Chapter 67

Chapter 67

In an instant, her body began to fall downward. If she fell like this, she would die in Winston’s hands.

Rumble, bang!

Grace hurriedly spread her limbs and pressed them against the walls in all directions. The moment her body slid against the iron plate and her bare skin rubbed roughly, she stopped.

“Haa… D*mn…”

She held her body and breathed heavily. As she sighed, she began to worry that she had made a loud noise earlier.

‘I’m sure no one heard it.’

She had to get out of here quickly before she was caught. Even though her crushed knee and arm ached, she didn’t even have time to wait for the pain to go away before she started climbing the drop chute again.

‘I survived.’

Finally, she touched the first-floor entrance.

As she put her arm around the end of the slot and lifted the cover slightly, the supply room was immersed in pitch-black darkness. Grace made sure no one was there, and she slipped out of the slot. There was no time to rest her limbs.

Exhausted, she put on her shoes, straightened her clothes, and came out into the hallway. There were two entrances on the first floor, the front entrance, and the back entrance.

First, she looked outside through the window on the front door and sighed quietly.

‘Stupid bastard.’

The iron gate, the only way out of the wall, was guarded by soldiers even at this late hour.

Reluctantly, she went to the back door.

After confirming that no one was there, she took the thick rug that had been spread in front of the door and cautiously stepped out to the annex. When she stood against the wall and looked up, all the windows, even Winston’s bedroom window, were thickly curtained and unlit.

‘Good night, you son of a b*tch.’

He probably didn’t even dream that she was going out.

Grace quickly ran to the small gazebo in the backyard. The high-roofed pavilion, with its walls covered with ivy, was a good cover.

The next moment, she brought a garden chair to the wall two steps away from the pavilion. Climbing into a chair and making sure there were no sentries on the other side of the wall, she put the rug she was holding in her hand over the dense barbed wire.

>Swish.

Compared to the rough barriers so far, climbing over the fence was like child’s play. It was easy to pass through the dark, deserted garden and escape through the mansion’s employees-only back door.

“I did it… I did it.”

Grace came to an abrupt halt as she ran off the pavement that ran along the mansion’s walls and across the apple orchard. She realized now that it wasn’t just her own tears that covered his eyes. As she raised her head, thick raindrops fell down her face.

…The smell of rain, the smell of soil, the smell of grass.

If the sharp smell of blood meant death and bondage, now the sharp smell meant life and freedom. She inhaled deeply the scent she missed so much.

Tears were shed in the raindrops falling from the black sky where the walls were black everywhere. Still, it wasn’t anger or sadness.

“Free. I am free.”

Tak.

One, two, three.

Tak.

One, two, three.

Tak.

Peter, who heard something hitting the window like in an ensemble, rose from the bed. It was clear that this regular sound was human work.

He opened the window wide and looked down, unable to believe his eyes.

“Grace…?”

An unexpected figure was standing under the window.

He hastily changed his clothes and went out the back door of the boarding house. Grace, who looked like a drowning mouse, smiled broadly as soon as she saw Peter.

“Peter.”

Peter, who was unfamiliar, couldn’t be so glad at this moment.

“Get me out of here right now.”

“Huh… wait for a sec…”

Lost in thought for a moment as to how to get her out of Halewood, he nodded and led Grace out of the fence.

“Let’s go to the post office first.”

He asked, lowering his voice as they walked down the dark country road.

“How did you come out? Could Winston have freed you?”

“How could he? Of course, I came out on my own.”

Grace, who was able to relax her mind, boasted with a proud smile.

“But is there no one watching at dawn? Didn’t anyone show up on the way here?”

Peter asked, assuming, of course, that some of the comrades might be spying on Winston to rescue her.

‘Because they wanted her to take her own life up there.’

She didn’t know.

Embarrassed in front of Grace, who came out alive and couldn’t hide her joy, Peter evaded it.

“It wasn’t easy because Winston was always keeping an eye on suspicious movements. Still, you don’t know how glad I am that you got out safely.”

Arriving at the back of the post office, he pulled the horse out of the stable and tied it to his mail wagon.

“Go in.”

He opened the back door of the little wagon and took out a basket and a box. Grace asked as she entered the empty wagon.

“Aren’t we leaving right away?”

“I need to talk to Nancy first. I need to decide where to contact them since you can’t just leave blindly.”

