Run To You Read Free

being mugged by expensive furniture and artwork, and there’s nothing I can do to get away. The three-foot-deep carpet has me mired, like quicksand.
    And then I see what awaits me on the bed, and the effect gets worse. I’m smothered in shock and anxiety, to the point where I can’t breathe, for a long moment – though I do understand how silly that is. I’m sure this is all perfectly normal and ordinary to someone who isn’t as dull as me.
    People are probably using handcuffs on each other all the time, in all the places I’m not. It’s not even a big deal to have kinky sex any more. It’s old news, it’s beyond boring, it’s passé. Those glittering gunmetal loops on the bed are simply a sign of how out of date I am.
    As is the leather strap next to it, and the puddle of red silk like spilt blood, and the thin silver cane that makes me think of the kind of school I never went to. This is the dusty place of my Enid Blyton imagination, filled with answers you can’t give to questions that don’t make sense and professors in tweed with icy eyes.
    Professors who might be very angry to find me trespassing where I don’t belong. I’ve somehow slipped into Bluebeard’s cupboard without knowing it, and now I’m dancing amidst the dead girls. I’m seeing things I shouldn’t and feeling things I’m not prepared for, and it’s at this moment of supreme confusion that the door handle starts to turn.
    I hear it before I see it. I hear old metal grind against old metal, and then I move without thinking. I don’t even stop to consider how insane this is. I simply step backwards into the double-door closet behind me, and pull the doors closed with every bit of grace I didn’t think I possessed. I’m almost proud of myself for the sound they make: soft as a sigh. And for the stillness I sink into, the second I’m cocooned in sultry darkness. Usually I trip, I stumble, I knock something over. I’ve never been known for my stealth.
    But I feel stealthy here. I’ve erased myself from the room, as though this is actually the reverse of that Bluebeard tale. I took myself out of the equation, before he could do it for me. I guessed and found my sanctuary behind some secret door, somewhere to hide while he does whatever he’s going to do outside it.
    Oh, God, I know he’s going to do
something
. All the hairs on my arms have stood up, before I’m even aware it’s a
him
. And then once I’ve heard his heavy footsteps – somehow thudding, despite the plush carpet – and understood that it definitely
is
a man, the sensation gets worse. The prickling, bristling, squirming sensation, as though I’ve done something to be ashamed of, despite knowing I haven’t.
    I’ve only pretended to be Lucy, I think at the heavy presence outside the doors. Please don’t be a Russian mobster, hell-bent on killing me.
    Because that idea, though ridiculous, has a ring of truth about it. This is the moment in the movie when the heroine hopes she’s safe. She holds her breath, waiting and waiting for the drift of shadows through the gap between the doors. Hearing the creak of leather shoes, the thud of heavy footfalls …
    And then just when she’s sure she’s safe …
    Just when she breathes a sigh of relief …
    That’s when he drags her, screaming, from her hiding place. That’s when he does whatever Russian mobsters do – teeth-pulling and eye-puncturing and lots of shouting about treasure that I have no knowledge of. Any second, I think. Any second.
    Only the second never comes. It just goes on and on until it’s practically a whole minute, torturing me endlessly with its refusal to end. If this moment goes on much longer I swear I’m going to burst out and make a run for it, and the only thing that stops me is my need to check first. I just have to look.
    And then I lean forward, trembling, and peer through the gap between the doors. I see who he really is, in a rush of breathless bravery.
    It’s the man from