I take in a shaky breath and pull away from the door. No one is going to be waiting outside this time. Nobody is going to save me.

I turn away from the door and run my eyes over every inch of my cell. There’s a small camera hidden in one corner, which I pretend not to notice, and nothing else of note. That done, I check through what I have on me. My boots are steel-toed and could serve as a weapon if I’m desperate enough. My jumpsuit is useless. My pockets…

“Oh,” I whisper, as my mind flashes to the mouth-guard still stuffed in my pocket. The knot in my stomach loosens and the tension in my shoulders eases. A grin fights its way through the freezing terror. “Took you long enough, stroke of genius.”

I turn my back to the camera and carefully maneuver the rubbery ball out of my pocket with my cuffed hands. Cupping my fingers around it, I bring it to my mouth and exhale. After a few repetitions, the warmth turns the substance gooey and pliable. I tear off a small chunk of it with my teeth and push it into the keyhole of my handcuffs.

I place the rest of the substance back in my pocket, and wait for it to cool and harden. After a few minutes pass, I give the handcuffs a simple twist, and they come free. I catch them before they hit the floor and hold them close to my body. The small freedom is enough to calm my racing heart.

“All right,” I mutter to myself. “What now, what now?”

I move toward the lock on the door and scrutinize it as closely as I can without making it too obvious to the camera. Because this is a temporary holding facility, I’m hoping for something low-tech like the cuffs Zinne slapped on my wrists. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The lock can be opened only with a keypad from the outside. I bite back a curse, push away despair, and run through my other options.

When the guards come for me, they won’t expect me to have my wrists free or a makeshift weapon in the form of the cuffs, so I could get the jump on them. That method might work for the twins, but I’m not much of a fighter. Lyre probably knows a million legal loopholes that could buy her time until the family found her, but I don’t have much legal know-how, either.

I am, on the other hand, a pretty good liar. So that brings me to Option C.