Chapter 17
"Break for Freedom"
The wind was screaming banshee-style right outside the windows, battering the house, the neighbourhood, the whole entire city and beyond with the most violent snowstorm that part of the Tri-State Area had seen in years.
It was still more inviting than Thomas' drunken snoring, which made C.C. grimace as she rolled as far away from the noise as possible. With any luck, she'd be even further away before too long – an entire river, a city, and a state line away, and he'd be none the wiser until it was too late.
It was the only comfort she could bring herself, knowing that. Soon enough, she'd be out of there, and she wouldn't look back. She'd leave Thomas and his house of nightmares behind for good.
It had been bad enough, in the time leading up to the day she'd planned to escape. He'd been back from Boston for about a week already, and he must've been thinking about his one-sided "agreement" for the whole goddamned time he'd been away! He'd forced his sick fantasies and desires on her practically the moment he'd walked in through the door – she'd been called for them or commanded on the spot almost daily, anywhere in the house that he'd chosen, or anywhere that she happened to be at the time. Sometimes in more than one place on the same day, at different hours…
It…it had made her ill, having her "name" yelled out from somewhere else in the house, only to go and have to…
She shuddered, blinking slowly and trying not to let her stomach heave too much at the memory. It almost made her want to die right then and there in the bed, thinking of how she'd had to go with a smile just to keep up the "perfectly good little kept housewife" routine that she'd created to keep him sweet until she could make a run for the hills. If there was a scrap of consolation to be found in the waste dump of misery there, it was that her act had made him less violent. He didn't have to force as much from her, or dole out "corrections" when she disobeyed or gave out a supposed hint of a suggestion that she didn't want to.
It still made her cringe with shame and guilt and fear to think that she hadn't suggested that at all, even if she the last thing she'd wanted to do on Earth was…that.
Niles' voice had been there the whole time, trying to rationalise that she hadn't done anything wrong. It hadn't meant she'd wanted it, or that she'd encouraged it; she was trying to stay alive. That had meant doing whatever was necessary.
His voice had kept her through the worst of…the worst moments, especially, but he'd been there the whole time, without fail. If she'd needed to endure anything at all, he'd been right there as the buffer. The fact that he hadn't disappeared again the second she'd woken up the day after her suicide attempt had been a huge relief, as it had turned out – she'd needed him to get through everything until she was ready to go ahead with her plan.
It was actually a really good plan, in her humble opinion. Maybe not the best, most exciting or movie-worthy plan that had ever sprung out of a human mind, but simple and effective. She had more than a little amount of faith that it would work. It was solidly doable. And if she kept telling herself that, she was almost convinced that her confidence would follow and everything would go off without a hitch.
Thomas had – unwittingly, of course – made that easier for her. Her little "perfect wife" routine had softened him up just enough to allow that mistake to slip by like an unnoticed assassin. On the day he'd left for Boston, he'd surprised her by not begrudgingly presenting her with just one of the guides she'd asked for; he'd gone out and gotten a whole load of them, detailing all the places she'd mentioned to him. Several were even complete with intricate maps! They'd been better than the little bit of chocolate he'd gifted on top of that, and that he'd claimed had been a treat for being such a good and obedient wife to him.
The statement had made her want to gag, but she'd actually been genuine (enough) in her thanks for the guides. After all, how many captors just handed over the very thing their prisoners could use to escape? They had been the file hidden in the cake that had just been delivered directly into her jail cell!
And, as soon as he'd told her to behave herself and had locked her down in the cellar to leave, she'd been able to set to work. Obviously, she'd figured out basically straight away that being in Jersey meant getting a ferry would be the quickest and most direct way home. Logically, that had meant finding the nearest port, and as soon as she'd scoured the whole map to find out where exactly the house was, she'd quickly found the nearest ferry terminal as well.
