The Writer's Escape

14. The Escape

They came down to visit her in the cell only once. It was Daria who walked through the door, and studied Serena with her head tilted. She dropped a water canteen and a stack of paper-wrapped desert rations on the ground, where they landed with a thud and the canteen rolled away, then dropped Serena's bag on the ground unceremoniously.

Curled up in the corner of her cell, Serena held her gaze dully. Her fingers idly picked at the fraying threads of her robes, which were starting to get grimy after so long without a wash.

"How many days left, before you cannot return to your world?" she asked.
The last note had read Two days left. "The rest of today," she said in a hoarse whisper. "And then tomorrow." She stared at Daria, drawing her knees into her chest. "When do we attack the Capital?"

The scar on Daria's lip stretched as her lips widened into a slight smile. "The day after tomorrow," she said, then left, and the door clanked shut behind her.

It took a few moments for the words to sink in, but when they did, Serena shot to her feet, pulling fingers through her tangled hair as an anxious knot formed in her throat. 

So they weren't planning on letting her back to her world after all. She cursed herself for believing otherwise. Of course they wouldn't let her go— she was far too valuable here, and back home she could reduce all their work to rubble with a few taps of her keyboard. How could she have been so foolish as to trust them?

Now Tyrus was dead, the Wild Sisters were still missing, Redhaven was conquered— and the rest of the desert villages were soon to follow. The entire storyworld would fall. And she couldn't let that happen. Was it too late to fix all the damage she'd done to this place? she wondered. It didn't matter— she had to try.

She began pacing the perimeter of the cell, formulating the beginnings of a plan. Once again, she called up her story outline in her mind's eye and thought through all the events. 

At one point in the story, the Wild Sisters were supposed to be accused of treason, and locked up in Redhaven's dungeons, where they were incapable of stopping the sorceresses. They'd made a jailbreak— a mostly successful one. All Serena had to do was follow their footsteps. Sure, she wasn't a graceful dagger-wielding assassin or powerful witch or witty warrior like any of her protagonists, but she had other ways of escaping.

She dug through her bag. At the very bottom, under crumpled-up notes covered in story ideas and shards of writing, smashed mirrors, old receipts, and her copy of the Dragon's Heart book in poor shape, were all her makeup bottles. Most of them had been smashed when Berry had overturned the bag and rooted through all her things. 

One of the containers was unbroken— a thick plastic container filled with cream-colored powder foundation. She poured some out on her hand and sifted through it, then she scooped up all of it and poured it in her pocket. Then she dusted her hands and shook out all the sand from her robes and boots; it poured out in heaps. Perfect. She added that to her pocket too.

Now, all that was left was to make a commotion. Her eyes roved over the room and landed on the metal canteen.

Steeling herself with a deep breath, Serena grabbed the canteen and started banging it against the walls. It made a dull tinny sound— not loud enough. So she started screaming. 

"Help!" she shouted. "Someone help! Get out of my cell!" Then she borrowed from Berry and started cursing at the top of her lungs. 

It wasn't long before she heard heavy footsteps running down the hall. She hefted the canteen in her hands, which got slippery with sweat as she waited.

Her heart pounded in her ears until it was almost as loud as the footsteps.
The door slammed open, and a dragon-shifter walked in. 

Serena froze: It was the same dragon-shifter as before, the one who had killed Lord Tyrus. Her blood turned cold and then hot and rushed to her head, and she stood gripping the canteen with hot, grimy claws of fear holding her hostage.