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When I finally escaped mycaptors and made a run—or I hobbled—for freedom, I would go out of my way to avoid ever being sedated again. It was one thing to wake up with a clean nest and a meal, but it was another to discover somebody had seriously fucked around with my foot without my permission.

I wanted to scream and yell at the bastards for taking away my cast, but I put a lid on my complaints for one simple reason.

Somehow, I had a foot, and it was a mostly intact one. When nature called enough I was forced to make the journey to the bathroom with my chain in tow, I got up to one foot with the help of the pipes.

A few new scars indicated somebody had gotten feisty with my abused right foot. The pale lines, on a part of my foot my doctors typically avoided for whatever reason, led me to believe somebody had decided to try something new. The lack of a boot or a cast terrified me.

I’d heard the lecture a few too many times.

Weight without support could finish my foot off and lead to an amputation.

While I needed to pee, I also needed an intact foot, and my captors hadn’t felt I needed a cane to get around. I had been able to manage without a cane for both the cast and the boot, which had offered the appropriate support. The note had promised the cast would support my foot, although I needed to keep it dry. I had.

The note hadn’t been a lie.

Mountainous stacks of new books waited for me, something I would appreciate, assuming I could make it to the bathroom without inflicting permanent injury upon myself. Bracing for the burning, stabbing pain of testing my luck, I rested my toe on the cold floor.

Nothing happened, not even a twinge. I wiggled my toes, and outside of the soreness of my foot having been cramped in a cast for a long time, I escaped discomfort.

I held the position for at least two minutes before I applied more pressure, placing the ball of my foot onto the ground. The one time I’d been instructed to do the exercise, it’d been done in a controlled environment to make certain I understood the problems I faced in the future.

None of the throbbing agony I expected came. As so many of the damaged bones were near the ball of my foot, it should have hurt.

I should have been crying the instant I’d tried to put any weight on my unsupported toe.

Clutching the pipe in a white-knuckled grip, I lowered the rest of my foot down, flinching when my heel touched the concrete.

I’d been kidnapped by miracle workers wielding the sort of magic I’d spent years dreaming about. While my muscles ached, I dodged the expected pain. I eased my full weight onto my foot. The ache grew to an odd soreness, dull and bearable. I’d been told I’d one day experience being sore, but not for years, not until after the damaged bones in my foot were able to support my weight and my battered, torn, and otherwise abused muscles had a chance to heal.

It should have taken numerous operations for that to happen due to the shattered state of the bones and joints.

How long had I waited in the basement to find some way to escape?

I’d given up on the idea of being rescued.

It took me a long time to work up the courage to take my first true step, and I leaned against the wall in fear of the pain I expected. The soreness bothered me, but as it counted more as an ache rather than true pain, I made myself walk to the bathroom and begin the progress of setting up a bubble bath where I’d read a book—and attempt to check on my foot with my uncooperative, scrambled magic.

A pair of flats waited beside the pile of clean clothes, along with a pair of sneakers, and I wasted at least ten minutes trying to remember what it was like to wear a normal pair of shoes rather than tossing the unneeded right one. Shaking my head, I forced my attention back to the more important matter, which involved attempting to use my magic on myself. I expected to be thwarted thanks to the mystery cocktail they used trying to contain me—or heal my foot. Or both.

I removed the bracelet designed to control my exsanguination abilities. While I was rustier than I liked at using my magic, I was able to detect they’d somehow cured my foot of the lingering infection, and while there was a minor amount of inflammation due to the persistent injury, a single ibuprofen could handle it, assuming I could get my hands on the drug.

Rather than read one of the books, I spent my entire bath puzzling over why anyone would, outside of my inner circle of family and friends, want to heal my foot. Who? Why?

How?

The how would bother me later, sometime after I figured out the who or why. I could see Bradley pulling some form of stunt if he thought I could have a functional foot in a short period of time. However, I couldn’t see him—or anyone in his family—locking me in isolation for an extended period of time.

I could only assume I’d been living in the concrete room with its sole bathroom for at least several weeks if not several months. Scars didn’t form overnight, not without a lot of magic backing it, and I’d been on a full regime of antibiotics, something that typically lasted at least ten days but could extend for up to a month. That I’d lost count of meals led me to believe I’d been held captive for months.

I resented having lost even more of my life to bullshit. At least the first round of bullshit I’d controlled—to a point. Had I been given a choice, we would have all walked away from that crash. I’d emerged the victor.

Bradley had walked away.

