The large house had always felt prison-like, but now each of its bricks, corridors, and bolted doors seemed even more crushing on Isla's heart. It wasn't just her own freedom she wanted anymore. It was the new life growing within her, vulnerable but strong, which compelled her to need to get out. That brought each day into a guerrilla war.
She started with small skirmishes. A piece of bread tucked inside her dress at the dining table. A dinner table water bottle pilfered and kept in a spot she found behind a loose wall in the baby room Dante ordered to be built. She even had the nerve to fold little pieces of paper, with crude maps drawn out of memory, and swathed between the pages of big books no one bothered to open. All of the secret things were a promise, a step toward the day she would at last be free.
