AVA'S P.O.VAndia and I shared a secret.A forbidden secret. The only way out of our secret if we were found out was death or... death.So far, no one had suspected us for wandering down the wrong corridors, running our hands over the walls everywhere we went, or returning to our rooms a few minutes before lights out.Meaning our secret was safe. But we knew we didn't have much time. Secrets never stayed secrets, so we had to act fast.This was why we were currently in our room together, trying to connect the final dots to our two-year-old puzzle."It's the last one," I said, unfurling a piece of the handmade blueprint on the wide table, shoving the bottles of water and Gatorade out of the way in the process.Andia bent over to attach the last piece to the rest of the puzzle.She twisted her hair into a messy knot, cracking her knuckles, and from the telling grin on her face, she was fully aware of my grimace."Andy, we don't have all night," I sighed, nervously glancing at the door. Anyone could burst in at any time."Okay, okay, relax."Slowly, so as not to cause any misalignment, she plucked a piece of tape stuck to her cut-off shampoo bottle and pressed it to the papers, connecting the messy drawings.Turning the wide sheet here and there to make sure it was perfect, she raised her hands, backing away from the table.My hands trembled as I curled them around my nape. "This is it, right?"I blew out a slow breath. "You're sure the first is a hundred percent correct?""On my life.""Then...this is it, Andy," I wrapped an arm over her shoulders, both of us sliding down the wall, "we're making our way out of this hell hole."We'd made our very own blueprint of the building. Andy came up with the thought and drew the first piece herself, and from then, the idea —that I'd initially told her she was crazy for having— became my only goal in life.What did I have to lose anyway?Harry, the Section Heads, and the man who'd headed our kidnapping to this place were all vile animals.I wished they'd get punished seven times over for everything they'd done to us and never felt shame for it.Sex trafficking had always been rare in my world when I was younger.I'd never even witnessed a robbery in real life. Most of the heinous acts I'd heard had always been narrated to me by Andia.She knew what it meant to live normally, how to walk home and not get lost, how not to burn water, and what it meant if a man looked at you for too long.But this kind of training and treatment was more than a complete rotation. It felt like the end of it.Pulling myself from the depressive episodes and anxiety attacks had gotten easier over time, but the future didn't look bright. Sometimes, I felt like there was no future at all.From what Andia told me, sex trafficking victims on TV never made it out alive. They usually died in a pool of vomit, drunk and dirty, with needle holes in their arms.No matter how hard I tried to fight and force myself to do as I was told, it felt like each step I took pushed me further and further into a swamp.A sinking swamp, thick with pain and infectious fear, sticky and heavy with every move.No one was going to care how I died, so I could at least try finding a way out, even if it killed me.And an opportunity had fallen in my lap. All I had to do was draw for my freedom. It didn't take long to convince me.Andia and I took turns drawing it out, but we usually did it together so we could cancel each other out if an outline was wrong and perfect it after comparing. Most of the time, hers were creepily right. Sometimes, I wondered if this really was her idea.This place felt like a bad dream I would wake from someday. Like I was going to get up and shudder, shake the sweat and nonexistent apprehension off my shoulders, and then walk out of my room to hug my parents.But I was struggling to accept which one was my reality.My chest constricted tightly, barely relaxing as I exhaled. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.It was done, even though it was hard to make any sense of how we'd done it. I wanted to pinch myself to believe it was real, but the numbing daze I was stuck in served as a better replacement.Now we had a few days to study it, have it ingrained into our memories, master it by heart, and then make our escape. And that was what we did.For three weeks, we did nothing but force it into memory. It wasn't easy paying attention to our usual routines, and with each day that passed, I could feel the excitement and anxiety in my blood bubble faster."Hey, you ok?"I started, belatedly noticing Leslie leaning against the opposite wall.I closed the client's door and quickly flashed her a fake smile. "Perfect."Her eyes narrowed as she crossed the threshold to link arms with me. "You might be able to fool your clients, but that charm wore off me long ago. Come on."