Port Imperial. It had been inaugurated only two months before she'd been taken, so in a twisted turn of events she'd actually been just in time for it. Or it had been just in time for her. Whatever, it didn't matter – it could've been a hundred years old and staffed by bloodsucking vampires for all she cared! As long as it had a ferry going out late, she'd be there. It was only a twenty-or-so minute walk from where she was, and even in her weakened state she was more than sure she could manage that.
It probably wouldn't take her twenty minutes (in this weather or without it), but still. Trying was a million times better than staying put. And she would've gladly fought anybody who'd told her that she didn't mean that.
Plotting the route to her destination had been easy, even when she'd taken the time to include secondary emergency and backup directions. After that, it'd been time to plan what would ironically actually be the very first step: getting outside. That had been the long, frustrating part, like putting together a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces looked deceptively similar, until she'd tried to match them all up and none of them had come together. Or they'd come together in bits and pieces but hadn't fit in anywhere else.
Sneaking out during the day would mean getting found out right away – she'd known that in her gut almost from the get-go. Even if any of the doors or windows were unlocked downstairs (which was unlikely – he was vigilant about that), it was likely that Thomas would be lurking around somewhere she hadn't anticipated and would spot her trying to get out. It wasn't as though she knew where he kept his keys so she could unlock any of them sneakily, either. Or steal his car, which had been a momentary, perhaps insane blip of a thought, even if she also truly knew that it'd be ridiculous to put it into practice. It didn't fit anywhere with the only other plan that worked, anyway, and it would probably only get her in more trouble than it was worth.
Then, there was good, old-fashioned bad luck. There was always the chance that, even if by some miracle she did manage to slip out without being seen or heard, he'd notice she was missing and soon track her down to drag her back!
Her insides had writhed unpleasantly at the thought of what he'd do, if he'd caught her doing that. So, she'd ruled out daytime bust-outs entirely. It had to be nighttime, when Thomas was asleep, and through an upstairs window. It had to be a window, too – her captor was a stickler for locking places up at night, including all "unnecessary" doors, such as the front one, the one to the backyard, the living room door, and the door to his home office. He only kept pathways open to the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom for his own late-night food or drink, or so that either one of them could go to the bathroom. Everywhere else was a no-go zone, and even if she'd managed to work out where he might've put the keys for any of them, he was such a light sleeper that too much snooping around would probably get her caught and in trouble.
That had only left one possible escape route: the small window she'd spotted in his walk-in closet, the day she'd tried to commit suicide and had let her eyes fall on it by accident. From there, she was certain she could access the slanted roof of Thomas' covered entrance porch. He always left it open, no matter what, and if she could climb out of it she'd only have to jump down into the front garden.
C.C. swallowed, thinking about that. It…probably sounded a lot simpler than it would actually be when the time came, but she'd deal with it when it happened. She had to. And she had to get a grip, as well! Getting out of there was more important than whatever she'd feel after jumping! If she'd been at "full producer", she would've told herself to get a hold of herself. She'd been willing to drown herself only weeks ago and now jumping from a single-storey roof made her hesitate…!
She shook it off. She was going to do it. She'd chosen this night for a reason. The last obstacle she'd faced in her planning was the fact that Thomas was a light sleeper. Too much noise of any kind and he'd wake up and catch her red-handed.
But, as she'd found out in the time that she'd been allowed to sleep upstairs, that rarely happened – if at all – when he was drunk. He'd sleep through an asteroid spinning out of control and crashing into Manhattan if he'd gotten hammered enough! And he always got hammered, without fail, on Friday nights. He'd go out for a dinner of his choosing, come back, get completely schnockered on whatever he had in the house, and eventually fall asleep to not be woken up by anyone or anything until she'd made him a hangover breakfast the next morning.
That's what she'd had to wait for, she'd decided during that week of planning. That she'd wait for him to come home, go through the motions until Friday, and leave once he'd safely crashed out on the bed and wouldn't likely be up again until late morning, at earliest.
