#Book 1 - Page 32 (2/2)

“Perry, the key!” Dex cried.

Of course. In my oxygen-deprived, fear-rattled brain, I had forgotten that I had the key.

I heard the thump of Roddy come closer. He must have been on the landing just above me. The flames had now climbed to the landing below me. And I had the key to get us both out of here.

Holding my phone with one hand, I fumbled in my pocket with the other, my stumpy fingers feeling around awkwardly for our saving grace.

I pulled it out and stuck it into the lock, turning as quickly as I could. Before I could even pull on the handle, the door flew open and a huge gush of seawater flowed out into the hallway. The force knocked me over and the stream pushed me into the bedroom across the hall. The water was about four feet deep even as half of it flowed down the stairs to the lower level.

I could feel the fluttering branches of hundreds of kelp slapping my body in the dark water and I started kicking out frantically. It was black in the bedroom, but there was light coming from the flames that still climbed up the walls of the staircase as if it had been doused in gasoline. I got to my feet and called for Dex.

I heard splas.h.i.+ng and saw a silhouette appear hunched over in the doorway. I would have thought it was Roddy had I not seen the outline of the camera being held high above his head like a trophy. Even when faced with drowning, Dex still had his priorities straight.

He called out for me, and in seconds he was standing in front of me, the water only coming up to his chest. He reached over for me, his free hand coming for my shoulder.

“Oh, thank G.o.d, I—” he started.

Before he could finish his sentence and before his hand had a chance to grasp me, I felt the snaky grip of kelp around my ankle. I screamed, but it was too late.

I was pulled under the water at an alarming rate. With my eyes open I could only make out blackness through the murky water, highlighted by dancing orange fire above the surface. My lungs were filing with the salt.w.a.ter, choking me.

In my disorienting underwater prison, I heard the muted yells of Dex and the faraway sound of gla.s.s breaking.

I also heard the voice.

“I’ve been waiting for another like you,” came the disembodied metallic sounds of the lighthouse keeper through unseen underwater channels. “There just aren’t enough s.h.i.+ps anymore.”

I felt another kelp strand wrap around my waist and pull me farther away from the surface. As impossible as it seemed, I knew I was drowning in a bottomless ocean. And unlike earlier, the liquid that filled my lungs this time overtook me. I kicked weakly, and tried in vain to wriggle out of the hold around my waist.

Maybe this is what the old lady had in mind for me. Maybe death was my fate here. It caught up to me again.

Suddenly, I felt a pair of hands feel the top of my head. One of them grasped my hair and pulled. The pain at the sharp motion felt vague. The other hand reached under my left arm and pulled.

With one giant yank I was pulled above the surface. Dex’s voice filled my ears. My eyes fluttered open and I saw the flames that surrounded us, the heat filling the air above the cold water. I coughed up the water in my lungs and gasped fruitlessly for air, only to fill my lungs with hot smoky dust.

“Can you jump?” I heard Dex say as he pulled me to my feet. His voice seemed like a million miles away.

I nodded weakly, not even sure what he was asking.

He pulled me over to the porthole window, now smashed open. He wanted us to jump out and onto the cliff below.

It seemed like madness but we had no other choice. Though the water in the building started receding and no longer flowed in from the other room, the fire was unstoppable and almost growing off the water at times, as if it was fuel. If we stayed a few minutes longer, we would no doubt be burned alive. And that’s just what Old Roddy wanted.

Dex looked out the window to a.s.sess the situation below, then turned and put his hands on both of my shoulders. He looked me square in the eye.

The light from the flames danced across his wet face. He had a large scratch running down the side of his forehead. His eyes were fearful but determined as they peered mercilessly into mine. I noticed he didn’t have his camera on him anymore. Maybe saving me was more important, I thought vaguely.

He shook me slightly to get me to focus.

“I don’t want to leave you, but I’ll have to go first. That way, I can break your fall,” he said.

“Go limp,” was all I managed to say, remembering the most important thing about taking a fall from my stuntwoman cla.s.ses.

He nodded, then he leaned forward and kissed my forehead in a very surreal moment. The sudden display of affection was touching and terribly out of place.

And just like that, he dropped out of the window.

I poked my head out of the porthole to see if he was OK. He had landed and rolled over, clutching his arm, but was at least alive.

He looked up at me. “Come on!”

I began to pull myself up on the windowsill.

“You can’t leave,” the voice moaned from behind me. It sent chills down my spine, despite the roaring heat of the advancing flames.

I turned around as quickly as I could in the water.

The lighthouse keeper stood in the doorway, his outline stark against the orange light. The flames now snaked into the room along the door frame and steadily climbed the walls like pyrotechnic hands searching for something to ignite. I knew I had little time before the flames engulfed me completely.

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