It felt like an eternity passed while Harry waited in that dark room. With the lamp that had provided light while the room had been occupied having now been switched off, Harry had no sense of time or visuals to distract her from her thoughts.

Not long after Dupret and his compatriots had left, she had started noticing that her face, shoulder and hip were numbing from their long acquaintance with the cold, hard floor. The more she tried not to think about it, the more she dwelt upon her discomfort. What felt like hours of pain had likely only been minutes, and without any way of determining how long she had so far wasted, she felt forlorn and reckless. It was hard for her not to break her bonds and rush out the door, whether she knew what was coming or not.

After the first time the door opened, filling the room with the slight amber hue of what Harry thought was daylight, and she'd then been checked by someone she assumed was the second male demon who had accompanied Dupret, Harry tried to take note of the time by replaying movies in her head. Having sat through Beauty and the Beast upwards of 200 times (all for her toddler with the attention span of a gnat, of course), and knowing it ran for just over an hour, she could recite every line in her mind and know roughly the length of time passing.

Male Demon Number Two returned just after Gaston's death. Harry pictured her captors meeting a similar demise some time in the near future as he checked her pulse once more. In the outback, she would struggle to find an enchanted castle to throw them off, however her fingernails of death were easily accessible. In her current predicament, she found her previous qualms about killing demons greatly diminished. While she still drew the line at killing kids, anyone who could force someone like Troy to do this to her, compromising his humanity in the process, deserved the fiery, dusty death she could bring them.

She debated whether to put Male Demon Number Two out of his misery while he knelt over her. While it would be one less villain for her to deal with later, she couldn't guarantee she could do it silently, nor could she guarantee that his reappearance only a few moments later wouldn't be missed, or that she could even get her bonds and gloves off quickly enough to get him before he got her. Controlling her urges, she forced herself to remain on the floor in the pile of her own vomit. She would get her opportunity soon enough.

She got almost to the end of Aladdin with another check from Male Demon Two, and then had another visit near the end of Pocahontas. Harry reflected upon two things, clearly she had watched 1990s Disney movies more in her past than any 30 year old woman should have, also she was definitely NOT a Disney Princess. She was not waiting for a man to improve her existence.

Harry was unsure if it was the feel of something shifting in the outback air, or if the amulet had made her more attuned to the elements, but, as if by instinct, she knew that evening was setting in. It was almost time for her to make her break.

Once Demon Two had left for the fifth time, Harry jumped into action. She ripped the tape from her wrists and then her ankles, and stuffed her gloves into her pant pocket. Tearing the gaffa off her mouth, she panted while she remembered how to breathe normally again. Harry pulled her vomit stained shirt off, leaving herself covered by nothing other than her thin cami. The warm evening air and boil of her blood provided all the warmth she needed.

Knowing she had roughly an hour before her absence was noted, she slipped from the room and ascended the staircase at the end of the hall. She passed multiple closed doors on her way, ignoring them all in her haste.

She carefully edged the door at the top of the staircase open and slid into a small sitting room. Directly opposite the downstairs' door, coffee coloured curtains had been closed, and a large wicker floor lamp in front of them cast a dull light over the room's contents, allowing Harry the opportunity to scan her surroundings. In front of the curtains, a desk sat in the corner, with a bookcase to its side. A laptop backpack, similar to the one hers came in rested against the bookcase. In the middle of the room, a small beige two seater couch was placed behind a rustic coffee table. Instead of photos, the small amount of wall space was decorated with old soap box posters and a large mirror hung between the door she had just excited and a small hallway revealing three doors.

Something about the house was familiar. Something to do with its 'slightly country but not' decor and the musty cinnamon smell tickled her memory. After a few moments of thinking, she brushed the feeling aside and renewed her concentration for the task in front of her. 

Harry pulled her vomit and blood caked hair back from her face and ears, and listening closely, she attempted to gauge the direction of her captors. Their voices echoed through another door to her right. 

Harry raced to the curtains to look at the window. Like most of the houses in Queensland's West, it was protected by metal fly and security screens as a deterrent to dust and mosquitoes. She would need to use a door. 