She'd made that decision last week. She'd made it to the Friday she'd had planned. And now, trembling with trepidation and blood pumping with adrenaline, she knew it was about to happen. Her plan was going to go ahead.
She knew that, to a certain extent, it was insane to even think about carrying out an escape that night. The weather outside could probably kill her if she hung around in it for too long! But at the same time as thinking it, her heart screamed that she'd rather die due to a brutal storm than stay and let herself be killed by him.
She couldn't take it anymore. Not another beating. Not another chore. Not another instant of being called "wife" to a man she'd never married!
It was time to leave Thomas, before he even knew about it.
It was time to go home.
Slipping out of bed, she padded quickly and quietly (she'd taken Thomas' passing out on Friday nights after...each time...and used it as time to memorise creaks and groans in the floorboards) to the walk-in wardrobe, closing the door between it and the bedroom as she went. She rarely went into his closet as it was (except to put away his clothes after she'd washed and ironed them) and usually tried not to touch his clothes too much, but it soon dawned on her that perhaps today she needed to take some of them with her – otherwise she didn't think she'd survive the blizzard. She quickly took one of his warmer coats and a pair of boots that would be suitable for trudging through snow like the stuff falling outside and got them on quickly over her night things before hurrying silently over to where Thomas had left his pants and picked them up.
She knew he usually kept some loose change in his pockets – she'd learned that the hard way, too. He'd beaten her up over a ruined bill when she'd first started doing his laundry. Ever since then, C.C. had made sure to meticulously check every single pocket of his clothes before putting them in the washing machine and to stack the rescued change in a neat little pile to deliver to her captor.
She had a feeling he often left money in there to test her – to see if she would try and steal from him, but she hadn't fallen for that. After all, it wasn't as if money had been helpful to her.
Not until then, anyway, she thought with a smile as she rummaged through his pockets and fished out a crisp fifty-dollar bill and put it in her own jacket. Now she was quite happy to get her hands on Thomas' cash – it was about damn time the bastard started to pay for what he'd done to her.
There was a certain delicious irony to the fact that Thomas himself was, in a way, paying for C.C.'s escape, but she didn't linger on that thought for long. She needed to get going, and she needed to do it now.
She turned to the window and looked outside, a mixture of fear and excitement swelling in her chest – the blizzard really was one of the worst C.C. had ever seen, and it wasn't showing any signs of letting up. It could mean death, if she tripped and fell and hit her head, or if she took too long to get anywhere safe. Still, freezing to death was still a more inviting and comforting fate than staying in Thomas' house for one more wretched day.
She also had a place she belonged and loved ones to go to. And the thought of getting even just a little bit of the way felt a thousand times better in her mind than staying where she was to suffer until her body just gave in. She doubted there would be taxis roaming the streets in this weather, but she still needed cash to pay for her ferry ticket.
What's more – if she managed to make it to the ferry terminal safe and sound, she'd probably save herself the trouble and ask for an employee or a security guard to call the police. It would mean not having to walk all the way back to Manhattan during a blizzard, and it would most likely end up with Thomas being woken up by the police and being put in handcuffs.
The mere idea of Thomas being locked up was enough to boost C.C.'s morale – she could and would do this, and that son of a bitch would rot in jail. She just needed to get going and soon all of that would be a reality.
Taking a deep breath, she threw the window open and was immediately met by howling wind and a rush of freezing air. Stiffening with sudden worry, she checked back over her shoulder. There was nothing but snoring from the other side of the door. The bastard was sleeping, still. All the bottles he'd drained dry that night combined had been powerful enough for him to not feel a thing...
She thanked God for it, steeled herself for what she had to do next, and climbed out of the window, onto the roof of the porch. The wind and the snow it brought bit at her skin, but she'd made her choice and there was no going back. She didn't want to go back...
She pushed the window closed as much as she could and then braced herself for the next step in her plan. There was only one way down from where she was. And she intended to roll it.
