It had been quiet for too long.

Not peaceful quiet planning quiet. The kind that hummed just under the skin and made every hair on Bianca’s arms rise. Something was shifting. She could feel it.

Her captor wasn’t sticking to routine anymore. The timing was off. The rations skipped a cycle. When he did show up, he didn’t linger like before. Didn’t hum. Didn’t even make eye contact. Just set down the food like a waiter dropping off a check and disappeared.

Bianca didn’t like that.

He knew something.

She crouched in the corner of the crate, back pressed against splintered wood, fingers picking at a sliver near the base she’d been working loose for days now. It had the beginnings of a carving nothing special, just the outline of a feather, or maybe a wing. It gave her something to do. A purpose.

But tonight, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

She was close. She could feel it not just to getting out, but to being found. The carved slat was back in its crevice. The small bread trail she’d started leaving through the crate’s slits had disappeared. At first, she thought maybe she imagined it, but she knew where she’d tucked that last crust. It was gone.

Someone had been watching closer than she realized.

She lay down, slow and careful, ear pressed to the thin seam in the crate, listening harder than she ever had before. There are footsteps. Slow. Not outside. Inside. The lock shifted. A pause. No key turn. Just a hand pressing against the lid.

She stopped breathing.

No light came in.

Just a voice. Low. Calm.

“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?”

Bianca’s throat dried up. She didn’t answer. Not with words.

He laughed. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even cruel. Just… amused.

Then silence.

A second later, the lid creaked shut again. The lock clicked. The footsteps moved away.

She waited five full minutes before moving. Her heart was slamming in her chest so hard it physically hurt.

Okay. He knew.

But that meant he was watching. Closer than before. Which meant one of two things either he was prepping for something final…

…or something had spooked him.

Which meant she still had time.

She rolled back onto her side, staring into the dark, a small grin twitching at the corner of her mouth.