Chapter 169: Run, Soren, Run
Soren
The door opened before sunrise, and I knew immediately that I had been in this room for almost twelve hours. My body was stiff from the thin mattress, my throat dry from crying, my eyes swollen, and the baby had been moving restlessly, as if it could feel my fear and wanted to show me it was still there, still fighting.
Georgina stood in the doorway, a phone in her hand, her face hard to read. In the pale morning light she looked older, the lines around her mouth deeper than before. For a brief moment I almost felt sorry for her.
“Felix escaped,” she said.
I sat up so fast that everything spun, and I had to hold on to the bed.
“What?”
“Someone helped him. A woman. We don’t know who yet.” She stepped inside and sat on the edge of the bed, close enough that I could see the fine lines in her face that makeup no longer hid, and the slight tremor in her hands as she set the phone down. “He’s alive. He’s free. And he’s coming.”
Something in my chest loosened. Something that had been tightly knotted since the moment they took him away.
“You should be glad,” I said. My voice sounded harder than I intended. “Your plan is falling apart.”
Georgina laughed—a bitter sound without warmth.
“My plan isn’t falling apart. My plan is adapting.” She set the phone on the nightstand and looked at me, appraising, cold. “I wanted Felix to leave voluntarily. No blood, no war. But if he wants to fight, then we fight.”
“You’re going to lose.”
“Maybe. But I’ll take him with me.” She touched my face; I flinched back. Her fingers were cold and dry, familiar in the wrong way. “You’re the only thing that means anything to him. If I have you, I have him.”
I backed up against the headboard.
“I won’t help you.”
“You don’t have to.” She stood and walked to the door. Her footsteps sounded like a countdown. “You just have to wait. When he comes, I’ll be ready. And when I kill him, you’ll watch.”
The door closed. Locked.
I stayed sitting. The baby kicked against my ribs.
\---
I don’t know how long I sat there. Time no longer had a shape here. Only the flickering of the lamp and the pressure of the walls.
Then the door opened again.
Not Georgina.
The man with the cold eyes held out a phone.
“Someone wants to talk to you.”
I took it.
“Soren.”
Felix.
His voice was rough, frayed at the edges, but alive. So alive that the tears came immediately.
“Felix. Are you okay?”
“I’m with Noah. We’re coming to get you.”
I turned away from the door so the man couldn’t see my face.
“You can’t come. She’s waiting. She wants to kill you.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you coming?”
A pause.
“Because you’re there.”
I closed my eyes.
“Please don’t come. She has weapons. She won’t spare you.”
“She’ll hit you first if I don’t come.”
“I don’t care what happens to me.”
“I do.”
The man took the phone from my hand.
End of the call.
Silence again.
But this time something was different.
I stood up.
No longer just fear.
Something else.
I went to the door and pressed my ear against it. Footsteps. One set. The man was moving away.
I waited.
Then I searched the room. No windows. No tools.
Only a small vent near the floor.
I pulled the nightstand aside, knelt down, tried to loosen the screws with my fingers. Nothing.
I wanted to scream.
Then I reached inside.
Metal. Cold.
A screwdriver.
Someone had been here before. Someone had tried to escape.
My hands shook as I pulled it out.
The screws on the lock were old. Rusty.
I worked at them, slowly, breath too short, heart too loud.
One screw fell.
I held my breath.
Nothing.
Second screw.
Looser.
The door opened.
The hallway was empty.
Voices downstairs.
“Bring the car around. We’re moving her.”
I froze.
They wanted to move me. Make me disappear.
I had no time.
I ran.
Barefoot on carpet, quiet, fast. Back door.
Cold morning.
I stepped out.
And ran.
Grass, wet. Earth, slippery. Fence.
I climbed.
Wood splintered into my hands.
Then forest.
Branches whipped my face, roots tore at my feet.
Behind me, voices.
“Soren! Come back!”
Georgina.
I kept running.
Then—
A bang.
A gunshot.