Page 6 of Survive the Night
“This way,” a voice whispered, and she gratefully started to climb toward where Mr. Espina lay on his stomach at the top of the next peak. As Alice scrambled over the top, she came to an abrupt halt. They were at the edge of the roof now. If she tried the sledding trick again, she’d go sailing off the edge and fall to the ground below—far below.
A hand on her arm made her jump and then freeze, terrified that she was going to lose her balance.
“Stand up,” Mr. Espina whispered, and she stared at him. Stand? She could barely sit straddling the ridge without completely losing her nerve. He must’ve read her thoughts, since he urged her to move across the ridgeline to the spot where a stone chimney jutted out past red tile. Using it for support, Alice carefully stood on shaking legs. The weight of her pack pulled her backward, and she bent slightly at the waist to counter it.
As soon as she was upright, Mr. Espina buckled some sort of harness around her waist and each of her thighs. Hooking a cable to one of the front straps, he wrapped the line around the chimney and held the other end in both of his gloved hands. He gave her a nod.
Confused, she looked at him.
“Go.”
“What?”
“Go.”
“Where?”
“Over the side.”
“Over the side?” Alice knew she sounded like an idiot, but the idea was crazy. She was supposed to throw herself off the roof with just a thin cable and a moody all-but-stranger to keep her from hitting the ground like a mosquito on a windshield? It was insanity. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do this.”
Mr. Espina’s hatchet-carved face softened ever so slightly as he moved closer to her. “You can.” So quickly that she couldn’t even brace herself, he gave her a tiny push.
It was hardly a shove, but it was enough to put her off-balance. She took a step backward to steady herself, but the roof sloped dramatically and her backpack didn’t help matters. Her one step turned into two and then three, faster and faster until she was almost running backward off the roof. Alice knew that if she tried to stop, she’d pitch backward and slide the rest of the way on her back. The thought was too terrifying for words, so she continued her reverse, shuffling run until the roof ended and nothing was underneath her feet.
Time seemed to stop for a second. Alice felt like a cartoon character who’d run off the edge of a cliff, hesitating in midair while the realization of what was going to happen hit her. Then she dropped, free-falling for an infinite moment before the cable tightened and the harness caught her.
The tension tipped her back, and she swung toward the house. Just in time, she yanked her knees to her chest so that she didn’t put her legs through the quickly approaching window to Aaron’s study. It was located at the back of the house because, as her brother liked to say, it was far away from all distractions. Dizzy with adrenaline, Alice wondered if that was the real reason, or if it was isolated so that no one could hear people scream. She’d had several bad visits to that room.
Yanking back her wandering thoughts, Alice struggled to turn upright. She managed to straighten and get her feet underneath her as Mr. Espina lowered her slowly toward the ground. The alarms were suddenly silenced, and she couldn’t hear voices shouting anymore. The quiet made her uneasy. If everyone was running around, trying to fix whatever Mr. Espina had done, then they most likely wouldn’t be looking for her. The silence, though… Aaron could be checking on her right now.
As her feet touched down on the concrete patio bordering the pool, the cable hit the ground as well, coiling like a snake at her feet. Hitching her backpack higher on her shoulders, Alice gathered up the cable, looping it with shaking hands before clipping the coiled line to a carabiner on her harness. She unbuckled the belt and then the straps around her thighs, the dark and her fumbling, nervous fingers making it harder than it should’ve been.
By the time Alice had gotten free of the harness, Mr. Espina still wasn’t next to her. Craning her head, she stared up at what she could see of the roof, although it wasn’t much. Alice backed up several steps until she stood next to the pool, but there still was no sign of Mr. Espina. She wondered if he’d gone a different way. Now that she was out of her room, maybe his part was done, and she had to escape on her own.
If she waited here to find out, it may very well be too late.
She started to turn, to run around the pool toward the perimeter fence, when a loud boom rocked the ground. Alice crouched instinctually, her arms wrapping around her head. As two more blasts echoed through the night, a motion above her caught Alice’s eye, making her flinch down again. It was Mr. Espina, flying through the air. Her first thought was that he’d been caught in the explosion, tossed off the roof like shrapnel, and fear for him made her lungs tight.
He hit the deep end of the pool just as yet another explosion shook the ground. When he began swimming toward the far side of the pool, Alice realized that he was fine. His leap must’ve been intentional, a quick way of getting off the roof. She had a brief moment of thankfulness that he hadn’t made her jump with him. It would’ve been terrifying. Not only was she not a strong swimmer, but there was a long stretch of concrete between the house and the pool’s edge. If she hadn’t jumped far enough, she wouldn’t have had to worry about escape—she would’ve been lying broken on the patio.
Shaking herself out of her shocked daze, she ran around to the other side of the pool, reaching the edge just as Mr. Espina was hauling himself out. He barely hesitated long enough to get his bearings before running toward the back perimeter fence. Alice followed, just as two more bangs echoed from inside the house. The silence afterward was terrifying. Everything sounded horribly loud—her pounding heart, her breaths tearing in and out of her lungs, her footsteps, the crack of every branch as she tore across the decorative landscaping. Even the harness buckles jangled as she ran, still clutching the assortment of straps in one hand.
Alice couldn’t stop herself from checking over her shoulder, expecting at any second for Aaron and an army of guards to come tearing after them. Aaron would like that, to give her hope that she’d escaped before reeling her back in at the last moment. Alice wasn’t the only one with something at stake, though. Aaron would make her life miserable, but at least he’d keep her alive and relatively undamaged. After all, he needed to use her to secure his entry into the Jovanovic family. If Aaron caught them, she might survive, but he’d kill Mr. Espina in the longest, slowest, most painful way possible.
When she tripped over a newly planted lacey oak, Alice forced herself to focus on the ground in front of her. Mr. Espina pulled ahead, the distance between them growing, and Alice had to hold back a plea for him to wait. She knew logically that he wouldn’t abandon her at this point, but her anxiety was still thrumming through her. Without his help, there was no way she could get over the ten-foot wrought-iron fence.
He stopped at the fence and pulled something out of his small pack.
When Alice reached him, she saw that Mr. Espina was removing the bolts securing the brackets on the top and bottom crossbars of the fence. As she bent over, gasping for breath, he moved to the other post and did the same on that side.
A shout from the house made Alice twist around in panic. Someone with a flashlight stood right outside the French doors by the pool. The beam of light crossed the backyard and flickered over her. She hurried to turn her face away, but it didn’t matter.
“Stop!” the man shouted. With sinking dread, Alice recognized Jeb’s voice.
“Time to go.” Mr. Espina gave the fence a shove, and the whole panel fell over with a heavy thud. Grabbing Alice’s wrist, he ran across the panel and over the scrubby grass toward the wooded ravine that ran the length of the property.
There was an odd popping sound, and a clod of dirt kicked up a few feet away. It took her a moment to realize that Jeb was shooting at them. Mr. Espina pulled her to the side, leading her on a zigzagging trail. The ground was rough and uneven, and Alice caught her toe, but Mr. Espina pulled her right out of her stumble and back into a sprint. Jeb kept shooting, but Alice couldn’t think about that, not when she was trying to breathe and run.
