Family Dinner

SATURDAY

The plan could work, because no-one (not even Jasper) is going to see it coming.

No, that's negative thinking Dagny.

The plan will work, because no-one (not even Jasper) is going to see it coming.

As Pa's newest hunting partner, I have access to the pens in the back of our home. The only other who has the keys is Pa, and when I put this scheme into practice I intend for him to be sleeping. With no-one else to interfere, I'll have free reign of our prison. The issue is getting Kimberly and Lucette to the mine shaft and our escape without being seen or heard.

Yet Jasper's nature may have ended up indirectly working in my favour. Used to be I needed plenty of spots to hide out in during those times when my brother was bored and in search of entertainment. The end result is that I know the side tunnels and crumbling passages that network our home like old friends. There are plenty of opportunities for me to get my prisoners to safety without being seen. From there, it's a simple case of getting Pa's car keys from the lockbox that I can still access. Then we're free and clear.

Part of me wants to stay behind, once it's done. Once I've fixed the mistake I've made. Atoned (at least in part) for what I did. Try to get through to them all, convince them of what I have come to realise. Part of me wants to go back for the other three that Pa captured as well, locked away in the deeper cells.

But the sane, logical part of me knows that I can't. The risk of being found out even when it's just Kimberly and Lucette are high enough: three more people would doom us all. And however much I try to tell myself otherwise, I know my family will not be willing to see my way of thinking. Not before it's too late. Not before we've further condemned ourselves.

If there is a God, and He is just, He has to understand what I'm trying to do here. That this isn't just a battle for my conscience, but a war for my soul. Ignorance may have protected me from the crimes my family has wrought before now, but as soon as I saw our "quarry" for what they truly were? I had a choice. I could bury my head in the sand and carry on as usual, or I could do something about it. My family are going to butcher those two girls that I brought to them. Skin them slowly. Consume their flesh. As far as they're concerned, it's just the natural order of things. As normal as the blood that runs through our lineage.

I will not sit idly and let this happen.

Kimberly looked completely thrown by what I was telling her when I brought her and Lucette water earlier. Like she'd been expecting anything else from me but that. All the same, she came round to the plan fast. Made improvements to it, even. We're only bringing supplies and weapons because she pointed it out: I was so caught up on escaping that I hadn't even considered what would happen if we succeeded.

Lucette just looked at me through the rusty metal bars as I was whispering, as her sister and I refined our scheme. It wasn't until I was about to leave that her small hand reached through to grip mine. Her wide eyes gazed up at mine, the fear from earlier gone. Replaced by a faint, desperate hope.

"Please hurry", was all she said.

It was enough.

This might be my last entry. Should this be the case please know (whoever you might be) that I tried.

That if nothing else, I tried to fix my mistake.