So, selecting what looked from where she was like the deepest snowbank in the yard, C.C. tucked herself up as best she could and forced herself to roll downwards.
It might have cushioned her fall a little, but the snow couldn't stop C.C. from landing on her wrist with a painful crunch, sending it throbbing immediately as the storm luckily did her a solid and drowned out her cries of agony and the few muttered curse words she gave as she picked herself up, winded and hurting, from the ground.
She'd broken it, that was for certain. She couldn't really move it, as it was, and the pain was nearly indescribable but there was no sense in crying over spilled milk. She'd get help soon enough. She just had to get to the ferry and then it would all be smooth sailing.
"Come on, Babs," the voice cut in, almost as if giving her the little nudge she needed to begin her perilous journey back to safety. "Get those big feet moving, or the Yeti hunters will get ya!"
In spite of herself, and perhaps for the first time in recent memory, C.C. grinned. The cold bit at her lips and stung at her cheeks, but she didn't care. The voice sounded different. More mischievous, and maybe even a little playful.
It…it actually sounded much more like the butler she'd butted heads with before, day after day. Like it was waking up again to whom it was supposed to be. Like it didn't need to encourage her quite so much now, so it could loosen up and have some fun.
Things could go back to the way they used to be, including the way the voice had spoken to her. It wasn't having to help her survive anymore. She was glad about that, because she was doing something much, much better than just surviving – she was escaping, so that she could get her life back.
And then she'd really be living, for the first time in so long...
That thought felt good. Like she'd been granted a reprieve for a crime she hadn't committed, and she was at last being allowed to go back into society.
"Relatable criminal analogies eh, Babs? I always knew you had that kind of villainous streak in you..."
The voice sounded like it was openly smirking now.
It really was just like old times again!
And she'd need the practice before she saw the real Niles in the flesh...
Besides, it would be a good distraction from her pain the further away from the house she walked, leaving it behind her in a flurry of wind-driven snow.
"Oh, shut up, Brillo Pad, I need to focus," she replied to the voice in her head, squinting her eyes at the street sign on the corner – it read Hamilton Avenue, just the street she was looking for! She remembered seeing on the map that she had to go all the way up Hamilton Avenue, skirting Hamilton Park until she reached Kennedy Boulevard. Afterwards, she had to keep walking straight until she arrived at the interjection of Liberty Place and Kennedy Boulevard. There she had to turn right, towards a long staircase that would allow her to cross the width of the park.
If she recalled correctly, she'd then emerge on Perishing Road, which she had to walk down until she'd reached the intersection with the Avenue at Port Imperial, where she had to make a left and continue up the same avenue, skirting the pier until she'd reached Port Imperial Ferry Terminal.
It would be a long (and probably tiring) journey, but as she made her first turn on Hamilton Avenue, she felt a small spark of hope igniting in her chest. Yes, she ached all over, she was weak, the cold was bitter and unforgiving, but she was officially on her way home.
She was going to go back to her family after months of nothing but horror!
"That's right, Babcock, you will," encouraged the voice, "Keep you mind on the prize and keep going."
Oh, she was going to keep moving alright – she had set a goal, and the only way she'd give it up was over her cold, dead body. She'd been passive for far too long, she'd let a psychopath stomp on her and almost squash the life out of her, but not anymore.
She was C.C. Babcock. She was steel. And she was coming home.
Opening his eyes felt, in part, like a mistake to Thomas. It wasn't as though the rest of him was in any mood or state to get up, anyway. His limbs ached from God only knew what, the pounding in his head was like distant war drums coming over the horizon, and his mouth couldn't have been drier if he'd chewed on a towel before he'd gone to bed!
If it hadn't been for the fact that the space beyond his bedsheets was fucking freezing, he would've ignored it all with a pissed off groan, rolled over and gone back to sleep. Why the fuck was it so cold in there?! It was like someone had turned the thermostat down on Antarctica!
