—I’d declined to step out.
Some primal siren in the back of my brain had physically stopped me from walking out onto the glass.
Phin, of course, had taunted me mercilessly.
And now—
“What’s the holdup?” Luther purred in my ear. “Is the fearless Jack Daniels a little bit afraid of heights?”
A little bit? Try a lot.
“Better get going.”
I reached out and grabbed the swaying ladder, the rope damp.
Heaving my pregnant ass onto the lowest rung, I began to climb, the rope ladder stretching under the strain of my weight, the metal rungs above me creaking and groaning.
I took it slow, one rung at a time, the protrusion of my belly adding another element to the challenge.
By the time I reached the first metal rung, I had warmed up from the bear cave and was sweating freely.
The metal was cold and wet, the rungs barely more than a foot wide, and the moisture on my palms made it difficult to get a secure grip.
But I didn’t think. I just climbed, adopting a side-stepping technique since my baby bump made climbing straight on impossible.
Five rungs up, the vibration of my weight caused the entire structure to shudder—a subtle, horrifying vibration I could feel in my bones.
I went on, refusing to look down, maintaining a laser-focus on the next rung, the next step, clearing my mind of all other thoughts and distractions.
Halfway up, I stopped. Not out of fear—I hadn’t dared to look down though I could feel the gaping space all around me—but out of pure exhaustion.
“How we doing?” Luther asked.
“Just catching my breath.”
“No rush, but you have three minutes. I must admit, I’m sort of hoping you don’t make it.”
Sweat ran down my face into my eyes, and I blinked against the sting.
I went on.
One foot up.
Next foot up.
One hand on the rusty metal of the next rung.
Next hand on the rusty metal of the next rung.
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.
It would’ve been monotonous if each step didn’t require more energy than the last.
If I didn’t seem to be getting heavier the higher I climbed.
If one mistake wouldn’t result in my death.
“You have one minute remaining,” Luther said.
I got my feet onto the next rung and reached up without looking.
My hand passed through air, and a jolt of stomach-churning fear shot through me. I clutched the ladder, my legs quivering with strain and panic.
The next rung above my head was missing—looked like it had simply rusted away and fallen off.
“Forty-five seconds.”
I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I found myself staring down the length of the ladder, eighty feet to the tower’s concrete base.
The world fell away and rushed toward me all at once, and I was struck by the sickening sensation of falling.
I clung tighter to the rungs and shut my eyes as Luther laughed and said, “Thirty seconds, Jack. If I’d have known this was so scary for you, I would have chosen a taller tower.”
Go, Jack. Right now. Go. Go. Go. You have to do this.
I reached up, my fingers grazing the next intact rung, got a white-knuckled grip and pulled myself up, barely managing to get my feet over the two-foot gap to the next step.
“Twenty seconds.”
I climbed as fast as I could manage, no luxury to pause between rungs now.
“Ten seconds.”
Three rungs above me, I could see the railing and the catwalk that encircled the base of the water tank.
“Five seconds.”
I fought my way up the last few steps, and grabbed hold of the railing, trusting it would hold my weight—it had to—and hauled myself up onto the catwalk and rolled over onto my back, staring up into the darkening sky as specks of water dotted my face.
Luther spoke into my ear again, but I was gasping so loud I couldn’t hear him.
After another twenty seconds of panting, I told him, “I missed what you said.”
“I said you made it, Jack. Congratulations.”
I rubbed my belly and then used the flimsy railing to haul myself up into an awkward sitting position, my legs spread. The catwalk spanned twenty-four inches, and from my vantage, a hundred feet above the ground, the view of Luther’s concrete kingdom was impressive.
Row after row of decrepit factory homes.
A six-story housing project, long abandoned.
Factories and warehouses as far as I could see—big brick monstrosities with smokestacks and vacant parking lots that had once teemed with cars, now reduced to sprawling, concrete deserts.
It was a wasteland.
No sign of life or industry or movement as far as I could see, save for a low skyline a mile, maybe two away, accompanied by the distant hum of automobiles.
It might as well have been a thousand miles from where I sat, utterly helpless, utterly at Luther’s mercy.
“Up, Jack.”
I struggled onto my feet, my legs weak, extremities tingling.
A soft, mechanical buzzing above my head drew my attention.
I looked up into the eye of a camera.
He reaches out, touches her face on the screen, says, “Smile.”
I didn’t smile at the lens pointing down at me, hanging just above the spot where the catwalk intersected with the ladder.
Beneath the camera, I spotted another brass plaque, the only thing on this tower not encrusted with rust:
CIRCLE 8: FRAUD 911
“If I believed that my reply were made
To one who to the world would e’er return,
This flame without more flickering would stand still;
But inasmuch as never from this depth
Did any one return, if I hear true,
Without the fear of infamy I answer.”
Inferno, Canto XXVII
A noise on the other side of the tank drew my attention from the plaque—sounded like a chain dragging across the catwalk’s metal grate.
I couldn’t tell from which direction it was coming, my vision blocked by the curve of the tank.
Now something vibrated the catwalk—footsteps approaching me.
“What is that, Luther? Are you up here?”
He didn’t answer.
“Luther?”
The footsteps closed in, now just around the corner on my right. I squared up and backed slowly away, arms coming up instinctively, the fight-or-flight response kicking my adrenaline into overdrive.
A small, wiry woman with silvering hair walked into view.
She wore a tracksuit like mine and held the biggest folding knife I’d ever seen. No, actually I had seen this one before. McGlade had one—it was a Cold Steel Espada with a curved, nine-inch blade. He’d carried it around for days, obsessively flicking it open like some knife-wielding badass, until it had slipped out of his grasp and stuck blade-first into his 70-inch LED flat-screen.
Luther said, “She wants to live, Jack. Very badly. I told her if she killed the person who came up the ladder, I’d let her go. I will keep my promise, and I’ve convinced her of this. The only way out is to kill her first.”