The Bracket Breaks
Chapter 07 - The Bracket Breaks
At eight forty-two that evening, eighteen minutes before Marcus's expected arrival, the pipe bracket finally gave way entirely, the old concrete crumbling in a shower of gray dust as the metal pulled free from the wall.
Eleanor's hands dropped into her lap, still bound together at the wrists but no longer attached to anything, and Sophie immediately began working on the rope itself, fingers fumbling with knots that had been tightened by weeks of constant, slight movement.
"Can you walk," Sophie asked, once the rope came loose.
"I think so," Eleanor said, though her legs shook visibly as Sophie helped her stand, three weeks of confinement having taken a considerable toll on muscles that had already been weakened by age before any of this happened.
"The door's still locked from outside," Sophie said, scanning the room one final time. "We need another way out, or we need to be ready for him when he opens it."
Eleanor pointed toward the ventilation grate near the ceiling. "Too small for either of us. But it connects to the crawl space beneath the main house. If we can remove the grate and make enough noise through the ductwork, it might carry to someone outside."
"There's nobody outside," Sophie said. "This property's been empty for years."
"Unless someone came looking for you," Eleanor said quietly.
Sophie thought of Jess, of the text she'd never sent, and felt a small, desperate thread of hope pull taut in her chest.
She climbed onto the metal shelving unit, reaching the ventilation grate, and began pounding on the ductwork with the same metal bracket she'd used to free the pipe, the sound ringing hollow and metallic through the old house's crawl space.
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At eight fifty-one, somewhere above them, the sound of a car's engine approached the property.
Both women froze, listening, unable to determine from inside the concrete room whether the approaching vehicle belonged to Marcus arriving early for his nightly visit, or someone else entirely.