His eyes had barely gotten beyond halfway to showing him anything around him at all, until he sleepily shoved a half-curled hand into them and rubbed at them until they'd cleared enough to peer around the room. To…to peer around and see that his wife's side of his bed was empty…?
It was definitely empty – the covers had been thrown back and everything! But where the hell was Claire? She should've been asleep; it was her place to be there, asleep next to him!
Unless…well, unless the drink had made him overreact and she was just in the bathroom. That was always a possibility, wasn't it? He turned his whole body to look in that direction, pulling the covers up around his body to stop himself from catching pneumonia or something, and trying not to shiver his way through calling out.
"Claire…?"
But the second his eyes met the bathroom door, they found it wide open. The light was off, not just coming from under the door, and there wasn't any movement inside.
What the hell…? Where the hell was she, if she wasn't in bed and she wasn't in the bathroom?! He hadn't given her permission to be anywhere else in the house!
The bitch was taking liberties. He'd obviously rewarded her too much for all this good behaviour she'd been showing him recently, and now she thought she could just wander around like she fucking owned the place! Or…or maybe not just wander? What if she'd thought it meant she could do what she wanted, like she was on an equal level with him? What if she'd gone to steal food from the fridge in the kitchen?!
That little cunt. He'd given her an inch and she'd taken the whole fucking mile!
Throwing off the covers and not caring at all about leaping up out of bed into the cold, Thomas stormed across the floor and ripped his robe off the hook on the back of the door. He then threw it on over his shoulders and marched out into the hallway.
He would've yelled. And God damn it, he wanted to yell and scream and shout until he went blue as the cold was making his balls! But he didn't want her to make a run for it and try to hide somewhere else in the house – he wanted to be quick and to find her there, stuffing herself with food from his fridge, that should've gone on his plate, that she had no right to touch unless he'd told her she could!
Punishments and corrections danced in his head as he moved, leaping and vying for his attention, so that they'd be the one he'd pick when he found Claire with her mouth half-full of chicken, or mashed potatoes, or cheese. He didn't know what he'd do, but she'd live to regret it, he damn well knew that much already!
He was downstairs even before he knew it – his anger and sudden sober determination had carried him to the hall. But he couldn't hear a thing from anywhere in the house, no matter where he went – not the living room, which still had its door locked; not his office, which was silent as ever and also locked; and not the kitchen, either, which was empty! There wasn't even a soft glow about the room that he knew would've had to have come from the fridge when he'd approached and snapped the light on!
How the hell could that be possible?! Where the fuck was she if she wasn't in any of those places?
Something wasn't right. No one's wife just upped and disappeared in the middle of the night if her husband hadn't lost control of her – but he couldn't have, could he?! She'd been tucked perfectly under his thumb for this entire week! He'd marked his territory on her body in every room in the fucking house! She'd cooked and cleaned and smiled at him through every chore he'd made her do, and he'd even rewarded her in return! She'd been allowed to sleep upstairs, she'd had the privilege of enjoying every inch of his manhood inside her, and he hadn't had to correct her at all, and this was what he'd gotten back?!
If he'd known it was all gonna come to a chase around the house in the middle of the fucking night, he would've corrected her until she hadn't been able to stand! How dare she lead him around like a dog on a leash?! He was the master, not the bitch! She should've been sleeping upstairs in her rightful, husband-given place, and he shouldn't have had to be up and wandering around looking for her like she mattered more than him getting his rest!
He'd get his payback. And he was gonna get it right that instant! There was only one place left in the house that she could've been – one place left open to her, and it might've even explained why the house was turning into a fucking icebox overnight. His walk-in closet had a small, easily-opened window, and his dumb whore of a wife had an equally dumb obsession with touching snow.
She'd probably snuck in there to open it up and touch flakes from the blizzard that was happening outside. Because, somehow, she'd been able to get even more stupid and idiotic than he'd previously thought!
