Page 186 of Bound By Crimson

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Then she waited for someone to say it was a mistake.

Now she just waited for anything to change.

She stared at the door again today.

Not like before, not with panic or tears—but calculation.

She crossed the room, opened the top drawer, and reached for the small silver box that held loose hair pins and other small things. Her fingers found one, slightly bent at the end. She straightened it as best she could and moved to the lock.

She’d seen it in movies. A twist, a click, some magic.

But this lock wasn’t magic. It was real. It resisted her desperation. It refused to bend.

She tried for ten minutes—slowly, then frantically—until her hands were shaking and the pin snapped in two.

She didn’t cry this time.

She just lowered herself to the floor, breathing through the defeat.

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Later, she stood at the far wall of her room, arms wrapped tightly around herself, her eyes fixed on the upside-down wallpaper.

The torn seam.

The misaligned flowers.

That damn attic door.

She couldn’t stop staring at it.

Was there another way out?

She couldn’t remember. When she was up there, she never thought to look for another escape. Why would she?

The attic felt like another life. But she remembered stairs and how large the attic was. Maybe there was something.

Was there another door? Another passage?

What if another room also connected to it?

What if there was a servant’s exit—an old dumbwaiter—anything?

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That night, she pulled the journal out again.

To skim for attic clues—or maybe just to feel a little less alone.

She flipped through quickly at first, scanning for anything useful. Then she paused, fingers resting on a worn page near the middle.

One word had caught her eye—attic.

She began to read:

Sometimes she locks me in for days. I think she forgets I’m even here. But I still have the attic. I still have a placeto breathe and write and disappear. She won’t go up there. She’s too afraid of the dead. That’s the only reason I can still hide this journal. It’s the only thing she hasn’t taken.

Lyric pressed her hand to the page, her fingers trembling.

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