A silence fills the room, and all I hear is my heavy breathing. Then I force myself to sit up, inching away from Walden's lifeless body. Is he dead? I sure hope not. That'd be a death sentence for me and whoever just—
I look up and see Alec.
He kneels at the foot of the bed, a vase in his hands, blood spattering the intricate designs of the porcelain. He wears a white T-shirt and jeans.
Before I know what to say, Alec drops the vase and slides off the bed. He walks around to help me off and pulls me into a tight embrace. "We have to get out quickly," he says. "I'll explain everything on the way." He holds me at arms' length and kisses me. "Go change. I'm going to tie him up."
"With what?"
He smiles. "I always come prepared!" He gestures with his head to the ottoman at the end of Walden's bed. A backpack sits opened with rope peeking out.
"You're wonderful, you know that?" I say.
I race back into the restroom, strip off the stupid bra and panties, and change back into the beautiful blue gown. As inconvenient as it is, I'm totally bringing this with me. Let's think of it as a "souvenir" from my little experience here.
When I open the door, I find Alec tying a knot around Walden's wrist and one of the bed posts.
"I'm ready," I say.
Alec stops and looks at me, his jaw dropping. "You look gorgeous! Is that all you have."
I shrug. "I can't dress myself here."
Alec smiles sympathetically and finishes tying the knot. "Okay. I need you to stay close to me the whole time." He zips up his backpack and slings it over his back. I notice in the dim moonlight that the guard uniform he had been wearing rests on the ground. He must have had to ditch it to make as little noise as possible.
"Wait, so I really did see you earlier today," I say quietly.
"Yeah," he breathes as he grabs ahold of my arm. "I'm glad you didn't say anything. I would have been executed, knowing how ridiculous this place is. It killed me not being able to just explain everything... and to tell you that I would come to save you."
I hug his arm. "Thank you," I whisper.
He opens the door into the corridor, and looks outside cautiously. When he looks back at me, he smiles once more. "You're welcome, love."
Then we're gone. We fly through the corridors, around corners, up and down stairs, me not knowing where the heck we're going the whole time. My faith in Alec never fades, though. He seems to know what he's doing.
Eventually we end up outside a door at the end of a dark hallway. I look down at our hands enclosed together. Alec is still wearing his ring.
"Okay, there is a door through here that leads to the gardens. We'll slip through the woods behind them and towards the back roads. My car is parked back there."
"And then?"
"One thing at a time, Belle," he says.
"Sorry," I murmur.
Alec stops suddenly and faces me. He touches my shoulder with one hand and cups my cheek in the other. "I don't want to overwhelm you. I'll tell you the rest once we're to my car, okay?"
I nod.
"If anything happens from here until then... I love you."
I stand on my toes and kiss him. "I love you, too."
"Now let's get out of here." Alec opens the door, takes me around the waist, and guides me into the unknown room. A light comes on automatically.
I gasp in sharply. "Oh. My. Gosh."
The room is filled with countless monitors plastering every inch of the walls. Each screen displays different portions of houses, but they are separated by room.
My hand flies to my mouth, but Alec yanks on my hand. "Come on. We can't let this phase us. We already knew about it."
"Right," I breathe. I stumble after him through the room towards a door in the back right corner of the room.
I'm surprised no one had been in that surveillance room. Must be dinner break.
Alec opens the door to the outside, the cold rushing in, and then we race into the outdoors. My naked arms quickly go numb.
The gardens are practically a maze trapped inside by a stone wall, except usually they aren't resting beneath a blanket of snow like they are now. "How are we going to get out of here? We're stuck!"
"Don't worry. I got in this way, so I can definitely get us out."
He never releases my hand as we trek quickly along the icy stone path towards the back of the palace grounds.
"How long do you think it'll be before they realize that we're—?" I start to ask.
Suddenly, a loud siren echoes throughout the whole palace grounds. I cover my ears as we stop to look around us very quickly. Alec touches my back and nudges me onward. "We can't stop. Keep going!"
The siren seems to get louder and louder as we run further and further away. I guess someone found Walden. I hope he was as embarrassed as he had made me. Serves him right for trying to take away the only innocence I have left.
Especially since I'm apparently no longer married.
We reach the stone wall, and Alec scans the ground base of it. "There!" He points to a circular drain with the opening ripped away by what must have been a crowbar.
"How did you get all of this done on your own?" I ask loudly over the blaring noise.
"I'd do anything to get you back, Belle."
I kiss him once again before he helps me down into the man-sized drain in the grass. I feel out a ladder with my feet and start to climb down.
I begin to hear yelling and even gunshots when I'm halfway down the hole. "Alec, come on!"
"I'm coming!"
He starts soon after me. My feet touch the bottom as Alec shuts the opening over us. The lights from the garden and the moon stream through the little holes of the drain cover onto the watery stream I stand on.
"Did they see us?" I shout, still trying to be heard over the alarm.
Alec puts his finger to his lips. He shakes his head. Then he puts his lips to my ear. "It echoes down here, so we have to make as little noise as possible."
I nod.
Alec leads the way through the tunnel upstream. I had taken off my shoes and abandoned them near the opening of the tunnel, but Alec had picked them up. Then I realized it's because those shoes would mark a trail. Wow, I'm dumb.
We walk for a good ten minutes before we reach another ladder. Alec goes first and then helps me out. As he replaces the drain cover, I stand and stare around in amazement. We're in the woods. We're still inside Bayfell walls, but we're in the hunting grounds. As a Facility girl, I've never been allowed out here. Family District boys usually go with their dads on weekends as a traditional father-son sport.
Alec takes my hand. "There's a road a little walk away from here. I parked along the side of it." He starts to take me through the forest. "Okay, so I know this is all confusing, and I can explain! I just... it's not going to be very thorough, though."
"That's okay," I say.
"Oh! I almost forgot." He offers me my shoes, so I put them on quickly and we continue. "So, as soon as you had left, I went and told Riah and Chance the whole thing. Then we took it to our parents... mine and Chance's. Turns out, Chance's grandma wasn't so crazy. Her suspicions of the government are, of course, true, and she had somehow been digging her way out of Bayfell ever since. Chance's family home is built so close to the wall that she actually succeeded. Unfortunately, the old woman died before she could get her family out of here."
"Wait. You mean—we're going outside Bayfell walls?"
Alec shrugs. "We have to. We're considered fugitives now. I kind of just kidnapped the future queen of Bayfell... Anyway! Once we came to the conclusion of what to do, my parents began packing our stuff as I came here to pose as a guard. One of my friends from school is a guard here now, and he got me in because he knows a guy who knows a guy... long story short—here I am!"
I look at him in awe. "I can't believe you went to so much for me."
"Believe it, babe, because I am head over heels for you."
I actually laugh. For the first time since the morning I was taken away, I laugh.