She scaled the final step to give herself more leverage. Took a breath. And pulled at the door with all her strength.
The door banged wide open in a cloud of agitated dust.
When she leaned eagerly toward the opening, the stairs lurched and swayed as if they’d just hit an iceberg. She gasped and flung her torso forward, arms flailing, scrabbling for a handhold inside the attic. She’d managed to sling one leg up there, in a froglike splay just as, with a hideous, metallic shrieking groan, the chain gave way.
She screamed, threw her entire body forward, and crouched in a fetal position.
BAM.
The door snapped shut again behind her with a thunderous Armageddon-like crash and thud which shook the house.
“Holy shit!” she said out loud after a blankly terrified, stunned fifteen seconds or so of sitting in the pitch dark of the attic.
Her heart was pounding so hard for a moment she could hear nothing over the whine of blood in her ears. That easily could have been her toppling ten feet to the floor instead of the stairs.
That had certainly happened quickly.
But then she supposed none of the disasters of her life had happened at a leisurely pace.
How the fuck was she supposed to get out of here?
She remained motionless, allowing her breathing to settle, willing her eyes to adjust to the dark. She hesitated to let her hands crawl blindly lest they encounter something else out crawling with more purpose. The attic was festooned with cobwebs; they tickled her face. Her fingertips sank into velvety dust when she touched the floor. Shadowy outlines of boxes came into view. But there wasn’t much stuff, on the whole. Some random crap leaning in the corner, the typical flotsam of everyday life that wound up in the attic: an umbrella, what looked like a music stand, a pair of what might be barbecue tongs or those things you use to pinch stuff off high shelves, a solid-looking Ebenezer Scrooge–style cane.
A few patience-testing seconds later, she could just make out the outline of the door handle. She tugged. Hard.
It wouldn’t effing budge.
She tried pushing.
That didn’t do the trick, either.
She tried kicking it, thumping her feet against it like a trapped rabbit.
Nothing.
She yanked back hard, gripping it in her hands and letting the rest of her body act as a lever and pulled. “GnnnNNNNNNNNNARGH!” She staggered backward and landed hard on her butt. She drew her hand tentatively along the contours of the door, investigating a suspicion: yep. It was wedged at an angle. One of the hinges had likely broken.
Along with the stairs.
And so.
It occurred to her that this very well might be the reason Mac had told her not to go in the attic.
She scanned the space carefully and then... yes! Hallelujah! A sliver of light, behind stacked boxes. A window. She took two enthusiastic steps toward it.
Just as something rustled about three feet away from her.
She froze. Her stomach literally iced over and all the hair on her body stood up.
So she had company. Something bigger than a rat, from the sound of its scrabbly little feet. As much as she loved animals, it was difficult to be crazy about the ones she couldn’t see.
The box in front of the window shifted easily enough, but when she reached for the latch, it wouldn’t budge. The damn thing was painted shut.
Failing Chick Pea leaping free of the house somehow and running out to fetch Mac, barking a message (“What is it, girl? Did Avalon do something stupid again? Lead the way!”), she was going to need to break the glass. She had a hunch Chick Pea was a little deaf.
She seized hold of that old cane, made a fortress of the boxes, huddled behind them, pulled her T-shirt up over her head to protect against flying shards of glass, and then jammed the cane into the glass.
Nothing happened, except for a vibration that shot up her arm and into her teeth.