No, the more I thought about it, the less I believed he could have had anything to do with my imprisonment. Aware the bathroom had undergone some illusionary alterations, for all I knew, I could have been in an apartment, one disguised as some barren basement. Or a house. Or an abandoned office at the top of some skyscraper. Or in some barn deep in the country. I’d seen studio apartments without actual kitchens plenty of times. All it would take was installing a wall, adding some pipes, a layer of concrete, and some paint to create my cell.

Alternatively, a damned good illusion to trick me into believing I dealt with concrete instead of wood or carpet. I could have also been tricked into believing that there was no kitchen.

After having given them the slip once, my parents might lock me in a room for the rest of my life, but they would demand daily visitations. My mother would, given her way, bar me from ever eating out of a take-out container ever again, eliminating them from my list of suspects.

She couldn’t bear the thought of spanking me. There was no way my mother would condone isolation. While my father had no problems dishing out appropriate punishments whenever I endangered my life, he rarely used any form of isolation as a punishment tool, as my introverted self often viewed it as a reward.

Had the culprit known me, the take-out containers would have contained my favorite Chinese food at least once a day, with the rare appearance of Thai to offer some variety. I assumed my kidnappers had worked with limited ideas of what I enjoyed eating, although they’d been educated on how to keep a librarian somewhat amused and questionably sane during long-term imprisonment.

Captivity with daily offerings of Chinese food would have limited my desire to bust out somewhat, not that my desire to escape helped me accomplish anything.

Annoyed over how one magic trick had done such a good job of holding me prisoner, I got out of the bath, dried off, inched my way around the bathroom, taking care with each step. Once confident I would pay in soreness rather than pain, I stood straight without the help of the wall.

While my foot expressed some discomfort with my choice to use it, the experiment worked.

I limped, but I could walk.

Given a few months and a lot of effort, the possibility existed that I might not limp at all.

At a loss of what to think about my situation, I retrieved several more books from near my nest, drew another bath, and soaked in the tub, pretending to read a book. I spent the time attempting to make sense of who would do what my doctors couldn’t. The why also continued to baffle me. Without the answers to either, I was left with one final question:

What did these people hope to gain from me?

It took me less than five minutes to realize that, outside of making use of me as some weapon to kill people, I offered very little to anyone with limited exceptions. I would need to accuse Bradley’s mother of dropping him on his head as a baby. I would deny any accusations of having fallen for my ex-boss, although I’d be called out as the liar I was within moments of the denial leaving my lips.

I missed him, I missed his family, I missed my family, and I missed our friends.

When I considered the possibilities, I was left with few options. As it would take more than an extended captivity to convince me to kill anyone without just cause, I could only assume the killers wanted me out of the way so I couldn’t interfere with their plans.

Why else would anyone want me?

But why heal my foot if the goal was to get me out of the way?

I could understand, in a twisted way, if they believed I would kill without remorse. I couldn’t. I would, but only if pushed into a corner and there were no other options. I’d always wanted to help people rather than hurt them. If somebody showed up, I might be inclined to start hurting somebody, but I’d use non-lethal force as part of my haphazard flight to freedom.

I changed into clean clothes, muttered curses over the illusionist making it so I couldn’t dive out through the hidden window, and retreated to my nest.

If only I knew what lurked beyond the window disguised with magic I couldn’t beat.

Unless I came up with a plan that would let me escape alive and well, all I could do was wait.

Isolation would drive me mad.

Talking to the ever-growing pile of books didn’t help. I longed to hear somebody’s voice. I’d even deal with a long meeting with Representative Kennedys if it meant I could converse with another sentient being. I missed my fluffy goddess, I longed to go hide under a bed—any bed would do, although I’d probably pick the one with the largest stash of car magazines so I could take my foot on a test drive of something pretty, fast, and ready to rule the roads.

To add to the problem, the days of sliding through a drugged haze were over. The pills disappeared from the meal regime, and while I got dosed with fucking knock-out gas more often that I appreciated, they’d taken to providing a cooler with sandwich fixings for several meals and one hot meal, resulting in even longer periods with nothing to do and no one to do anything with.

The novelty of having two working feet lingered, and I alternated between wearing shoes because I could and enjoying pattering around in my bare feet. If I did find a way out, I could only hope anyone observing my activities wouldn’t take notice of when I wore shoes.

My clothing would be an issue, as the wraps did a good job of covering me but left my arms exposed.

The weather would dictate when I could escape, and I’d lost complete track of the seasons.

If the seasons had changed. I suspected they had.

The arrival of new books kept me almost sane, and I tore through them with the same voracity of a starved shark in bloodied waters. Once I read them, I formed book pyramids, made a tunnel, and even, at one point, built a book castle to demonstrate to my captors they had crossed every last one of my lines and threatened to destroy me through boredom.