Reviewing her surroundings, she visualised the layout of the main floor of the house. She determined that the rooms via the hallway were most likely bedrooms and bathrooms, making the solitary door the likely entry to the lounge area and kitchen. Harry went to check the hall anyway. If she were lucky, a backdoor would be hidden therein.

A quick glance through the first two doors confirmed her original suspicions, however. She approached the third door, the assumed bathroom, and stopped in her tracks. That deep silky voice echoed from inside, just his. It appeared Sam Dupret was on his phone. It sounded like he was having some sort of business argument, and based on the acoustics, he was likely doing so from the bathroom. Harry edged away quietly.

Returning to the final door off the sitting room, Harry pressed her ear to the cream painted wood. A conversation was taking place inside.

"I don't possibly know what else he could need," a youngish male voice was saying. "We have the Principal, she has the necklace, and we're almost new moon adjacent enough to conduct the ceremony."

Troy's mother's high, icy voice replied, "That may be so, but we still need a keeper to help us perform the ceremony. Do you really want to go back to the plan six months ago: find the amulet, then scour the world for someone who can actually wear it? It'd be different if the daughter were pure, but once you confirmed that ship had sailed, the glorified school teacher became our best chance in a hundred years, even if Sam would have preferred to keep her as his plaything."

"You don't sound jealous at all, Ingrid." the young voice taunted as Harry processed Ingrid's information.

So that was why they had changed from trying to kill her to kidnapping; they'd planned to take the amulet and then force her two year old to open the gates. That seemed extremely wrong, even for demons, and also very difficult. She wondered if this 'He' they were all so scared of had any experience with getting toddlers to do what he wished.

Harry desperately wanted to keep listening, but she was too exposed where she was. 

She glanced at the bedroom door and then back to the one she was leaning against. She was almost caught between a rock and a hard place. She wasn't completely exit-less still. There was a third and a fourth option. She could hide in a bedroom with even less chance of escape until a demon decided to take a nap; or maybe it was safer to return down the stairs, try to put her bonds back on (somehow), and give escape another go again later. No, there was nothing to it other than to move forward. She returned her ear to the door in time to hear the conversation dulling, signifying the demon's exit and clearing her path forward.

She opened the door and crept into the kitchen. It was a small room, a mere thoroughfare where one collected food on the way to other rooms. It's newly refurbished cabinetry reminded her of the ones in her own house. They matched the ones in the school too. The door 'Ingrid' and demon two had most likely exited stood dead ahead, but what interested her more was the open sliding door to her left, and more importantly, the door with the stain glass window giving hints at outside's darkness through it. It appeared that off the kitchen, a narrow laundry or mudroom had been placed, providing access to the backdoor. 

Harry's heart leapt. In the most ridiculous idea in terms of house renovation ever, a breakfast bar had been added into the centre of the room, jutting out from the wall and making what was already a rabbit warren of a house, even more difficult to manoeuvre through. She, therefore, was required to go around the troublesome bench in order to access the door; still after that tiny obstacle, she would be home free. 

She tip-toed forward. Three large steps and she was at the end of the breakfast bar. Her heart beat faster with every step she moved closer to freedom. 

From another room, the young male voice grew stronger once again. He was returning to the kitchen; Harry was sure of it. She doubted she could make it round, into the mudroom and through the back door before he entered, and she had no idea what hiding spaces she would encounter if she tried her luck just getting through the sliding door. 

The demon's hands grabbing the doorknob made a clinking sound. Harry opened the door to the pantry beside her and slipped in. She eased herself backwards further, praying to the God that had imbued her with these powers that she wouldn't rustle any packaging, and gently shut the door. 

Demon Two opened the kitchen door and stepped into the room. Harry watched cautiously through the slats in the pantry door. As his face moved into the light, she needed to suppress a gasp. She recognised the face, as none other than Lewis, the bar tender. The dark haired man in his early twenties had always been polite to her. She would never have suspected him to have been a demon. It now made sense why Dupret drank for free. She thought it had just been because he was so well liked. It also made sense why he would be the one to check Charlie's impurity. With David staying in the hotel, and Lewis working behind the bar, he would have had easy access.

