Chapter 2: The Escape Before Sunrise
Chapter 2: The Escape Before Sunrise
I didn't move.
Not when Rachel closed my laptop.
Not when Daniel locked the metal box again.
Not even when I felt the mattress dip as he slid back into bed beside me.
Only after I heard his breathing become slow and steady did I dare open my eyes.
The room was still dark.
My heart wasn't.
It hammered so violently that my ribs hurt.
I slowly removed the pill from inside my cheek and wrapped it inside a tissue beneath my pillow.
Evidence.
For the first time in weeks, I finally had proof that I hadn't imagined any of it.
I glanced at the digital clock.
2:17 a.m.
Less than four hours until sunrise.
Less than four hours before Daniel expected me to wake up confused, exhausted, and easy to manipulate.
I needed to disappear before then.
Very carefully, I reached for my phone.
No signal.
My stomach dropped.
Airplane mode.
I never used airplane mode.
Daniel did.
As quietly as possible, I turned it off.
The phone immediately lit up with dozens of missed notifications.
Twenty-three missed calls.
Nine text messages.
Most were from my best friend, Megan.
The last one had arrived just before midnight.
Please call me. I know something is wrong. Daniel told everyone you were having another episode, but I don't believe him.
Another episode?
My fingers trembled.
Daniel had already started preparing everyone.
He wasn't just planning to steal my house.
He was building a story.
A believable one.
I opened my contacts.
Half of them were gone.
My brother.
My attorney.
My accountant.
Deleted.
Someone had erased them.
Someone who knew exactly which people could stop this.
I quickly typed my attorney's number from memory.
No answer.
Straight to voicemail.
I whispered as softly as I could.
"If anything happens to me... Daniel is doing this."
Before hanging up, I sent my live location to Megan along with one sentence.
Don't reply. Call the police if you don't hear from me by 7 a.m.
I deleted the conversation afterward.
If Daniel checked my phone, I needed it to look untouched.
Then I quietly slipped out of bed.
Daniel stirred.
I froze.
His arm stretched across the mattress.
For one horrifying second, I thought he had caught me.
Instead, he simply rolled over and continued sleeping.
I nearly collapsed from relief.
Barefoot, I crept into the hallway.
The old wooden floor groaned beneath my feet.
I stopped after every step, listening.
Nothing.
Downstairs, moonlight spilled through the kitchen windows.
I headed toward the front door.
Locked.
Not unusual.
Until I reached for the deadbolt.
It wouldn't turn.
There was another lock.
A new one.
Installed on the outside.
My blood ran cold.
Daniel hadn't been protecting the house.
He'd been making sure I couldn't leave.
I hurried to the back door.
The same thing.
Locked from the outside.
Every window on the first floor had brand-new security sensors.
I remembered Daniel proudly telling me he was "upgrading the home."
No.
He'd been upgrading my prison.
Panic clawed at my throat.
Then I heard footsteps upstairs.
Slow.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
Daniel.
I ducked into the laundry room just as the hallway light flicked on.
His voice echoed through the house.
"Honey?"
Silence.
Another step.
"You awake?"
I held my breath so tightly my lungs burned.
The laundry room door didn't quite close.
Through the narrow crack, I watched him walk into the kitchen.
He wasn't sleepy anymore.
He was alert.
Scanning.
Searching.
His eyes landed on the front door.
Then the back door.
Then...
The medicine cabinet.
He opened it.
A few seconds later, I heard him whisper.
"The pill..."
He knew.
He had counted them.
My heart stopped.
He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
"I think she's awake," he quietly told someone.
Rachel answered immediately.
"So don't let her leave."
Daniel's next words chilled me more than anything I'd heard all night.
"She won't get far."
Then he smiled.
A smile I'd once mistaken for love.
Now it looked like the smile of a hunter who knew his prey was trapped.
I looked around the tiny laundry room, desperately searching for another way out.
Then I noticed something hidden behind the shelves.
A narrow basement door.
Slightly open.
And from somewhere below...
I heard a woman's voice whisper.
"Please..."
My blood froze.
I wasn't the first person Daniel had tried to imprison.
May you like
And if I went downstairs...
I might finally discover what happened to the woman everyone believed had simply disappeared.