I loved books, but there were limits to how many books I could read without any other form of mental stimulation.

As I’d established my desperation for anything to do through stacking books together in creative ways, I dismantled my first few projects and began a venture born of desperation, boredom, and curiosity.

Before I’d been given hundreds upon hundreds of books to keep me amused, I’d been unable to examine the walls without drawing unwanted attention to myself. With my book castle building tendencies serving as a front for my more nefarious activities, I began with building an arch along a blank section of wall near my nest. I filled in the bottom with stacks of books to hide my activities, and continued to build my book castle, aware if the damned thing fell, I’d lose life or limb to the crushing weight of paperbacks and hardbacks.

Some risks were worth taking, and while I hesitated to fling myself through an unknown window to my potential death, a crushing defeat from one of my favorite hobbies bothered me a great deal less. I held some chance of general survival, assuming someone monitored my activities. I assumed somebody kept a close eye on me.

Why waste their investment allowing me to die from a castle of books squishing me?

I reserved one of my favorite books from my building efforts, and once I had a series of arches creating a roof, I dragged several pillows and some blankets inside to lead my captors into believing I’d taken complete leave of my senses and read in my new palace.

One of the blankets went over my arches, which somehow held despite their precarious nature, and I positioned my nest so I could read from the light coming in through the castle’s entry. I made a point of enjoying my book for a while before retreating inside, where I removed the books stacked beneath the backmost arch and began my search of the wall.

I found nothing.

After reading my book for a while longer, I went to work dismantling the arches forming the roof, taking a vicious delight in creating literary destruction before I began working on my next challenge, which involved creating a tiered version of my castle, which would put the open gap in my arch roughly where I’d find a window. Figuring out how to create a shield from the cameras tested me, and I ultimately used a stack of books to pin a blanket in place before crawling back inside, creating a staircase of books to where I wanted to check the wall, and taking frequent breaks to read in case anyone was monitoring me.

When I confirmed my eyes didn’t play tricks on me thanks to a strong illusionist working magic on me, I dismantled my castle, moved it to a new location, and repeated the process, making a new design each time in the hopes my captors would realize I ventured perilously close to joining the ranks of the insane due to cabin fever.

Sometimes, I set up my castle away from the walls to help trick anyone who might be watching. Sometimes, I built something other than a castle in a futile attempt to alleviate the brutal crush of boredom. Sometimes, I abandoned my castles halfway through building them, retreating to my nest to take a nap.

Often, I forgot to eat anything beyond the first meal after I woke from my gas-induced slumber. I knew better, but I struggled enough with finding the motivation to seek out some route of escape. I blamed my faltering common sense, which struggled to survive in the onslaught of relentless monotony.

Time lost meaning sometime after beginning my quest to find a route of escape, but my castle-building scheme bore results. Like in the bathroom, the window featured plenty of space for me to crawl through. Unlike in the bathroom, once I penetrated the illusion’s barrier, the magic failed to thwart me. I could understand why. Without constant surveillance in the bathroom, more magic and trickery was required to keep me in place.

I praised myself for my common sense, as my window was positioned on the third floor, which would make an uncontrolled tumble a dangerous and likely lethal affair. Fortunately for me, the house was a mix of brick and stone, offering footholds for the industrious to use during an escape. Better yet, I spotted no signs of an alarm system.

I could open the window, slide out, and make my break for freedom. Even better, I would only have to cross some twenty feet of neatly trimmed grass to reach the security of the woods. In bad news, I couldn’t spot another house anywhere in sight, which led me to believe I’d been either taken to the country or to somewhere like the Hamptons, where the wealthy could have access to excellent restaurant food while using cleverly placed trees and manmade forests to guard their slice of heaven within spitting distance of New York City.

To play to my captor’s expectations, I emerged from my latest marvel of book architecture, investigated the room in general, took a bath, peeked in the cooler but opted to wait for one more hot meal before staging a break for freedom.

With a little luck, nobody would believe I had found anything, and I’d retreat with a book to the window, crawl inside my book fort, and stage the appearance of taking a nap, something I tended to do within my creations.

All that was left to do was wait.

I took three baths,built a moat for my latest castle using books with blue covers, and added two towers before my wait bore fruit. As always, the sedatives left me foggy after I woke up, but I ate, investigated the cooler as usual to discover the regular assortment of sandwich fixings. I wrinkled my nose, determining from the amount of ice, slices of bread, and general condiments, they expected me to go at least six or seven meals—at least. I could probably make the food stretch for four or five days if needed.

