Micah didn’t know if it was desperation or hysteria that found him refocusing his gaze from his target to the mass-produced painting of Jesus, but he took in the benevolent smile and the halo of light behind the glossy, brown hair and prayed. “Please. If you even exist, if you truly care, just… I need your help.”

Micah kicked again. The wall quivered, but nothing.

“Fuck! What do you want? I’ll go to church every frickin’ Sunday!”

Wham. Nothing.

“I’ll pray every day!”

Wham. Nothing.

Micah sniffled, on the cusp of balling like a fucking baby, and moved on from making hopeless promises to listing all the things he’d been looking forward to that wouldn’t come to pass if he didn’t somehow get out of this dank, dark basement.

“I won’t get to meet Tessa’s babies.”

Wham.

“I’ll never get to tell Damon I’m sorry and that I love him.”

Wham.

Micah had all but resigned himself to the fact that his plan was doomed, so it took a moment for him to recover from the shock when the cross finally fell, clattering onto the cement floor. But disbelief quickly gave way to relief.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered before stiffening, eyes immediately swiveling to the painting of Jesus. “Uh, thank you, I mean,” he said, unsure if it’d truly been divine intervention that had caused the cross to fall or simple physics, but Micah was high on the feeling of relief, and he figured it couldn’t hurt.

It took some awkward repositioning, but eventually Micah was able to grab onto the cross with his toes and bend his leg to bring it to his working hand. The rope was tight, and it was trickier than Micah thought it would be to force it between his wrist and the rope, but he managed.

Then, keeping a careful hold on the top of the cross with his fingers, Micah began sawing at the rope. It was strenuous work. His forearm burned and his wrist bled, but unlike with his ankles, Micah could actually see the rope fraying.

The edges of the crucifix were sharp, and it took much less time to free his hand than it had his ankle.

A whimper of jubilation escaped him as he flexed his liberated hand, but Micah didn’t dare stop to celebrate. The closer he got to escape, the more afraid he grew of Ren barging into the room.

He turned his attention to the rope looped around his other wrist, picking frantically (carelessly) at the knots until his nails were chipped and bleeding, and the binding was loose enough that he could carefully maneuver his useless limb through the rope.

He repeated the same process with his bound ankle.