295
So I stay there, trying to force myself to move until at
last there’s nothing to be done but to do it. My fingers slip
on the smooth glass, but I find a place to hold on to above
the window. I go as fast as I can. Hand over hand. Feet
sliding.
I fall.
At the last second, I grab, fingernails bending and break-
ing. It hurts, though I’ve had worse. I swing, first from one
hand, then grab with the other and hang. My feet dangle
inches above the ledge below me. Above me, there’s a rattle
of curtain rings, and a window, not the one I came out of,
opens. I hear shouting and wait for someone to look out
and down, but apparently they’re not expecting me to have
jumped out the window, because nobody does. At least not
on this floor.
I do hear sirens, though. Not fire, nor police, more like
an alarm going off inside the building. And, even though
my fingernails are split and bleeding and I’m dangling from
a ledge several stories above the ground, knowing that the
fall could break every bone and probably kill me—and
that’s if I’m lucky—I start to laugh.
I laugh at the thoughts of Dr. Donna’s face and Cody’s
broken nose and how I’m just a kid who got away. Wearing
a collar, no less. I guess security doesn’t have to be so tight
when almost everyone inside the complex has been made
incapable of fighting back.
I can’t hang there forever. I work my way to the next
