Page 103 of Beaches, Bagels & Babes
He would hide her away forever if she let him. Locked in some facility with the legal and medical system weaponizedagainst her, she would never be free.
No fucking way.
Candace pawed the sleep from her eyes and surveyed the muted space of her would-be prison. It was her old bedroom. She could tell by the familiar feel of her smooth satin covers, along with the trace scent of the cucumber-melon perfume she (and a million other teenage girls) used to wear. She had always hated this room. It figured that she would need to escape this place one last time.
On the second floor, overlooking the back hedge garden and pool, it was not the steepest drop. She could make use of the classic bed-sheet rope trick and jump the rest of the way. In staggered, jelly steps, she hauled herself over to the window.
Woah… shit.
Whatever they dosed her with was wearing off, but not fast enough. She felt like she’d just ridden the teacups at max speed. Breathing deeply, Candace pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
It was difficult to tell the time. Far darker than when she arrived, the roiling mass of purple clouds overhead shut out the sky. Intermittent lightning flashes provided glimpses of the apocalyptic outside. Running into the torrent with nothing aside from the clothes on her back, trekking through miles of Pineland forest where she could trip into a creek and drown, was not the most appealing plan. Somehow, though, she needed to get to Cape Crest High School. Wonderwood would have evacuated by now, and Daisy… Candace prayed that she was safe.
Over the crashing chaos of the storm, Candace heard a different sound. The doorbell’s merry chime was like a starter’s pistol. It was now or never.
Candace decided on misdirection. She set the stage by throwing the window open and kicking out the mesh screen. However, she did not climb through. Without the time to make herself a rope, there was no way she could get down unless she wanted to break a leg. Instead, she made itlooklike she hadescaped. Then, she wedged herself under the bed and waited.
Minutes passed. Her heart thrummed painfully in her chest like it wanted to jump free. She breathed it back into place, just like Demi taught her. Not fighting the feelings that swelled within her but keeping the parts that served her and letting the rest flow through. When she heard voices outside the door, she went corpse-still.
“—wants you to take care of this quietly,” Lamarka told someone as he unlocked the door. “Your facility came highly recommended for its discretion. Make this go away, and—”
The man cursed. Candace tensed as she watched his loafers through the gap between the bed skirt and the carpet. He rushed to the window, with two facility workers close behind him.
Lamarka growled, “Thatbitch.Help me search the grounds. She can’t be far.”
On top of Uncle Perry’s “donation” to the facility, these individual workers seemed to have some incentives. They followed Lamarka outside in clipped steps without a word of question.
Candace, meanwhile, went the other way. Balanced on the balls of her feet, she padded down the cavernous hallways as stealthily as she could while her mind raced. Searing betrayal stung Candace. So many relationships manipulated by lies and greed—her doctor, her coworkers, and, worst of all, her own blood. The tears she shed were not for sadness or self-pity, but a cleansing rage. She had her truth, now, and could move on.
First, Candace needed wheels. The garage with its lineup of getaway vehicles was on the far side of the mansion. Thankfully, her years of tiptoeing about to avoid her uncle’s wild moods left her a pro at navigating in the dark. She made it back to the keypad-locked door between the kitchen and the garage, where she punched in the code. As her fingers grazed the icy metal latch, warning prickles ran along her spine.
Candace chanced a glance over her shoulder. At the far side of the kitchen, Uncle Perry wavered with another rim-filledbourbon. His surprise was clear; the glass slipped from his hand and landed before him in an explosion of boozy shards. A lightning strike showed his shift from shock to fury, like caricatures of emotional range. He lunged.
The sprawling center island was a buffer between Candace and her uncle. Before he could maneuver around it, she threw her way into the garage. A pushbroom handle jammed under the door latch bought Candace time, but not much. Successive crashes reverberated against the other side as he tried to get through. Her eyes scanned the room until she found the mounted car key lockbox.
Standing before it, Candace guessed that her uncle used the same passcode and was correct. She did a quick survey of her options, and grabbed the key to a bumblebee yellow Land Rover. Her movements were calm yet quick as she belted into the driver’s seat, locked the doors, and thumbed the overhead garage door button. She was not going to let anything stop her.
Not even Peter Perry. He barreled into the garage, disheveled and huffing, right into Candace’s path. His attempt at an intimidating posture was anything but as he squinted under the high beams' spotlight. Even so, Peter Perry thought he had won. He planted himself between Candace and the garage’s gaping exit, looking satisfied with his victory—
—until she gunned it.
Peter Perry dove out of the way just in time for Candace to miss clipping him. She did not look back to see his face, or even if he followed. Her attention was on the road and the woman who waited for her at its end.
The drive to Cape Crest High was like something out of a disaster movie.
Even so, Candace’s stolen SUV cut through the hurricane like the tank it was always meant to be. Reinforced tires crushed whole branches like twigs, and sturdy handling let her navigate through the flooded streets.
Once she made it to the center of town, she reached the high school in no time. The main lot was packed with buses and evacuee cars, plus a fair amount of emergency support vehicles. After Candace knocked on the bolted front entrance, a very surprised-looking patrol officer let her inside. He directed her to the gymnasium, but she was already off one squeaky stride at a time.
People hardly glanced Candace’s way as she passed them by. She was far from the only dripping, dazed wanderer. The whole place was packed to the brim with Wonderwooders and unlucky shoobies worrying their night away while Hurricane Mandy raged.
“So much for fun at the shore…”
“Damnit… My car is going to be ruined where I had to leave it.”
“Poor Horace! She escaped from the nature center staff while they were evacuating, and now she’ll be washed away!”
Misery was the theme for the evening, it seemed. No one was having a good time. Candace, meanwhile, had her own reason for worry.
