“You, Viatrix Alsair, are sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Count Delroy!” Came the final blow, the judges voice ringing through the room. Death. Hanging. Murder. A murder I didn’t commit.

The part where I didn’t kill him wasn’t the problem. Or the fact he was dead (I never really liked him anyway). The part I had a problem with was that I knew who had killed him and they hadn’t bailed me out.

Bit rude, actually.

I mean, smart, but after 3 years of dating you would think they would have mentioned this, or even just not framed me. I decided I had better use my one phone call to talk to them.

“Hello? Meilyr, you there?” I stuttered. I doubted he could make out what I was saying, the line was that bad. But there was no other way to talk to him.

“Hello?!” I was getting impatient now. I didn’t even know if he had (or would) picked up, but I was desperate to talk to him. I needed to know why he had chosen me to frame. Didn’t we do things together? Talk about important stuff? Or was that just a foolish notion he had allowed me to entertain?”

As the answering machine’s monotone voice began to speak, I dropped the phone and fell back into the corner of my cell. He’d really left me. The crushing feeling in my chest forced me to sit on the stiff block that was supposed to be my new bed. I couldn’t believe it. He’d left me.

***

Brum brum brum brum brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! The noise rang in my ears, grinding my bones. What a way to wake up! This had better not be the alarm in prison. Looking at the clock, I was shocked to see it was only 1.37 am. Was this the time they woke us up at every morning? I might actually kill someone if this happened daily.

“Hey, idiot! Did you miss me?” I whipped around. There, looking in through the broken bars of the cell ‘window’ stood Meilyr, grinning. “You know you were talking out loud right? What kind of alarm did you think that was? It was just me and the chainsaw!”

“Why do you expect me to trust you? You framed me! I know you did!” The problem was, I did trust him. In all the time I’d known him, he had never failed me. So, as much as I hated to admit it, I knew I was here for a good reason.

“Don’t worry sweetheart, I wasn’t trying to get rid of you. It’s just I’ve had run ins like this with the Shurta before and I knew if they got me I’d be dead before the court even heard of the incident. But you, you wouldn’t get killed right away. I told you I would get us away from this place, I just didn’t tell you how. So hurry and we’ll get out of here! The vans already packed with everything we need.” He offered me his hand before adding, “I brought Piggles too.”

I flushed bright red as I clambered out the window. It was hard to hate him when he had even brought my teddy bear.

“All right then. Let’s go.”