Page 50 of The House That Held Her

I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter. My voice emerges in a hoarse croak. “He said she’s at the pier.”

My mind spins back to when I found Walter in my room, right after seeing the muddy footprints from the hidden passage. Realization slams into me: he must’ve taken Shannon—dragged her to the pier—and circled back to intercept me. She hasn’t been at the house for hours now.

Lightning stabs across the sky, revealing Miller’s stunned expression. “We’ll get a team,” he mutters, “comb the pier?—”

I’m already sprinting, my legs burning, water up to my ankles in the flooded grass. Shannon is out there, alone. I refuse to let her be the next victim claimed by this cursed town.

As I race away, the thunder cracks with deafening force. Rain lashes my face, blinding me, but it doesn’t matter. Chief Miller’s shouts fade behind me as I tear across the yard, to the road that’ll lead me to the water’s edge. Deep in my chest, I plead with God for the first time in my life.

Please let her be there.

Please let her be alive.

37

Araw, desperate breath tears at my lungs as I tear down the road, the rain drilling into me with near-hurricane force. Every muscle in my body howls for oxygen, but I can’t stop. I keep running, the muddy asphalt slick beneath my shoes, lightning splitting the sky like it wants to claw the earth in half. I can just make out the faint glow of the dock lights in the distance, and the flickering promise of them propels me forward. My hope says Shannon is there, she has to be.

I burst onto the pier, my ribs a screaming vise around my heart, the wooden planks slippery under my feet. This isn’t just any thunderstorm; it’s a monster. I momentarily think about how fitting it all is, my story here started during a raging storm and it may end during one as well.

“Shannon!” I choke out her name, voice ragged. The wind snaps it away, burying my plea in sheets of pounding rain. Lightning erupts, illuminating the pier with a silver glow, and I sprint its full length, water spraying off my heels. No one. Not even a shadow. Just ragged gusts of wind hurling water against my face like needles. My voice tears from me in a wail, “Shannon, where are you?”

Silence. Rain. Darkness.

My hope cracks. Walter lied. He said she’d be at the pier, but there’s not a single soul out here. No movement, no sound. Only my breathing, strangled and panicked, and the scream of the wind.

Headlights crest the hill behind me. They blind me at first, my eyes burning as I whip around. The beams shine so bright that my vision whites out; I can’t see which car it is until the floodlights bounce upward at the railroad crossing. For an instant, the silhouette is unmistakable: Chief Miller’s cruiser. He’s come after all.

I lunge toward the pier entrance, a surge of relief tangling with my fear—maybe he can help me find Shannon. But I’m torn in two. My body whips around again, wrestling with the dark stretch of the dock. She must be out there. And yet… there’s nothing. Where is she? I’m frozen in place with no direction.

An agonized sob rips from my throat. “God, please,” I beg, voice breaking under the roaring sky. “Don’t take her too. I can’t lose her.” Tears mingle with the rain, the sting of it all choking me. I’m paralyzed, fists clenched, staring in wild confusion between the bright headlights at the road’s end and the blackness at the far edge of the pier. It’s too dark, too wet. The sky flickers with lightning, but it shows me nothing except the shaking outline of the boards stretching into emptiness.

Chief Miller’s cruiser is close now. I’m about to sprint to him when, in the brief silence after a thunderclap, I hear it:

My name.

It’s faint, nearly swallowed by the wind, but I freeze, every nerve on high alert. Another roar of wind drowns all else, but then… again. “Margot!”

“Shannon?!” I scream, spinning in circles, pulse crashing in my ears. I don’t see anyone on the dock. No movement in the water. Panic slams into me; I’m certain I heard her, but where is she?

A lightning bolt detonates across the sky, painting everything in stark brightness for an instant—and that’s when I see it. Off to the side, near the cattails lashing violently in the storm, one of those run-off tunnels I remember Donny explaining. The big concrete tubes that funnel rainwater downhill into Lake Dora.

Her voice echoes again, so close it feels like it’s inside my skull. Shannon. My best friend. I plunge off the dock, sloshing through the flooded marsh, the thick plants whipping my arms. The bank drops off sooner than I expect; suddenly I’m chest-deep in murky water, mud tangling around my ankles. Adrenaline rockets through me. I can’t touch the bottom. Gasping, I half-swim, half-scramble to the tunnel’s mouth. The concrete rim is slick with algae, and my chest seizes, starved for air. But I cling to the rough edge, panting, ignoring the sting of the wind-driven rain.

“Shannon!” I shout, voice cracking. She calls back, her tone raw, as if she’s screamed a thousand times already. I haul myself forward, into the tunnel, pushing past the thick cattails and the tangle of some rusted metal piping. Inside, it’s pitch-black, and water laps at my chin. A wave of claustrophobia clamps around my heart. I have no phone, no light. The ceiling is so low it nearly grazes my hair, moss and grime brushing my scalp. I can’t see a damned thing.

I force myself to move deeper, each step a battle as the current from the storm runoff surges around me. Her voice draws closer. My foot slips; I plunge under for a terrifying second, sputtering back up in time to hear her again, just ahead. “Margot—help me?—!”

I surge forward, arms outstretched, until my fingertips brush flesh—Shannon’s fingers knot through mine in a desperate grip. Lightning flashes outside, and for a heartbeat, we’re both lit in ghostly white. I catch a glimpse of metal bars, thick and corroded, slicing across my line of sight. A grate. It’s blocking the tunnel’s exit into the lake, and Shannon’s on the other side. She’s soaked, shaking violently.

“Shannon!” I gasp, nearly choking on the filthy water. “I found you.”

She says something, her words drowned by a crash of thunder. I cling to the bars and feel something else—hard metal binding her wrist. I trace the length, heart pounding, until my hand finds a chain looped around the grate. My stomach drops.

I meet her eyes, only inches away through the bars. The water is already up to her chest, swirling around her chin. Every gust of wind outside pushes in more water, flooding the tunnel. Her lips quiver, tears mixing with the relentless torrent.

“You’re handcuffed?!” I manage, voice ripping from me. “Oh God, Shannon…”

She coughs, voice hoarse. “Key—there has to be a key… I don’t know… I can’t—” Another wave crashes in, forcing her to tilt her head to keep from swallowing water.

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