He hurried back upstairs, not caring if he took them two at a time or not, and headed right on through to where the closet door was waiting for him, shut and with complete silence coming from behind.
He could've easily rolled his eyes at the thought of her thinking she'd be safe if she kept the door shut and didn't speak. How moronic did she think he was?! He was the smartest person in that house, and she wasn't about to soon forget it!
"Claire, I swear to fucking God, you'd better get your ass out of that closet right this second!"
He pulled the door open without waiting for an answer and was met by a blast of frozen air. Thomas recoiled, groaning and yelling wordlessly. That bitch really had done it this time!
Forcing himself to go inside, he wrapped his robe tightly around his torso to keep out the worst of the chill. It was hard when the cold was even trying to freeze over his eyeballs, but he had to find that bitch he'd married and make her pay for doing this to him! He pulled through all his hung shirts, upended stacks of fresh laundry, tore through closets and wardrobes and checked in every nook and cranny of the room…only to find nothing, but that the work had left him slightly dizzy and out of breath.
And that his feet were wet. The now-sodden carpet was soaked from flakes that were still making their way through…through the mostly-shut window…?
So the little whore had been in there! She'd had the fucking window open and had made the house freezing! Why the hell hadn't she closed it once she was done, and where the hell had she gone now that she'd lost interest in her stupid little pastime?!
He squelched over the floor to shut the thing up entirely, and that was when he'd spotted it.
In the light of the street lamp, it was plain to see that a groove had been worn in the snow on the slanted roof, right outside the window. It looked like something heavy had hit the shingles, or had landed on them at some point in the night, crunching the snow into shape before slipping off into the yard…
His eyes trailed down there, directly from…from where the groove had ended with the roof, to the edge of what had to have been a large imprint on the snow-piled lawn below.
Straight off the imprint, a set of…a set of footprints? There were footprints leading away, off his property and down the street?!
His face fell, eyes widening, the blood rushing and pounding in his head. She…she couldn't have done it…!
But what other fucking conclusion could he possibly come to? The evidence was right there! She'd climbed out the window in the middle of the night and had left him while he'd been sleeping!
Throwing over the nearest shelving unit, Thomas screamed in blind rage, kicking at the wall and throwing folded sweaters to the floor. None of it made anywhere near a decent substitution for tossing Claire to the ground, kicking at her back, or yelling in her face!
That fucking bitch! That miserable little cunt! That worthless, stupid piece of shit! How dare she defy him like this?! She'd left him in the middle of a fucking blizzard so that he wouldn't be able to follow and drag her ass back to the house, where it belonged! She'd had the nerve to think she could do it, as though he weren't her husband and master who was to be obeyed at all times!
It hadn't been like that only hours ago! What the fuck had happened?! She'd been the perfect wife and slave to all of his needs just yesterday! And the day before! The whole week had been a dream – she'd been his cook, cleaner, and fuck toy all over the house, taking everything he could give with a smile! She'd had no will of her own; he'd broken her. Hadn't he? Or had she just been fucking pretending that whole time, waiting for the first opportunity to slip past him and pull this shit off?!
Thomas' stomach screwed itself up as it dawned on him. She had done that, hadn't she? That devious little whore had actually done it! She'd played him like a fucking fiddle for an entire week – no, more than a week! It'd all started that day she'd nearly screwed herself over permanently in the pool! The day he'd let her have a bath and…and she'd asked for those travel guides…complete with maps…
His blood boiled away into steam. That bitch! That was why she'd wanted all those fucking travel guides – it wasn't so she could still "travel without travelling", or "show him all the nice places they could go on road trips when the time was just right"! She'd wanted their stupid goddamned maps to mark her way out of there! And he'd fucking fallen for all of it – he'd helped her by spending his own fucking money on them in the first place!
