The phone clicked over to voicemail.
Metal grated on wood as the forks slid back through the opening they’d made.This time, though, they were backward, and Tean understood—thought he understood.The first part of the job had been to create a gap.Now, the door was going to be popped out of its frame.And it would take a matter of moments.The swing-bar lock wouldn’t stop them.The door might as well have been paper.Hotels weren’t designed to withstand a planned invasion.
Maeve was screaming.
Milo was shouting, “I want to go home!”
Someone in the hall was howling.
It felt the way water looked high in the mountains just before it froze: crystalline.So clear you almost thought you could breathe it.The cold ran over Tean, a shock, and then nothing.Nothing but thought.
The bathroom.
No; they’d taken the room door down in a matter of moments.The bathroom door wouldn’t last five seconds.
The window.
“Get that window open,” he shouted over his shoulder.“Break it if you have to.”
River sounded like she was having a hard time breathing, but she said something in response that might have been acknowledgement.
Tean didn’t have time to check.He turned on his phone’s flashlight, yanked open the folding doors on the small closet, and grabbed the ironing board.Angling it, he set the base against the jamb of the bathroom door.The wedge-shaped end of the board he nosed up under the handle of the room door.It wouldn’t last forever, but it might buy them an extra minute or two.
Glass shattered behind him.Icy wind swept into the room.
“Come on!”River shouted.
Tean made his way toward the window, but he paused to crouch next to Maeve and Milo.Maeve was shaking.Milo had wet his pants.
“We’re going to be okay,” Tean said, fighting to keep his voice even.“You know how you’re good at hide-and-seek?Remember how good you are at sneaking around, and the adults never see you?That’s what we’re going to do right now.We’re going to get out of here, and we’re going to play hide-and-seek, and as soon as I can, I’m going to get you back to your mom.Milo, did you hear me?Maeve?”
Milo nodded, blinking furiously against tears.Maeve was rubbing her eyes, but she said, “I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too,” Tean said.“But I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
A loudcrackcame from the door, and then metal pinged as the swing-bar popped free.Tean couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder.The ironing board held—for the moment—but through the opening, he could see wolf heads—Halloween masks that were latex and acrylic fur.In the dark, backlit by the emergency lights, they looked real enough.
One of them howled again.
“We have to go!”River screamed.
Tean joined her at the window.She had knocked the glass out of the bottom of the frame, and now she sat with one leg hanging out over nothing.Tean gauged the distance to the ground and said, “I’m going to lower you as far as I can.Then I’m going to drop you.The snow will cushion your fall, but you have to help me get the kids down.”
River gave a tight nod.“What about you?”
“Here we go,” Tean said.He took hold of her wrists, and he held on as River gripped the frame and lowered herself down from the window.She made it look easy, but then, she looked like one of those ultra-fit people who did things like CrossFit in their spare time.The tendons in her wrists stood out like iron under Tean’s grip.
The hardest part came when she let go, and Tean had to struggle not to drop her.He leaned out over the window as far as he dared, fighting to keep himself inside while balancing her weight.The frame dug into his stomach.The muscles in his arms and shoulders strained.
“Okay,” he grunted.
“Go,” River called up.
He released her.There was a long second, and then an explosion of snow and River’s startled cry.A moment later, though, she was on her feet—and waist-deep in snow.Shaking it off her face, she shouted, “The kids.”
“Maeve, you first.”
Shouts from the hallway broke the silence, followed a moment later by a hollow metallic bang that came from the ironing board.Holding Maeve by the hands, Tean lowered her out the window.
