Tonight is the night.
Denice lays on her bed, listening to the staff and residents of the Ponderosa Center go about their evening routine and going over her plan one last time.
First, work her hands out of the cuffs attaching them to the bed frame - the work of only a minute, after months of experiments to find the quickest and quietest way of doing so. Then, quietly, sit up and work her feet out of their cuffs. Her closet is tiny, containing nothing but a trio of tee shirts, two pairs of sweat pants, a pair of tennis shoes, and a jacket; grab a shirt and pants and shoes. Don't change, not yet; she knows she [i]can[/i] dress herself, but it takes too long, too many false starts and too much confusion, to risk doing now; just bundle the clothing up and deal with it later.
Then, wait. Listen. She knows the staff's patterns, can expect - yes, there - a clear shot, with two of the aides busy putting her neighbors to bed, the third taking an unauthorized - but entirely predictable - break, and the hall's nurse busy with paperwork, sitting in the little office with no view of the hallway. A moment later, she's rounded the corner, her bare feet soft on the cold tile floor, and gone through the door to the dark, empty kitchen.
No alarm. Perfect.
She stops to listen again: Everyone is still going about their usual routines. Ashley, the aide who goes out to the loading dock to smoke, who forgot to re-set the alarm tonight, is midway through her evening's allocated tasks, and none of the other staff working this evening use the dock at all; so long as she's quiet, she has a few minutes before she's at any serious risk of discovery.
She puts those minutes to good use, adding a small collection of packaged foods to her bundle. And then - out. Away. To freedom.
She's a superhero, now. She has been, in a sense, for years, but now it's real. She's Rescue. And the first person she's rescuing is herself.
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