But Robert just shook his head. It didn’t seem like a denial, but she couldn’t read him. He was eager and scared at the same time, hopeful and broken.

It took a long time for the bindings to finally give, and when they did, it happened all at once. In one moment the rope was stubborn and unmoving; in the next it relaxed against the tops of her feet. Something in her chest followed, untangling as well. She didn’t like being restricted.

Robert cheered lightly beneath his breath as she kicked the rope away.

Once Mia was able to stand, there was a simple maneuver she could use to get out of the plastic zip tie. She brought her hands up above her head and then, in a swift, practiced move, threw them toward the ground. The stress was too much for the restraint, and it gave way beneath the pressure.

She breathed hard as she thumbed over the tender skin where the hard plastic had dug in.

“That was impressive,” Robert said.

Mia smiled, a little. “They teach it on day one of training. Just couldn’t do it sitting down. Now where’s that lockpick?”

Mia was still kneeling by the door an hour later, the rusty piece of metal that could only be generously called a pick in this situation clutched in sweat-slicked hands.

The work was made more tedious by the way she had to pause every few seconds to listen for footsteps. If they were found in this position, they would lose any advantage they’d gained from slipping out of their bindings.

Robert had tried standing behind her, his cheek pressed to the metal, but it didn’t take long for his weight to sag against the door, against her shoulder. He was too weak to last beyond the first ten minutes. Now he was sitting silently on the stairs behind her, his eyes not once leaving her back.

Frustration ate away at her belly. Her vision blurred, and when she squeezed her eyes shut, bright lights popped against the blackness there.

She shook out her free hand, concentrating on the air pressing against her lungs, on her steady heartbeat, on the ache in her kneecaps, anything other than the searing desperation that threatened to sap all her energy.

This was their only option. There were no other exits, no vents, no weak spots. Just one locked door and a piece of metal fashioned out of an old couch spring.

She started on the lock again.

As she worked this time, the memories came, those faint echoes that barely registered because her attention was focused elsewhere.

Cash coming up the stairs. His dead eyes and empty apology for startling her. Reaching for her gun, thinking he was going to attack. Thinking he was their guy. But he wasn’t.

Metal clanked uselessly against metal, and she clenched her fist.

It wasn’t Monroe who told me about the baby.