If I’d thought I was too far up when I first evaluated the balcony from inside the room, being out here now made me realize I’d been wrong.
It wasmuchfarther down than I’d imagined.
How had Seb climbed up here? Ornamental trees grew below. I could see a path from the trees to a drainpipe, to a small ledge that connected to the balcony. But the dogs were baring down on us. I could feel their galloping under my feet.
“No time,” Seb shouted when I looked toward the area he’d used to climb up here.
The dogs burst into the room behind us. They barked like demons from the pit of hell, and a terrible, old fear came over me, irrational and urgent. I froze in place as if they’d turned me to stone with their shiny, black demon eyes.
They lurched into the room but stopped midway through when one of them stepped on glass and made a high-pitched whine. The dog frantically bit at its paw while the other backed away a step, wary. But then it held its ground, barking so loud it made me shudder.
“PAIGE!”
I shook myself and became aware of Seb tugging me toward the railing. He began climbing, and that’s when it hit me... what he intended for us to do.
“N-no,” I said, shaking my head.
“No choice. Just like Benny’s dock. You’ve done it a thousand times.”
Wrong.He’ddone it a thousand times; this was as high up as the top deck on Benny’s river dock, and I’dneverjumped fromthere. The pool felt impossibly far away, and it wasn’t below us. It was several feet away.
The dogs barked behind us, and past them, through the open doorway, I could see movement coming up the stairs.
Dammit.
Seb was right. No choice now.
It’s just like a paddleboard, I told myself.You can do this...I climbed onto the railing next to him, wobbling precariously on my bad ankle, and used every ounce of my leg strength to slowly push myself up and stand.
Sweat bloomed.
The pool below swayed in my vision.
I could feel Seb’s weight shift on the railing next to me, but I didn’t dare turn my head. Didn’t look directly down at the concrete or the chaise lounges lined up neatly by Ester. I just took a deep breath—
“One,” Seb counted from my side. “Two...”
He grabbed my hand.
“Three!”
And we jumped.
Chapter 30
Part of me wouldn’t have been surprised if our lives had ended there, two bloody splats by the side of the pool. When we hit the surface of the water, I still wasn’t convinced we weren’t dead. The shock of entering the water blinded me, and for a moment it felt like I was back down in Pinemoon’s flooded cavern. Only this time, I hit the bottom.
Nonsensically, as columns of bubbles clouded my vision, the only thing inside my head was the painted pair of double-vision suns from my father’s Brazilian beach landscape, back upstairs in the room. Those painted suns reminded me of something I couldn’t quite remember. But then, for the smallest sliver of time, Mabel’s wedding bands glittered inside my head—so real, I could almost reach through the water and touch them.
The suns. The rings. And something that was on the tip of my tongue...
A holy vision caused by all the pool chemicals? Or just a meltdown from stress?
We pushed off the bottom of the pool and cut through the surface, my thoughts turned to more important things, like survival. And air. And Seb, who bobbed next to me, blinking away pool water.
We swam to the side of the pool and pulled ourselves out. Ibarely had time to suck in a breath before Seb was pushing me into the nearby bushes, getting us out of sight from the home’s windows. We crouched together in the grass, breathing heavy while he pulled out his phone and shook water from it, making a happy noise when the screen turned on. “Still works,” he said, quickly typing a text message and then glancing around nervously as he waited for a reply. “Come on, come on...”
At least he had a phone. Would I ever see mine again? That was another expense I hadn’t planned for.
