My in-laws left me on the kitchen floor with a shattered leg, certain I was too broken to fight back. Three days later, they walked into my hospital room ready to mock me—only to find an empty bed. Because the woman they called weak had already escaped… and started planning their public downfall.

Inside, if memory served, was an old rusted can opener.

I crawled inch by inch across the tile.

When I reached the cabinets, my hands were slipping from sweat. I fumbled at the drawer handle twice before I got it open. Utensils rattled softly. Aluminum foil. Dead batteries. A broken whisk. The can opener gleamed dull silver in the moonlight coming through the small transom window above the back door.

I gripped it and looked up at that window.

Tiny. Old. Painted shut years ago and partly nailed.

Not impossible.

I used the can opener’s point like a pry bar, working at the softened wood around the frame, pulling one nail, then another. It took forever. Or maybe six minutes. Pain makes time fraudulent. My fingers split. I dropped the can opener twice. Each clang sounded to me like an alarm, but nobody came.

When the frame finally gave with a soft pop, cold night air spilled over my face.

The window was too small for comfort and too high for dignity, but terror is a remarkable engineer.