His mistaken Identity

Chapter 5

Jane stood next to her sleeping son and looked around the bathroom for anything that she could use. Nerves made her bounce repeatedly on the soles of her feet as her hand tapped her thigh. She was actually beyond nervous and too conscious of the men right outside the bathroom door. She had to find a way to escape before the men decided to check in on them. Every second counted.

Her eyes finally landed on the sheet and blanket her son was wrapped in. It was like a light bulb went on over her head. An idea popped into her mind and began to take form.

It could work. It had to work because there weren’t other options as far as she could see. Jane quickly knelt next to Tony and gently unwrapped him from his comfortable warmth. Any new mother would agree it was a terrible idea to wake up a baby that had finally fallen asleep, but her plan required her to move the baby. She only hoped he wouldn’t wake up in the process.

Tony was removed from the blankets and the soft blue sheet she had bought just the week before. Jane didn’t have much money. In fact, she had been struggling to meet their basic needs from one day to the next. But when she saw the baby blue sheets in a shop, she had to get them for her son. Tony deserved the best, regardless of their situation.

And her financial situation was very depressing. Her only advantage currently was that Tony was only a month old and survived solely on her breast milk. So she only had her own mouth to feed. The fact that she was thin way past sexy was just a minor detail.

The little money she had managed to save up before giving birth was fast running out. But she knew with very strict budgeting skills she could still keep a roof over their heads for the next two months while she figured out what to do. But first, she had to get them out of their current predicament.

Jane placed the baby blue sheet on the floor and spread it in a diamond shape. She wrapped Tony in the blanket, then placed him at the center of the sheet as though she was about to swaddle him, except she wasn’t.

She grabbed two opposite sides and tied them together over her son, then she tested her idea. Jane grabbed the other two sides and gently lifted Tony off the floor. It worked. Tony balanced in the air, held by the sheet. He wasn’t a big baby, something that sometimes worried Jane, but in that moment, she thanked everything holy. A tiny spark of hope bloomed in her chest. But she didn’t have time to sigh in relief or even give her plan more thought. She quickly set her son back down and then took him in her arms and walked to the window.

With firm determination, Jane gently placed Tony on the edge of the window and held him there with one hand while she used the other hand to hoist herself up.

How she managed to get up onto the window and then moved Tony through the window and lowered him to the ground outside as she held the ends of the sheet, Jane will never know. Despite her determination, she was weak and so terrified she visibly trembled. Her only source of strength was her need to get her son to safety.

Tony mercifully did not wake up even after she placed him on the uneven ground outside and the ends of the sheet fell on his face when she let go of them. There must have been an angel watching over them because if the boy had chosen that moment to wake up and cry, everything would have come to an abrupt, deadly end. Jane was sure of that.

She quickly climbed through the window and jumped down on the other side. Gathering a still-sleeping little boy in her arms, a trembling Jane darted left and right only once before she took off running for the edge of the property.

Stealth wasn’t really top of her list at that moment. Jane ran as hard as she could without falling down and injuring both herself and Tony. She didn’t dare glance back at the house to see if she had been seen. She was either going to die or make it. And if she was going to die, she preferred not to see it coming.

When she reached the edge of the property and came to the welded wire grid fence, she realized there was enough space between the bars for her to push Tony through. Again, she whispered a silent thanks to the stars her son was so small. Jane wasted no time in doing just that. Carefully, she pushed her son to the other side of the fence.

Once he was on the other side, she straightened and began to climb the fence. At the back of her mind, she knew if any one of the men looked out a window at that point in time, they would have seen her. There was no cover to hide her, but she couldn’t take the chance to waste even a second on such details.

In fact, she was not thinking of many details except to get away by any means necessary. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, readying her muscles to run.

When she reached the top of the fence, she paused only a second before she threw one leg over and followed with the rest of her body. Just as she thought she had cleared the top and was about to descend on the other side, she felt her shoulder catch on a rough, sharp piece of metal that had not been welded in properly. The metal tore through her shirt and dug straight into her shoulder before she knew what was happening.

The cry of pain left her lips before she could stop it. It pierced the quiet air around her like a siren. Immediately, fear gripped her, and she froze. Not the fear of losing her arm, but the fear that she had been heard.

With her shoulder impaled on the fence, Jane slowly turned her head and tried to look towards the house. She couldn’t see much from her position and she couldn’t hear anything either. The only sounds she heard were her own labored breathing and the rapid beat of her heart in her ears, like white noise.

A tear rolled down her cheek even as she felt warm blood roll down her left arm. The pain was almost enough to knock her out. She could see the darkness play on the edges of her vision.

It was extremely tempting to just fall into it. But then she remembered her son. Tony needed her. She was his only hope of seeing tomorrow. His only hope of a life.

Jane took a deep breath and blew it out through her parched lips. She then took another one and held it, then she closed her eyes. Jane shifted her hands until she had a better grip on the fence and placed her feet in such a way her body’s weight was not concentrated on her arms. Every tiny movement hurt like hell, but she had no other choice if she wanted to save her son. With a mammoth effort, she then lifted her shoulder off the metal bar that had pierced it.

If she thought the pain had been bad before, it only tripled after that. Jane’s stomach turned as intense pain rolled through her body. She suddenly felt the urge to retch and nearly lost her balance.

Her stomach, however, had nothing to give. So, after another involuntary empty heave, it settled. Gingerly, Jane made her way down until her feet touched the ground.

She stood there for a second and looked up at the blood on the metal fence, then at her arm. There was blood, enough blood to cause concern. But not enough to stop her, not when she was so close to getting away.

There wasn’t anything she could do about her arm. She couldn’t wrap it with one hand, and she really didn’t have time for it. She had already wasted precious minutes on the fence. So she bent down and collected her son from the ground.

As blessings went, she would count the small one that Tony was still asleep. She held him tight with her right arm and started running.