After that, she kept her mouth shut because, one, she was getting out of breath, and two, there was the nerve-racking element of the gun near her side. She probably should be more terrified, to be honest, but Teddy had done enough research for her books to know that oftentimes in the most trying and desperate of situations, one’s mind became cool and calm. It was only later that it fell to pieces.
Still. She felt clammy under her arms and her stomach was in knots. She could only see Oscar from behind, so could only imagine what he was going through.
The storm battered the exterior of the lighthouse. Lightning flared, sending shocks of illumination through the random windows in the tower, and rain—no,hail—pelted the glass. Thunder rumbled angrily, and Teddy fancied she could feel the circular stairs swaying a little beneath her feet from the force of the wind.
There were only another dozen or so steps to go. Her legs were trembling—not so much from the exertion of climbing, but from sudden nerves.
“All right. You and me first, mister,” said Misty as they reached the door to the lantern room. “You stay here,” she added, giving Teddy a little shove toward Rob, who was two steps below her. Misty turned back to Oscar, aiming the gun at him. “Keep it slow and easy—no funny stuff—or you get a bullet in your side. I hear that’s a long, painful death.”
Oscar cast Teddy a quick look behind him—a meaningful one, as if he was trying to tell her something—and her heart swelled with emotion as she watched him take the last step up, cradling his hand as Misty followed right behind him.
Then, just as he opened the door, she realized what he’d wanted to tell her—to remind her.
The bats.
He opened the door and ducked quickly into the lantern room as the bats erupted.
Misty screamed and jolted backward, but Teddy had already slipped up next to her by the door. She pushed past Misty, pulling her out of the way and using her frightened momentum to shove her off the top of the steps. Teddy ducked into the lantern room, keeping low beneath the flurry of bat wings. Oscar slammed the door behind her as she heard the shouts from Misty tumbling into Rob as they fell down the stairs.
“Great,” Teddy said as she heard the sound of a gun firing followed by the ugly sounds of people falling. “Now what?”
“We get the lantern working, Teddy, and send an SOS. Lock the door. They’ll be back.” Oscar was already moving toward the massive pod of lenses in the center of the room.
“There’s nolock,” Teddy shrieked in a whisper, wriggling the knob as if she might manifest one.
Oscar swore and spun, looking around for something to blockade the door—but there was nothing up there but a broom.
They both saw it at the same time. “I’ll wedge the handle under the door. It’ll help keep it from swinging open,” Teddy said, conscious of Oscar’s injured hand. She heard the sounds of angry footsteps pounding back up the stairs. “Now would be a really damned good time for Stuart Millore to show up and have his revenge,” she muttered as a huge, horrible flash of lightning lit the sky as if it was noon.
“After all, they did murder you, didn’t they, Stuart?” she said.
The violence of the storm raging about the lighthouse was a sight she’d never seen, and it set the hair on her head standing straight up. Being this high, inside a room completely sided by glass—it was both awe-inspiring and terrifying to see the power of the storm.
And Rob and Misty wanted to put them outside, up here, in that maelstrom.
Oh God, we might actuallydie.
The door heaved a little as one of their attackers crashed into it, and Teddy swallowed back a scream. She had to find something else to stave them off. Misty and Rob had only a small space to work with on the other side; just a tiny landing and the very dangerous steps—but there were two of them, and they were much stronger than she was.
Even with his bad wrist, Oscar had somehow climbed down inside the center of the lenses, and she could barely make out his figure behind the beehive-shaped, rippled glass. In a moment of wild incongruity, it struck her that he looked like a caterpillar inside a beautiful glass cocoon.
Suddenly, light flared from behind one of the lenses. It filled the darkness, blinding Teddy because she was near that side. She stumbled away, moving to the opposite side of the lantern room as the door heaved again. This time, it was accompanied by the sounds of splintering.
Come on,she thought.I know it’s not that easy to break through a damned door!
But she saw nothing that would help her strengthen the door any further.
“Now would be a good time for a miracle,” she said, putting her weight against the door as it heaved again.
It occurred to her, randomly and hilariously, that Misty and Rob hadn’t eventriedto open the door by turning the knob—they’d gone directly to breaking the door down, and thus the broomstick wasn’t doing much good at the moment.
Oscar had the light flashing from behind the Fresnel lens—shockingly fast work!—and Teddy counted the dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dots he was somehow making with the lantern. But the door was weakening, and even the SOS might not help them—the Coast Guard, even if they saw it, wouldn’t be able to get to the lighthouse in time, would they?
When the door gave way, Teddy stumbled back and fell to the ground as Rob barged in.
Scrambling to her feet, Teddy ran around to the side of the lantern room where the light was the brightest, facing away—out into the dark storm—and hoping Rob would be blinded if he came after her.
But before she got far, strong hands grabbed her and threw her to the ground. Teddy hit her head on the glass wall, and saw stars along with the lightning blossoming in the night sky.