Outraged, he kicked the clothes he'd scattered over the floor. He'd always told her that she was too stupid to do anything by herself, and that nobody would ever want her back even if she'd tried to go, but she'd gone anyway! She'd planned it all out using the kind of deceit only a filthy whore could come up with! He'd even given her the one thing that had made it all possible to find her way around outside!
That bitch had actually had the audacity to go ahead and leave him, as if he were disposable garbage rather than her owner! As though he didn't hold her life in the very palm of his hand and could take it away at any moment!
He was going to show her just how close it could come, the second they were both back through that door! She'd be relying on his permission for years simply to look out the fucking window! The little bitch had tried to humiliate him by running away while he slept, and that was not something that he was going to allow!
She was going to have to learn her place all over again.
She was nothing. She was no one. She was a simple bitch and she owed her allegiance to him. He'd make sure that, after all of this was over, she had no way of ever stepping a foot outside her room. Never again.
The only times she'd leave her hole would be when he wanted to fuck her or to clean after him – and he'd keep a watchful eye on her whenever she was upstairs, too. He'd chain her, if he had to, but he was going to make damn sure she regretted the day she decided to disobey him.
His bitch of a wife would not have a moment's worth of peace. He'd make sure of it. He'd make her life a living hell until he'd deemed her to have paid for her misgivings. Not that that would happen anytime soon.
He already knew he'd make it a thousand times worse than this stupid blizzard. Its only upside was how much it would slow her down. That thought actually consoled him a little bit; she wouldn't get far in the weather out there – it wasn't possible! She was weak and she was only in her pyjamas…
At least she had been, when he'd gone to sleep. But he'd also thought he'd broken her into never leaving! Who knew what else she could've changed and kept from him? And she had just been through his wardrobe to get to the window!
That little bitch might actually have done it…!
Opening up the all the closets one after the other, tearing past clothes and shoes, he eventually found what he had been looking for. There was a gap on the rail he'd designated for coats and jackets. His warmest one, the coat that could cover the body of a little slut with no trouble, had been taken. A large pair of hiking boots was also missing.
That fucking bitch had the audacity to not only try and leave him, but she'd stolen his things as well?!
That did it. Something snapped in Thomas' mind – he was going out there to find her, and he was going to drag her back by the hair. Then he'd give her the correction of her life, and she'd be back in her room before she could so much as even think about the word "outside"!
He'd find her. He'd go out and get her right this fucking instant! He'd have to hurry if he was gonna do it before she found some bolt hole that was still open and disappeared for good, but he'd bring the bitch back on a leash if it was the last thing he ever did!
Cursing under his breath (and itching to put his fist through something), he quickly tore off his own pyjamas, not caring to put them in the hamper. He'd have his worthless little escapee do that, when she was busy cleaning the whole room after what she'd done to it!
Not wanting to stand around too long in the biting cold, he quickly threw on the clothes he'd been wearing earlier, patting his back pockets to check them over for…for…
Thomas' face fell. His keys and wallet must've been downstairs. But didn't…hadn't there been a bill in there, when he'd taken them off? He hadn't spent everything at dinner that night! He always left money in there, too, to see what the little bitch would bring back to him in a game of fetch.
The pockets were flat, though. And they didn't give that familiar, crinkly rustle that said either one of them was still loaded with cash!
But they couldn't have been empty, could they? It was one thing for the bitch to go through his wardrobe, it was another thing completely for her to clear out his pockets! Those were his clothes – escape or not, she wouldn't fucking dare take money from his clothes! She'd fetched it all for him, every time! He'd counted it all back and there hadn't ever been so much as a cent missing!
Maybe it'd just got crushed down at the bottom when he'd taken the pants off…? He slipped his hand into the first pocket. Then the other when that came up empty.
The realisation that he'd underestimated the little whore hit him, and he let out a scream of utter rage, kicking and punching the door of the nearest closet until it broke – that bitch had stolen his fucking money as well!