“Nancy? Then she hasn’t been discovered?”

“Yes. It’s safe to go.”

As she crammed herself into the cramped space and sat down on her knees, Peter closed the door and disappeared into the post office.

The surroundings soon fell silent. All she could hear was the incessant sound of rain and the occasional cry of horses.

Listening closely to it, wondering if she could hear the footsteps of the soldiers coming to catch her or the roar of the sedan’s engine, Grace shuddered her wet body. She hadn’t heard from Peter for quite some time, perhaps the appointment with Nancy didn’t go his way.

Anyway, she was still safe.

‘Does that make sense?’

Fred didn’t reveal the safe house because he was worried about his sister and didn’t even go to the safe house after being released.

‘He barely sold me with a single threat.’

She was stunned.

Seeing that Peter understood the situation, it seemed that Fred had safely passed the news to Jimmy. So, did Fred head straight to the base? There was no reason for Winston, who would have been tailing him, to ask her for the location of the base.

‘It doesn’t match…’

Once she started looking suspiciously, she couldn’t stop her doubts. After juggling facts and speculations, Grace came to the most cogent conclusion.

‘I don’t know if the safe house is being secretly watched.’

She wanted to open the wagon door and go inside the post office to cancel the contact with Nancy, but Peter came out.

“I’ve decided to meet Nancy at the Winsford border.”

“I think it would be better to cancel.”

“Why?”

“Thinking about it, it doesn’t make sense that the safe house was not found out.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Even if we are followed, there is no way that Nancy won’t be able to get rid of them at this dawn…”

“Just drop me off at the streetcar station close to Winsford and pay for the ride to Brayton.”

“This early morning? Are you going to stand in the streetcar station all alone, wet in the rain? And what if you wait for the streetcar until morning and get caught again?”

“I will take care of that.”

Peter let out a sigh as if frustrated by Grace’s stubbornness, then rummaged through the pockets of his clothes before uttering a low curse word.

“I rushed out and left my wallet. Get it from Nancy and ask her to take you to the train station.”

“Peter, in your eyes, I must be unnecessarily sensitive.”

“….”

“I don’t want to get caught again.”

Peter, who had been staring at Grace with weary eyes, wiped his face and spoke in a childish tone.

“Grace, neither do I want to be caught. We have to leave now so I can get back to Halewood before the post office opens. Winston will be suspicious if he finds out that I have been driving the wagon since dawn.”

It was cold but true.

“…Let’s go.”

Grace, who couldn’t put other people in danger because of her, gave up her stubbornness and shut the wagon door. The wagon began to move with a rattling sound as she leaned against the wooden wall and let out a long sigh.

‘I don’t know if I’m acting irrationally because I’m so anxious right now.’

I won’t get caught. I won’t get caught. She took a deep breath in and out, repeating the same words over and over again.

‘I managed to escape the most difficult annex in one go, so what am I worried about?’

The more she looked back, the more she could only say that God was on her side.

It was perfect, right from the location of the bathroom wall. For several days, she put her ear to the wall and listened to the sound of running water, and it was thanks to the careful selection of spots without pipes, but there were no wires.

“Idiot.”

It was a taunt to Winston, who was still asleep, unaware that his pet mouse had escaped from its cage.

Most of the torture instruments that filled the torture chamber were tools, so it was easy to dig through the walls.

Moreover, since the room was not even checked regularly, it was clear that he had mistaken the torture chamber for an impregnable fortress.

‘I, who worked there, know the loopholes better than anyone else.’

She smiled softly.

As she worked in the torture chamber, she would often imagine how she would get out if she was trapped there. Besides, one of those dreams has come true. She was proud of herself.

‘It ended with my victory, Leon Winston.’

She thought of him, who would be devastated after realizing that she had disappeared only during breakfast, but she kept closing her eyes from exhaustion to cold. Tired, she began to struggle with sleepiness.

‘Don’t sleep. It’s not bedtime yet.’

The wagon that was running in the rain came to a stop. She thought she would move again soon, but no. Grace could hear Peter coming down from the coachman’s seat at the front of the wagon, followed by footsteps.

‘Are we here already?’

She must have passed out in the middle. She was rubbing her sleepy eyes and trying to raise her body, which had been crammed into the cramped wagon, when the door burst open.

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