As satisfying as it was for her to begin to form connections between events in town, it did little to help her current situation. She watched as he stood mere steps away from her, taking a packet of meet pies from the freezer and placing them on a plate at the breakfast bar. He then spun around, whipping the plate into the microwave. Programming the appliance, he moved to the fridge, then returned to the breakfast bar with two cans of Coke. He grabbed a recipe book from an easel on the bench and began flipping through pages while he waited. 

Once again Harry's heart fluttered as she prepared to use her nails. Too loud. Too risky. Not yet necessary! she repeated in her mind, over and over again. 

The microwave screeched and Lewis removed his snack, separating it onto two plates and selecting appropriate cutlery.

"You want sauce?" he yelled in Ingrid's direction.

Harry's stomach clenched. Would their host be a sauce in the fridge or the pantry type of man?

Lewis moved towards the fridge then looked up at the pantry. He obviously didn't know this information about the person whose house he was using to hold an unconscious woman either. 

She prepared herself. She would need to be quick. The moment he opened the door she would need to cover his mouth, as she had seen Dupret do to John, before she dug her nails into Lewis' exposed skin. She had been wondering if the decay process would go faster with multiple entry points. This might be the perfect opportunity to find out. 

He took a step towards her location. This was it.

A loud knocking made him pause.

As he spun around, Harry heard the door creak.

"Is someone at the door?" Lewis asked Ingrid.

Her high pitched reply came back breathlessly. "Yeah, I'll deal with it, if you go and check on the teacher again? This would not be a good time for her to wake up and start making those horrible wailing sounds again. The tape might muffle the noise a bit, but it doesn't stop her from sounding like a cow that's half way through calving."

With a grunt in acknowledgement, the two broke in opposing directions.

Harry felt giddy as she sighed in relief. Her legs were ready to give way from underneath her, but she knew she didn't have the time to stop and steady them. She needed to seize the opportunity while she could. It would be mere moments until Lewis discovered her missing.

She burst through the pantry door and dashed into the mudroom, no longer attempting to do more the mildly dull her movements. She moved through the open doorway and reached for the backdoor handle. 

Turning the knob, she pulled it inwards. The door thunked, as the deadbolt hit its latch. Harry's pulse pounded in her neck. She tried to twist the locking mechanism. It wouldn't move. It must have been locked with a key.

"SHIT!" Lewis cried from downstairs. 

He knew she was free. Her time was up. 

She scanned the room, looking to see if a spare key were sitting anywhere or hanging on the wall. There was nothing.

Two sets of thuds came towards her from opposite parts of the house. She pushed the sliding door to obscure her from view as much as possible as both doors slammed open.

"This slut is here for her Saturday night booty call!" Ingrid spat mere moments before Lewis started speaking over her. 

"The bitch is free!" 

The two stared at each other.

"I'm not a slut, just a bit tipsy. And what bitch?" Liz asked as she entered behind Ingrid in a revealing black dress, high heels and smokey make up that contrasted her ivory skin. 

While Ingrid and Lewis still stared at each other, Liz peered around the kitechen, confused by the whole situation. Her eyes traced over the meat pies on the table and looked towards the open door to the mudroom, down at her high heels, then back to the mudroom. Harry tried to inch herself back further, but it was too late.

She shook her head, but Eliza Waters just smiled back tranquilly.

"Hi Harry, what are you doing here?"

............................................................................................................................................................

Thanks for reading. I am so glad to finally be into the action! This chapter was a hard balance of suspense and information dump. It took me a while to work out the exact layout of this house in order to describe it, and I have agonised over several of the extremely long sentences in order to provide clarity, remain grammatically correct, and give an appropriate level of detail.

If there are any that you struggled with or found too convoluted, can you please let me know? It is really important to me that my audience be able to visualise my ideas. I would like to fix anything that hinders this.

Have a great week/weekend.

AnitaKathleen xxx