Soon, we’ll be out of here soon, when is soon?

Bayan does not mention anything to us for the next few days.  The trees behind the backyard are turning orange and yellow and brown, and I wonder if I’ll be able to see the electric fence when the leaves are gone.  It runs all around Miss Lilly’s property, to make sure we don’t run away, but Bayan knows how to turn it off, even just for a moment, so that he can talk to Sloan.  And now he’s going to turn it off for us.

I’m antsy and on edge.  Nua probably is too, but he’s a lot better at hiding it than me.  He reads his book again, and he tries to make me calmer, but not much can do it.  Shiv the cat also seems to notice that something is up, because she sleeps in between us every night.  It’s actually her that wakes me up one night, when the moonlight shines through the gap in the curtains.  I wake up to her tail in my face, and then someone’s hand touches my arm.  “Master Aber.”

“Stop doing that,” I murmur, rolling over, and then I open my eyes.  Nua sits up, and reaches out for my shoulder.  I sit up too.  “Bayan.”

He looks at us, a shadow in the dark, and says softly, “Come with me.”

And Nua and I look at each other, and then we roll out of bed and follow him.

He waits for us in the hallway, and then jerks his head down the stairs.  I didn’t even look at the clock, but it must be early in the morning, because all Miss Lilly’s lights are off, and Nua notices the same.  “Is she sleeping?” he asks quietly in to the stillness of the house, and Bayan nods, pressing his finger to his lips.  “I put something in her dinner.”

“You didn’t,” I whisper, and he just smiles slightly.  “Don’t worry.  Shh.”

And so we’re quiet, all the way until we get down to the living room on the first floor.  There’s a bag on the ground, and Bayan nods to it.  “Clothes.”

Nua picks it up, putting it on his shoulder, and looks out into the backyard, the darkness of night.  Bayan takes a deep breath.  “I have to go to the foyer to do all the controls, but I’ll open the doors for you.”

I glance at Nua, and then back at Bayan.  “You have three minutes to get to the fence,” he says softly.  “You have to get over it quick.”

“How tall is it?” asks Nua, and Bayan shrugs.  “I don’t know.  But you’ll only have a minute before I turn it back on again.”

“Why?” I ask, and he rubs his lips together, and then says softly, “She can access the logs, to see when it gets turned off or on.  She never checks, so it’s usually fine, but when she realizes you two are missing…”

Nua and I look at each other.  

“Every so often,” he says quietly, “it turns off on its own so it doesn’t surge.  But never for more than a minute.  So I have to make it look like one of those.”

“Okay,” says Nua softly.  “Okay, we can do it.”

Can we?  But when Nua looks at me I nod, and Bayan nods too.  “Just go straight back.  Sloan should be there, but even if you don’t see her, get over the fence as soon as you can.  You’ll be able to tell when it’s off.”

We’re quiet.  Bayan glances between us.  “Are you ready?”

My heart is pounding in my chest.  I look around the living room, at the couch, the television, the table, and I look into the dining room, where I sat and listened to Bayan and Sloan, when I thought they didn’t know I was eavesdropping.  And then there’s a noise on the stairs, and we all turn around in shock.  I inhale sharply, and then after a moment Shiv the cat comes trotting in to meet us.

Tears spring to my eyes, and I fall to my knees, reaching for her.  She comes to me, rubbing her face against my hands, and I scratch her behind the ears, and then I rise to my feet again.  Nua looks at me, and then at Bayan.  I take a deep, shuddering breath, and then say, “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” repeats Nua.  “Let’s go.”

Bayan smiles slightly, and gestures to the sliding glass door.  “You’ll hear it click when it unlocks,” he says softly, “and you’ll have three minutes to get to the fence.”

“One minute to get over,” I say softly, and he nods, and then reaches down and picks up the cat.  She squirms, and I say, “Take care of her.”

Bayan smiles and nods, and says, “Take care of Penny for me.”

Nua grins at that, his fingers touching mine.  “We’ll come back for you, Bayan.”

He smiles slightly, and then like a shadow at dawn, he disappears.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I take another deep breath, and turn to the door.  Four minutes.  We have four minutes to get out of this house, to get away from Miss Lilly, and if we do it, we’ll be gone, forever.  We’ll be gone from Ava and all our memories of her, but we’ll be free, and that’s what she wanted.  We’ll be with her twin, and all of her boys will be safe, which is all she wanted.  All of her boys, except Keol.  And Bayan, but just for now, because we’ll be back for him.  

And then the door makes a soft click noise, and Nua goes to it and gently slides it open.  Four minutes.  Three fifty-nine.  Three fifty-eight.

He waits for me to get out to the back porch too, and then slides it shut again.  And then he takes a deep breath of the fresh air we’ve been missing for weeks, and reaches out his hand for me.  I take it.  And we run.

Three forty-five.

It’s hard to run holding hands, though, so we let go as we hit the grass.  We sprint between the pool and the fountain, along the grass behind it, I’ve never been so far back here.  Three, two fifty-nine, two fifty-eight.  And then we hit the trees, and Nua stops, turning around, and looks up at the house.  “Oh, god.”

“Don’t stop,” I whisper.  “Not now.  Let’s go.”  Two thirty.

