Page 243 of Bound By Crimson

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But she didn’t.

She turned, slipped out the door—and then she was gone.

Lyric looked at the journal, her pulse quickening. A tangle of guilt and shame twisted inside her.

Guilt for planning to harm the only woman who had kept her alive. And shame for not finding the courage to do anything—anything at all—to save herself and her son.

She stared for a while at the journal on her lap.

Another door. A way out?

Then leapt off the bed, dragged the heavy dresser aside, and ripped back the wallpaper—

Revealing the attic door.

She didn’t hesitate.

She opened it slowly, hope flickering—not certainty, but a chance.

Maybe… just maybe, there was still a way out.

Chapter Ninety-One

The Attic

Lyric took one last look at her room, realizing the items she almost left behind.

Her father’s cardigan.

Her mother’s locket.

And the journal.

She wrapped the cardigan tightly around her shoulders, pulling it close like armor.

The knit smelled faintly of cedar and something steadier. Safer.

Around her neck, her mother’s locket rested cold against her skin. She curled her fingers around it, just once.

She tucked the protein bar and the small bottle of water into the inner pocket of the cardigan—Bernarda’s quiet offering.

Then the journal. She slipped it beneath her arm, the pages heavy with everything she still didn’t understand.

And with nothing left to lose, she walked through the attic door.

Toward the unknown.

Toward whatever came next.

She didn’t know what she was hoping for—just that she had to find it.

Lyric climbed the attic stairs with the journal pressed to her chest, breath held tight in her lungs.

Every creak beneath her feet sounded like a scream.

Please let there be a way out.

She stepped into the attic.

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