We keep sprinting through the inner wall well beyond the point where all three of us have totally expended every last ounce of energy in the weary little meat sacks we call our bodies.  My blood’s surging with at least ninety percent pure adrenaline, and I’m fairly certain if I stop moving now I’m going to crumple over.  Vaulting across the pipes and squeezing between board slats becomes more difficult the deeper we go, and practically every other step entangles us in thick cobwebs that string up to the invisible void above.

                More than a dozen times in the black haze I think I feel the familiar wall of Julia’s palm colliding with my back, collecting me for a final time as her firm fingers close around me.  In my memory, the muscle behind those massive digits seems to squeeze with every stride, trying to convince my limbs how futile this all is.

                Then when I nearly trip over a hunk of wood, for an instant my derailed mind is convinced I’ve stumbled over Julia’s foot, her big toe tapping impatiently for the chance to purge my innards with a soft squish.  Even as I recover and continue moving, it takes a moment to convince myself I’m not currently being liquefied under her heel.

                Still other times I think I feel wetness against my shins and ankles: her mythic tongue, as though in our confusion we’ve run directly into the mad goddess’s mouth, and she’s having a last tasting before the slimy plummet into a digestive graveyard of other swallowed souls.  She has to already be reserving a space for us there.

                Of course, nothing is fresher in my mind than the visage of Charlie’s bloodied corpse being bludgeoned to pulp where the sun doesn’t shine on Julia.  This, too, has to be a very real possibility.

                Turning around to see what was lay behind crossed our minds for inexplicable reasons, and before we turned the first corner, I could see the militant blink of a flashlight peering through the hole that we lunged into about ten minutes ago, but it’s too small for Julia to be able to fit her hand inside for a more clarifying review of the darkness.

                We’re safe.  For now.

                And given how rapidly our fortunes are prone to change in in this house, “now” might end before I’ve even taken another breathless leap in the dark.

                Nearly as much as my heaving lungs as we run, though, my heart aches for Gina, still back in Julia’s bathroom where she was chosen to care for Brian and Anna’s newborn daughter.

                The widowed father is leading our charge through the walls, followed by Kelly, and finally me.  I doubt he has any idea of where he’s headed, though it’s not like Kelly or I would be doing a much better job in his place.

                The walls are an absolute maze, and I know we can’t possibly see all the pathways out.  Even out of Julia’s clutches, however temporarily, we’re still made to be rats in a cage.  I imagine however panicked she has to be right now over losing us, our mad teenage goddess is getting some of her standard sick satisfaction out of knowing we’re just as lost as she is right now.  Reason tells me the network of tunnels can’t be nearly as complicated as my mind makes it, but the longer we move, giving the fear time to fester in my chest, it’s as though the structure itself is multiplying, mutating to Julia’s will, and entrapping us in the oblivion.

                We won’t be able to head for an exit from the house, of course.  It would be tantamount to us throwing the switch on Gina and probably the baby as well.  Julia’s already a bundle of violent neuroses when she has full control of a situation.

                It’s an understatement to say it terrifies me to the marrow imagining her when she’s pushed to the absolute edge.

                “Brian, stop,” Kelly pants as we clamber over a particularly thick bronze pipe.  “Stop for a minute.”

                “Okay,” he agrees wearily, and the patter of our feet ceases as we all take a relieved slump on the dusty ground of the inner wall.  I don’t so much sit down as just barely avoid a full-body collapse.  Now that we’ve halted after so much manic sprinting, the magnitude of the situation we’ve put ourselves in can finally start to catch up, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to the sensation.

                “Are you two both all right?” Kelly asks.  “Jack?”

                “I’m fine,” I say quickly, pressing a fist to my chest as I catch my breath.  My body vibrates, and for a moment, I assume I must’ve leaned against a rattling pipe, until I realize it’s coming from my arms.

                “Good,” she answers as she places a hand on my shoulder, which helps with the shaking slightly.  “Thank you.”

                “What?”

                “I said thank you.  For figuring this out.  You know we wouldn’t have been able to make it without you,” she repeats with emphasis.

                “Uh.  You’re… welcome,” I answer guiltily, never more bittersweet than now about one of my perceived victories over Julia.

                “It’s okay,” Kelly says, reading my mind, as she hangs onto my arm.  “She’s not going to do anything to them.  Not with us out here.  It’s all she has left over us now.”

                Kelly’s right, and I’m comforted by it, but I still can’t help but tremble at the thought of the girl I love trapped in the hand of the girl whose love for me might result in all of us roasting in Julia’s stomach acid before morning.  My only respite is in knowing that the initial success of our flight will have to have staved off our demented warden’s hammer of injustice for now.

                She won’t touch Gina, her most effective bargaining chip, until she’s sure she can still win.  Not without me squarely in her sights first.  She’ll want me back just so she can exact the most exquisite vengeance upon my wretched soul as any in all of human history.  More importantly, though, with us now as wild cards in the house, Julia’s facing a far greater threat: the possibility of someone actually getting out and bringing her twisted empire crashing down around her.

