18
Being locked in her bedroom enraged Melody even more than she thought it would. She was being treated like a child. Kept in check, prevented from accomplishing her mission.
What if Eric locked you in here?
The thought not only crossed her mind, it made her furious. She could picture him out there right now, acquiring the egg. Maybe even leaving with it.
Leaving her there…
No fucking way.
She grabbed the window again, but it didn’t open. Just as it had yesterday, the jamb stuck.
It only made her angrier.
Melody pushed and she pulled. She kicked at the frame, trying to loosen it up, but all she succeeded in doing was hurting her foot. In the end, she shouldered it as hard as she could. Drove herself painfully into the top of the window casing, while gritting her teeth against the impact.
“Come on!”
CREEEAK.
The window moved.
Hope blossomed. Grabbing with both hands, Melody braced her feet against the floor and shoved. The window slid upward; first an inch, then two, then a whole foot. She continued until she’d wedged it all the way open, and a nighttime breeze flooded in.
Down below, the side lawn of the house was a sea of muted grey in the moonlight. It was far, but not too far. The trouble was, there was nothing to jump into. No hedge, no pile of leaves… nothing but cold hard ground.
Melody looked to the right. There was a balcony attached to the next room.
The ledge might hold you.
She glanced down, to where a small two-inch piece of flashing hugged the manor’s outside wall. To call it a ledge was being generous. It was more of a toehold.
No, it was too dangerous. Too foolish a risk. What would Xiomara think if she broke her ankle, or snapped her neck? All because she tried climbing out on a piece of flimsy, two-inch wide—
Anything’s better than being in here.
A coldness crept over Melody as she looked down at her bed. The dream came floating back to her in bits and pieces. The unseen thing, trying to enter her room. Her face, her eye, all twisted and distorted in the mirror…
She swung a leg out the window and tested the tiny ledge with her toes. It seemed to hold well enough. Then again, she hadn’t put much weight on it yet. Melody imagined settling both feet, both legs — her entire body’s weight on that thin piece of wood.
Go on, the little voice in her head said decisively. Because you can’t stay here.
Melody set both feet on the ledge. She tested it with the weight of her body, keeping her hands locked on the window sill just in case. When it held her completely, she inched her way out until only the tips of her fingers still gripped the window’s frame with one hand.
Then she let go.
A numbing cold stippled her skin. The air was much cooler than it was last night. Melody shuffled slowly along the outside of the manor’s second floor, her toes cramping painfully as they maintained their grip. Her goal — the next ledge — was only fifteen feet away.
What will you do when you get to the next room?
She didn’t know. The question hadn’t even occurred to her, but it was too late now. Melody kept her body tight against the building’s facade. She kept shuffling.
A thousand different noises reached her ears — the cacophony of near endless sounds that made up the Louisiana night. The opposite ledge was getting closer. If she reached out, she could almost touch the iron banister…
CRRRRACK!
She felt it before the sound registered in her mind; the unmistakable snap of wood giving way beneath her left foot. Melody had the presence of mind to dive — to at least extend her arms and try for the railing. But it was too far. Too long of a reach…
In the end she fell, pinwheeling with a yelp and a cry, to the ground below.
OOOF!
The impact knocked the wind from her lungs. It left Melody gasping, rolling back and forth in the wet grass on the side of manor house. Once she got her breath back, it wasn’t so bad. The ground had been soft enough to break her fall, and she hadn’t twisted anything — at least not as far as she could tell — when her body had finally hit.
She got up and brushed herself off. The windows in the manor were mostly dark. No one had seen her. No one had—
Melody froze. Something moved.
Her legs trembled as she crouched there, hands on her knees, peering out into the darkness. There was a small copse of trees just past the gazebo on the side veranda. And one of those trees had… shifted?
No. Not the tree.
She shivered, her body now shaking from the cold.
The thing behind the tree.
Melody peered some more, waiting for her eyes to adjust. And then she saw it. Low and thick — a pair of shoulders. Followed by a pair of haunches, equally strong, equally terrifying.
A thick, bulbous head came into view. Two slitted eyes, shining yellow and silver in the darkness.
And the low, angry growl of a very large dog…