She'd gone into his things and taken it from him like she thought he was a fucking ATM instead of her fucking superior! She was going to pay for all of this, so hard...she'd be seeing permanent stars by the time he was done, and he didn't care about the no-face-injuries rule anymore.
If she was going to act like an ugly bitch, then he'd make her one.
He reached into the closet and pulled out his second-warmest jacket and an old pair of boots. Clearly, it was all he had left to do this with. His keys were downstairs, so he rushed to go get them before he left. He always kept them in the same place, no matter how drunk he'd gotten the hours before – he had a hidden safe in his office and it was perfect for keeping them all out of Claire's sight. He hadn't wanted her getting any ideas about finding the house keys and getting the front door open. She could've taken off at any time if she'd been able to unlock it…
He could've killed over how right he'd been to do that. But at least having the keys meant he still had the upper hand; he'd been smarter than her the whole way through this and he would be again. This was just a blip. A temporary inconvenience.
Claire wouldn't be far away, so he was taking the car to pick her up – all over again. And this time he'd make her understand the lesson he'd been trying to teach. She'd know who owned her, soon enough and for evermore.
He snapped on the light as he went into his office. The last thing he wanted to do was waste time fumbling around in the dark with a safe door when his bitch of a wife was out there running around loose, after all. He quickly retrieved his keys from the safe, leaving it open (it wasn't like he was gonna be robbed again, was it?) and headed straight on back through the house to the door that led to the garage.
He ripped it open and slammed it shut behind him as he stormed over to his car, thinking about how satisfying it would be to do the same thing to the door of Claire's room as punishment for all this.
He thought about which way she could've gone as he opened up the automatic garage door and unlocked the car. There weren't any stores nearby that could've been open in a blizzard like this, and it wasn't like the police had come screaming down the avenue yet, so she hadn't been able to call from anywhere. That meant she probably hadn't gone to any of the neighbours' houses – she'd probably thought that was too close.
Well, the next place she'd probably try to go was back to New York. The little rat would want to return to the sewer, after all, and going there by herself was more direct than waiting around for the police...
But how would she get there? There wouldn't be any cabs or buses in this weather, the train station was an unlikely bet, but… but…the ferry would probably still be operating in this weather! That was it – she would've gone to go find a fucking port! It was the fastest, most direct way to get where she wanted to go!
Well, he'd soon slow that plan to a permanent halt. And, on the off chance she wasn't there, he'd think of where else she could possibly have shuffled off to then. It wasn't like the bitch that that many more options around the place – she'd be trapped soon enough.
She didn't know he was already closing in. The dumb whore probably thought he was still asleep!
Getting in the driver's seat, slamming his door shut, and starting his engine, he backed out of the garage without really even looking (no one was around – who was going to stop him?), and took off down the street in the only direction she could've gone. There was a new ferry terminal at Port Imperial, not even half an hour from the house – there'd been a whole lot of talk about it when it'd opened in March, and he would willingly have bet his life on those fucking maps and guides he'd given her talking about the place as well!
He couldn't believe he'd bought that story now. He'd given the slut fucking pointers on how to get out of there!
He'd nearly slipped up, and slipped up bad. But he'd fix that little mistake in no time, and then he'd fix her. But he had to do it quickly – if he didn't hurry, she'd find a person from the terminal staff, or get a ticket and board, or do both and get him slapped in cuffs before he could even think about claiming what was rightfully his!
But that would never happen. He had to remind himself of that. He'd get her back before she'd even set one foot on that fucking boat and had made it across to New York City!
She wanted to escape – well that was all fine and dandy. A cat always plays with its prey before ending its misery, and he would play with her alright. If she thought he'd been cruel before, then she had no idea what he had in store for her, once she was back where she belonged. She'd regret the day she ever thought about escaping, when he was done with her. He'd make her life a living hell.
And with that thought in mind, Thomas stepped on the gas, his car soon disappearing into the storm as it hurtled down Hamilton Avenue, towards the ferry terminal.