I closed the cooler, shoved it in a corner, and took yet another bath to maintain the illusion I meant to adhere to my regular patterns. Assuming someone watched me, they would see me do as always. Once cleaned, I rummaged through the offered clothes, picked a pair of jeans, and dressed in one of the wraps, picking a thicker material in the hopes I wouldn’t freeze to death. The outdoors hadn’t looked like fall or winter, but late spring could pack some nasty surprises.

Until I staged my escape, I wouldn’t know.

I picked the sneakers as my footwear of choice, hoping they’d have better grip than the thin-soled flats. With no other reasons to delay, I retreated into the castle, set the stage so anyone watching would believe I’d settled in for a nap or to read, and targeted my next obstacle: the handcuffs.

As suspected, once I peeled away the fluffy material, which had been sewn closed with loose stitches, my hand slipped free of the metal. I scraped a little skin off, which I considered a victory, all things considered.

Aware there might be an alarm system I couldn’t see, I pawed at the frame in search of the small boxes that detected if a window opened, finding nothing. I tested the latch, which opened with no resistance. Holding my breath, I lifted the window up.

It slid up, and all remained quiet.

The screen popped out with little effort, and I eased it against the wall, so once outside, I could finagle it back into place, not perfect, but enough to trick anyone who might glance up and expect to see a screen in place. The trick would be crawling out the window without knocking over my castle or revealing I intended to leave the house. Had the window been smaller, I doubted I’d be able to manage, but I could, assuming I stuck my head and part of my shoulder out first, then eased my leg through, better positioned myself, and scooted out without tumbling to a premature demise.

The last time I’d tried a stunt so brazen and stupid, I’d been Bradley’s bodyguard rather than his future wife, and I questioned if he’d still want me to be his wife once he learned I’d escaped out a window in a rather precarious fashion.

My right foot complained in a low-grade ache I dare use it to do something as reckless as escape from a third-story window, but as the ache fell far short of my criteria for pain and actual injury, I clacked my teeth together, resisted the urge to curse, and jammed my toes into the cracks between the brick until I could stay balanced with the help of one hand or my elbow, while I strained to position the screen back into place. I discovered a tab on each side, which gave me the leverage needed to cram it into the space.

Something magnetic at the top of the window helped secure the damned thing into place, and with a pull of each tab, I managed to restore the screen into its rightful place.

“Damn,” I whispered, raising a brow at the little trick the homeowner had done to keep bugs out of their home. Later, I would thank the assholes for their nice house design. I’d also steal the hack and make sure the bugs stayed out, although I’d use stronger magnets and the screen version of Fort Knox. In New York, cockroaches could fly.

I could see one of those bastards taking the top of the screen out with the current magnet.

With one obstacle out of the way, I adjusted my hold so I wouldn’t smash my fingers between sill and frame, strained to reach up, and slid the window closed, wincing at the thump. To my delight, the bounce of the wood against the sill jarred the latch into the locked position.

Before my luck could change, I secured a hold on the window’s frame and began the tedious process of easing my left foot down to find a lower foot hold. Once I found one, I lowered my right hand, found a brick sticking out farther than its neighbors, and gripped it. Fortunately for my nerves, the place seemed to use actual brick in the construction rather than a flimsy veneer.

A veneer might have sheared away from the actual building under my weight, which would have ruined my day in a hurry.

When the brick turned to stone, my job became easier, as the designer had opted for a textured surface offering me a lot of hand and foot holds. I slid down the wall, landed on the ground on my left foot to spare testing my right, and headed for the trees.

Rather than attempt to run, I strolled over as though I belonged there, slid around the first sizable tree I encountered and let out a breath before staying still and waiting for any sign of the house stirring after my escape. I counted my breaths until I reached five hundred before I peeked around the trunk.

The house remained still and quiet. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve believed the place to be owned by some couple with a kid or two. From what I could see in through the windows, the owners appreciated rustic living.

Instead of a frame of books and darkness, the window I’d crawled through appeared to be in some sort of office or study, with gauzy white curtains and a lamp offering light. Sometime much later, after I located the nearest public library, figured out the date, recovered from the shock of my long-term captivity, and made a game plan, I would appreciate the amount of effort someone had put in containing me.

I never would have been able to escape with a booted foot; I would have fallen, probably to my death, attempting the climb down. However much I disliked how long I’d waited, I would convince myself of its necessity. Once I had a better idea of what was going on, what the news had to say about my kidnapping—if it had anything to say about it—and took better stock of my situation, I would make a plan. With a little luck, my plan would involve reporting to a police station to announce I’d been kidnapped and would really like to contact my family and friends.

Time would tell.