                I have a sinking feeling we won’t get too far before an ultimatum is posed.

                Julia’s a sucker for ultimatums.

                “I hate to break up the break, you two, but we’ve got to start thinking now,” Brian huffs, drained physically as well as emotionally.  “About how we’re going to play this now.”

                “I know,” Kelly says.  “Any ideas?”

                “Working on it,” I groan, leaning back against the narrow walls and shutting my eyes.  “The plan didn’t really go any further than getting to this point.”

                “Not like we had many options,” Brian says, crestfallen.  “And it worked well.  For us.  But now we have to decide how we’ll get back in and get them out.”

                “Going straight back in there is suicide,” Kelly states.

                “Not necessarily.  We could go back in a few hours,” Brian says.  “What is it, probably around nine right now? It’s been dark for an hour.  She’ll have to sleep eventually.”

                “I doubt it.  She probably won’t sleep for very long if she’s looking for us.  Or waiting for us to come back for the others,” Kelly corrects.  “Especially that.  She’s not going to let them stay in the dollhouse.  If she’s not holding them herself, she’s at least going to put them in a jar.”

                She’s right again, of course.  Even if Julia has to sleep, I can’t imagine those tightly-screwed jars are moving anywhere more than six inches from her hands until she’s got her runaways back in custody.  The darkness goes silent again for a moment, and despite the lack of visibility, I can sense Brian cringing painfully at the mention of his child being entrapped in that glass prison.

                “I’m sorry,” Kelly says quickly.  “You know Gina will take care of her.”

                “I know,” he gulps, pausing for another moment.  “So what are you saying, then, if we can’t go right back in there?”

                “Well.  You’re… you’re probably not going to like this, but… the maid should be back in the morning.  That was when she was here before, when Beth… I… I mean…” Kelly sputters.  There’s very little conversation we can touch on these days that doesn’t involve unspeakable tragedy.  “Of course, we’d have to wait for the rest of the night.”

                “No, I get it,” Brian answers solemnly.  “It makes sense.”

                “We’re still on the second floor.  We need to find a way down to the ground,” I say.

                “I know, but we can’t come out of the walls up here,” Kelly answers begrudgingly.  “She has to already have the cameras back up on her computer.”

                “Fucking hell…” Brian groans as this occurs to him simultaneously.

                “I’m surprised we didn’t find the way down accidentally in the dark,” Kelly comments.  “We’ve probably been going in circles in here.”

                “Probably.  It doesn’t really matter.  We just needed to get away from the opening,” Brian agrees.

                “Does anyone even remember how many turns we’ve made?” Kelly asks.

                “I think I can guess.  I remember a fork.  If we get up now and start moving in the direction behind me, we’ll take a left instead of a right.  That should at least get us away from her room.  The hallway stairs aren’t that far away from there,” Brian says.

                “I’m ready when you two are,” I say, pulling myself up on a pipe for support.  As I rise, my aching body screams for me to lie back down and possibly remain in that spot for the rest of time, but as usual, I’m forced to ignore common sense and general fantasies of basic comfort.

                “That front hallway is going to be a real bitch to get down,” Kelly says as we all get moving again, still following Brian.  “We’ll have to go slowly.  Take our time.”

                “Right.  The pipes are close enough together, though, that we should be able to test our footing on the way.  Besides, I’ve had to work around some set-up like this before.  I was a handyman before I was a teacher,” Brian says.  “Maybe I’ll be of use for once today.”

                “I’m sure you will,” Kelly reassures.

                “Definitely,” I say, trying to convince himself as much as myself.

                It’s not that I don’t have every confidence in Brian’s talent for memorizing pipe layouts in a house he’s never actually seen the inside of, but at our current statures, the mere thought of the descent is already curdling my stomach.

                We arrive at the drop sooner than expected thanks to Brian’s half-remembered tidbits.  Our pace slows considerably as we near, in preparation for locating the drop with a carefully placed hand rather than stepping directly into the cruel grasp of gravity.  Luckily, a slope in the ground tells us we’re approaching it until I find myself bracing against the other two, overlooking the edge before the abyss.

                It’s just as difficult to see anything, but somehow, knowing that inching myself forward any further would result in a plummet lasting several seconds, standing here rattles me regardless.

                “This is it.  We need to get moving.  Just follow my voice, and I’ll find the pipes,” Brian instructs as calmly as he can manage, though I can hear in his voice he’s nervous too.  I can’t say I blame him.

                Without another word, he makes the first move, scrambling over the ridge and rappelling into dusty emptiness.

                “C’mon, Jack.  Let’s go,” Kelly whispers as consolingly as she can, stepping across the edge as well.  “The first one is right here.”

                Despite what a torture this would be for the acrophobic Gina, I wish she was here now so we could give each other strength.

                I fish around in the darkness, finding the first foothold where Kelly said it would be and shift my weight onto it, giving myself to the void, and trying pretty desperately to put aside the fact that we’re all about to climb blindly down an entire story at the size of someone’s finger.