And so we keep going.  Nua’s got the bag on his back, so he goes behind me, and we go into the trees.  There’s too many of them, I never realized how many there were, and the leaves have been starting to fall.  They crunch under my feet, and I wince with the noise, but there’s no time to think.  Two fifteen, two fourteen, two thirteen.  We have to be there by now, how big is Miss Lilly’s property?  Where is this fence?  Two minutes.  We only have one minute to find it now, and one to get over it.  Nua catches up to me and pokes me in the back, and I take another step forward, and then duck under a branch.  “Nua.”

“It’s here somewhere,” he says, slightly out of breath.  “We’re almost there.”

One forty-five, one forty-four, one forty-three, and then he says, “Listen.”

There’s a low humming noise drifting through the leaves, and I look back at him.  He nods.  “Keep going.”

It only takes me a few more steps forward around a few more trees to see it.  A huge metal wire fence right in the forest, a line of trees cleared to make room for it, and it makes a noise in the night.  There’s a sign on it a little ways down, but I can’t read it from here.  One thirty.  One twenty-nine.

Nua joins me, and takes a deep breath.  “Any second now.”

One twenty.  One nineteen.

His fingers curl around mine, and then squeeze, and I take a deep shuddering breath to calm down.  “It’s gotta go,” I whisper, “it’s gotta turn off.”

One ten, one nine, one eight.

“It will,” says Nua.  “Bayan’s got it.”

One two, one one.  And the noise fades away, leaving a vacuum in the air, and I make a noise.  Nua lets go of my fingers and takes the bag off his shoulder, and then heaves it in the air.  It soars over the fence and lands on the other side with a thud, crunching a few dozen leaves.  I wince.  Nua goes to the fence himself, and puts his hand on it.  “Come on.”

And he hoists himself up, and begins to climb.

Forty-five.  I have to go, now.  I follow him up, all the way to the top, I’m panting, my sleeve gets caught on a piece of metal but I rip it off and then take the tiny piece of fabric left behind with me.  Thirty.  Nua puts one leg over and then the other, and starts to climb down.  Fifteen.  When he’s about halfway down he jumps, and looks up at me.  “Hurry.”

I swing my legs over, too.  The top of the fence isn’t barbed or anything, but it’s pointy and metal and there are tears in my eyes, I’m so scared, and Nua’s looking up at me in desperation, and I just let go.  And I fall to the ground, slamming into the dirt.  The fence begins to hum again, and I roll onto my back.  “Ow.”

Nua comes to my side, reaching out his hand.  “You okay?”

I look up at him, and he smiles a little as I grab his hand.  He pulls me up, and says, “We’re on the other side of the fence.”

“Yes,” I say, “we are.”

A twig snaps behind us, and we both turn.  I feel fear ripping its way through me, and then someone steps out of the shadows, holding a broken branch in her hands.  Sloan smiles, tossing it to the side, and says, “Aber and Nua LeGatte.”

“I suppose,” I mutter.  She grins again, and then looks back in the direction of house through the trees.  “I’m Sloan.  I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Nua looks over his shoulder, back at the beach house too, and sighs.  He’s been here for over a year by this point.  I wonder if he got used to it, before I came, before they died.  “We’ll go get Bayan soon, right?”

“We’ll figure something out,” says Sloan quietly.  She jerks her head into the trees.  “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” I ask quietly, and she grins a little.  “Aren’t you here to see Penny?”

Nua smiles a little too, looking up at the sky, and then reaches down.  He picks up the bag and puts it over his shoulder again, and says, “Yes.”

“Alright,” says Sloan, starting to move, and we follow.  “The entrance is just a mile or so this way.”

Entrance?  I look at Nua, but he seems as confused as me.  He just shrugs.  The moonlight shines through the leaves, falling in a patchwork like feathers on the ground, and the air is crisp.  Nua and I haven’t been outside in a while, I forgot how good it feels and only now am I recognizing it.  I’ve always loved the fall.

Sloan seems to know exactly where she’s going, even though everything looks the same to me.  It’s spooky, being in a forest in the middle of the night, but she slips through the trees like wind, dressed all in black so no one can see her.  Her skin is as dark as night, and her hair is cut short above her ears so it’s not distracting.  My hair and Nua’s have both been growing for months, mine is longer than I think it’s ever been and his is around his shoulders now, it keeps falling into his eyes.  But we just keep going, as quiet as we can over the leaves and the roots and the trees, until finally after around twenty minutes she slows to a stop.  “Come here.”

And we go to her side, and she points down at the ground.  In the middle of the grass and the moss is what looks like a manhole cover, and she crouches down next to it, and then with some effort lifts it up and out of the ground, revealing a very narrow hole in the ground.  Nua exhales out, catching his breath, and says, “Are we going into the sewer?”

Sloan smiles slightly.  “No, but we are going underground.  Are you ready?”

I take a deep breath of fresh air one more time, and nod.  “Yeah.”

“I have to take you one at a time,” she says softly.  “It’s hard to get in there, on purpose, and I can’t worry about both of you at the same time.  Who’s first?”

She looks between us, and I look at Nua.  He nods at me.  “You go.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’ll only take a few minutes for each of you,” says Sloan with a slight smile.  Nua nods, reaching out his hand.  “I’ll be fine, Aber.  I’ll wait here.”

“Alright,” I say, taking his hand, and then I draw him in for a hug.  When we separate, Sloan is in the whole, only her head sticking out into the night air.  She gestures for me to follow.  “After me.”

Alright, I think, as her head disappears.  I go to look in the whole myself; there’s a very narrow ladder made out of metal rings sticking out of one side, and Sloan’s on her way down.  I slowly put my foot on the top rung, and look up at Nua.  He smiles.  Here I go.