She rubbed the rope against the sharp edge, where the leg met the furniture frame. Except the binding on her leg wasn’t really a rope like her dad used, but rather twisted strands of fabric that stretched slightly when she pulled. She thought she’d almost worn through the next to last section and she had to hurry—she didn’t know how long the man would be gone.
Suddenly she was swamped by a wave of tummy-sick dizziness, so bad that her hand slipped and she cut her finger in the dark. It wasn’t serious, but it hurt. She whimpered, just a little.
But before she could really start crying, she realized, someone else is here. The man hadn’t come back yet, but the Other One was with her somehow. And she felt a little less alone.
So she went back to scraping the rope against the metal, until he
