a cold summer

Epilogue

Xara sat on the floor with her legs crossed and her head in her hands. An average person might look at her and see a depressed woman accepting her fate of being incarcerated for life. Maybe even longer than that. The amount of murders Xara had committed were staggering. She was more than a serial killer.

So much more.

She often thought what she was doing was noble. Ridding the world of evil, by getting rid of evil doers. It made perfect sense in her mind, but not anyone else's. That was why she kept getting arrested. People didn't understand her point of view. That was it. She would never kill a good person; it wasn't right. But killing evil people? They didn't deserve to live in the first place. All Xara had to do was make people understand what she was doing. Then, it would all be ok. They would see how she was doing her part to make the world a better place. They just needed to believe. They just need to listen to me, she often thought.

But Xara wasn't depressed. Far from it. She was merely thinking, plotting her escape. Because she would escape. In the same ways she had escaped twice before. The problem with these poorly funded rural jails was that they weren't very strong. The thin plaster walls could be smashed through with a considerable amount of force. But most women didn't have that strength. That's why Xara was placed in this cell. Those jailers didn't know a thing about her.

She was resourceful and smart. Cunning and extremely dangerous. No prison could ever contain her. She made sure of it.

For days, she sat in silence. Thinking. Devising an escape plan. It was on the sixth day that she finally concocted it. Now all she had to do was wait until lunchtime.

At 12:30, the guard came around with her lunch: a loaf of bread and some water. The bread was solid. Like a brick. The perfect way to smash a wall. Xara held the bread in her hand, assessing its capabilities to act as a battering ram. It seemed perfect. But it would need more weight to smash all the way through. Luckily, there was a large wooden bench just outside her cell where the guard would sit and watch her from time to time. If she could just get one wooden plank through to her cell, she was home free.

The iron bars were very malleable, easy to bend into a specific shape. She could escape through this way, but the guards would see her coming and send her to maximum security which would be even harder to break out of.

But Xara did love a good challenge. However, she had to remind herself that she was smart. Smart enough to not do that. She just needed to get free and then when she got arrested for the fourth time, she could try her hand at escaping maximum security. But that would be far into the future.

Xara pulled with all of her might against the iron bars which slowly, but surely, began to give way and opened up a small gap, large enough to pull the entire wooden bench through. She double checked to see that no one was there and when she was confident that no guards were nearby, she tugged at the bench and coaxed it into her cell. It was in.

Now all she needed was rope. Or some kind of string. That would be tricky. There wasn't much to work with in her cell. But then Xara realised that it didn't have to be connected. She could hold it together with her bare hands. This might just work.

She balanced the bread on top of the plank she had taken from the wooden bench. It was time for the escape of a lifetime. Xara pulled the makeshift battering ram backwards and ran as fast as she could towards the wall. She slammed the bread into the wall and watched as a large crack appeared in the wall. She had to keep going - she was so close.

Multiple times, she hit the door and more cracks appeared, eventually forming a small hole large enough for one person to squeeze through. Adrenaline pumped through her body and she climbed through the hole. And she was out. The wall led straight out of the prison. Such a bad planning design. But that was good for her.

Xara relished in the fresh air, but didn't take too long to enjoy it. After all, she wasn't out of the woods yet. She ran into the countryside, as fast as her legs would carry her. No alarms sounded. No one had noticed her escape.

She smiled to herself. She knew it would end this way.

Look out Rain, she thought. Because I'm coming for you.

And when I find you, there'll be no escape from me.