Who was he kidding? That was a crock and he knew it. He was running now on pure coward’s energy, and despite all of his moral superiority, his lofty talk about sacrificing individual desires for the greater good, when push came to shove he was just like anyone else. A good Nazi. Willing to save his own ass at the expense of others. Hell, at any cost.

He walked faster.

He’d been the one playing devil’s advocate, taking Billings’ side, defending the purpose of the Houses, suggesting that they be content with their lot, that they accept the roles fate selected for them because they had been chosen to do important work, to not only save the free world but to protect the structural integrity of the entire universe. Had it all been rationalization, merely his own way of attempting to make the best of a bad situation? He didn’t think so. He had believed it—at least some of it. But he also had to admit that the prospect of escaping, of actually being able to get away from this prison filled him with a joy and hope he had not experienced in… years.

If ever.

Freedom became so much more precious when it was taken away.

He stopped in front of the den. The door was open and through the windows of the room he could see the lights of the next farm over.

It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest.

He walked quickly into the den, not bothering to turn on the light. The door he’d gone through before was locked, but he could still see farmland through the windows, hay bales lit blue by the moon. He remembered what Stormy had told them about trying to break a window, and though it hadn’t worked for Stormy, Norton figured it was worth another try. He glanced around the den, looking for something he could use to smash the glass. His gaze alighted on a small three-legged table next to a high-backed leather smoking chair. There was a heavy ashtray atop the table, and he tried that first, cocking his arm back and throwing the ashtray as hard as he could at one of the windows.

It sank into the glass, reappeared on top of the table.

He picked up the table itself, letting the ashtray fall to the floor. Using both hands to grasp two of the table’s legs, he stationed himself to the left of the window, pulled back, and swung the table as hard as he could into the glass. He did not let go of the legs, and there was a strange liquidy tremor as the tabletop hit the window, a wobbling transmitted by the wooden legs that he could feel throughout his entire body.

A portion of the table reappeared next to the chair.