She raced ahead, forgoing stealth for a mad dash towards the front door. Office security was far behind her. She could make it. Dad would be eating his words when she got her immortal butt to the-

“FREEZE!”

Her hands shot up, the front doors bursting open. Dad’s men poured through one by one, guns raised and dogs snarling. She froze, eyes immediately locking with the blonde official standing behind them all with arms crossed.

Her father did not look happy. And neither was she. Attempt 1 ended in failure.

Attempt 2 had a much better start as she remembered to record herself sleeping to fool the guards a tad longer. Long enough to sneak out the window and down into the safety of the garden. The long expanse of grassy field wasn’t the most well-hidden, but Alice had gotten used to it. She knew her way around.

As she knew of the secret tunnel that led directly to the outside world. One she'd built as a kid and was happy to see the previous tenants had yet to discover. Alice snickered.

“Better luck next time, old man.”

She popped open the lid disguised as a patch of slightly darker grass, squeezing through the narrow opening as she’d done so many times when she was twelve. The tunnel had a few extra visitors who’d showed up uninvited, but the spiders only gave Alice the briefest heart attack. Nothing closing her eyes and rushing through wouldn’t fix.

“Ew ew ew ew ew ew!”

She bumped her head against the end, standing up to feel for the exit hatch. She emerged like a prairie dog moments later, the smell of freedom blowing through her nostrils.

Several guns trained on her.

“Son of a-”

The sea of guards all stared her down, her father standing at the back and shaking his head. They'd been waiting for her. Alice groaned, raising both hands. Yet another busted attempt.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

But Attempt 3 gave her the best luck yet. After getting rid of the cobwebs in her hair, she managed to sneak away to the one place that she knew her father would never think to look. The vents! No one ever checked the vents. They once had a family of owls nesting their only she knew about. She’d befriended them with mice and even saw one give birth. It was the perfect hiding spot! The perfect escape!

Now where's the- Ah. Open sesame!

She pushed the steel grate. It didn't move.

What the?

She pressed against it, the light from outside beaming brightly through the openings. The grate held. You gotta be kidding me. She doubled back, giving the metal a hard kick. Harder. Nothing. Move you stupid thing. She kicked and kicked, the grate rattling as her heel bounced off each time.

After over a dozen kicks, Alice slumped to the ground.

“Son of a- Why can't you let me have this?”

The guards were swarming the grate seconds later, her father’s people helping her out while he looked on. After three consecutive attempts, Alice was too tired to resist. They led her back to her room in silence.

***

Guard rotations intensified, her room a constant influx of some five or six agents at a time. She couldn’t so much as shower without someone waiting outside with a towel. They were lucky. If she wasn't so tired, she might have walked around naked out of spite.

“Your dinner will be arriving in twelve minutes, Ms. Alice,” a guard said as she was drying her face. “Do you have any viewing requests?”

“Just put on whatever, I don’t care.”

“Yes, Ms. Alice.”

When one walked away, another arrived. Always the set five or six. Even when she slept she felt their eyes, though she stopped noticing after a while. The daily routine of being marched from room to room was something she'd done as a kid. And that was before they found out about the wizard’s soul living inside her.

They only stopped when she got to high school so she could have a “normal” social life. As normal as it was being the daughter of a high-ranking official and having immortal holy powers.

“And tonight we’ve got a special report. The city of Angelas is still reeling after a sudden blackout caused an over thirty-car pile-up on Highway 63. Investigations are still underway as citizens continue to deal with the aftermath.”

Alice sipped at her soup. Clam chowder wasn’t her favorite by any means, but the chefs were the best in the nation. They could make dirt taste good. She lifted up the bowl, drinking the broth as the news anchor kept on about some random blackout a few cities over. She was too drained to change the channel.

“One minute I was just cruising on the freeway, the next, there’s this giant- I don’t know- Monster thing? And then everything just went dark.”

She bit through a biscuit, half wondering if she'd ever taste liquor again. Four months didn't sound long, but when you were trapped in bed, the days all seemed to blend together. At the very least, she still had TV.

“It was like boom, and then it just- just like flew through the air. I swear, if I wasn’t stuck in traffic, I woulda took a picture.”

Alice's gaze drifted to the window, the sun setting low on the horizon. There was one silver lining, albeit an annoying one. Due to her failed escape attempts, Dad was insisting she be put back in school. The spring semester would start soon.

Alice sighed. God, I wish I was born somewhere else.

She looked back to the news, a police sketch appearing for what had turned into some weird conspiracy report. Her brow raised at the dark image.

It looked like a giant black dog.