Chapter 10
Chapter 10: The Next Game
"Sophie! Grab your bunny, right now! We have to go out the back!" I screamed, adrenaline flooding my system. I sprinted into the bedroom, shoving her medical records and a few clothes into a duffel bag, my hands shaking so violently I could barely pull the zipper.
"Mommy, look," Sophie’s voice drifted in from the living room.
She didn't sound scared. She didn't sound panicked. She sounded entirely, terrifyingly calm. It was the same hollow, detached voice from the middle of the night.
I sprinted out of the bedroom, the duffel bag slipping from my hand and hitting the floor.
Sophie was standing directly in front of the heavy oak front door. The heavy brass deadbolt, which I had personally locked, chained, and braced with a wooden chair from the inside, was now smoothly sliding back. The metal mechanism clicked open with a heavy, definitive thud.
"Did you touch that, Sophie? Move away from the door!" I lunged forward to grab her.
"No," she whispered, her gaze locked onto the brass handle as it began to slowly, deliberately turn from the outside. "The man outside didn't need a key, Mommy. He just used a little black box that beeped. It made the exact same sound as Daddy’s bath timer."
The heavy wooden door began to swing inward, letting in a rush of freezing mountain air and the faint, unmistakable, sweet scent of the chemical.
I grabbed Sophie’s arm, desperate to drag her toward the back window, to run into the freezing woods, to fight, to do anything to protect my baby. But as I pulled, Sophie didn't budge. She anchored her feet against the floorboards, her small grip tightening around my wrist with a terrifying, unnatural strength that a five-year-old child should not possess.
She turned her head up to look at me. The blue of her eyes was completely gone now, swallowed entirely by pitch-black, dilated pupils. A slow, knowing, clinical smile spread across her small, innocent face.
It was the exact same smile Mark had given me through the prison glass.
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"Don't run, Mommy," Sophie whispered, her voice layered, echoing strangely as if two people were speaking in perfect unison. "The walls are completely down now. It’s time for the next game."
The front door swung wide open, revealing a shadow tall enough to block out the light.
