‘Huh.’
‘Hey, that was my best motivational speech.’
‘It was a good one.’
‘But wasted on you, huh?’
He smiled. In the dim light of the torch his face was like a skull; bone-white, eyes sunken. The sight of him made Frankie shiver, as if it were a premonition. She wondered if, in their final moments, they would cling to each other. Which of them would die first? Would the other be left here for hours or days with the corpse of their friend?
She reached out and gave Ryan a hug.
The hatch opened.
Frankie jumped to her feet, forcing herself not to start yelling and begging. She didn’t want to anger Carl and make him leave them alone again. She would be reasonable with him. Try to persuade him that she would never tell anyone. She would take his secret to the grave in many, many years’ time.
Except it wasn’t Carl.
It was Nikki. And she was pushing something down through the hole.
‘Stand back,’ she said. She was whisper-shouting it.
Something came sliding down into the basement, hitting the ground with a loud thump, which made Nikki swear and turn her face away from the hatch as if she knew the sound must have drawn attention. But Frankie didn’t care. It was a ladder. They had a ladder! They were getting out of here. She grabbed Ryan’s hand, pulled him to his feet and told him to start climbing.
‘No, you first,’ he said.
Nikki stuck her head through the open hatch and whispered, ‘Hurry.’
Frankie stepped on to the first rung and started to climb.
There was a noise from above. A voice. A male, teenage voice, saying something to Nikki. It must be Buddy. Above Frankie, Nikki vanished from sight and began to talk in a pleading tone, her words low and indecipherable.
Frankie froze in her position halfway up the ladder. She looked down at Ryan beneath her, his face turned upwards. And then, looking back to the hatch, she could see Nikki again. The backs of her legs. She was standing right by the edge of the open hatch, still pleading with Buddy.
And then he must have pushed her.
Nikki’s falling body filled the open hatch. There was a thump as her spine banged against the far side of the opening and she tried to twist, scrambling to hold on to the edge. Her legs kicked at the air beneath her, a few feet above Frankie’s face.
Frankie froze. Nikki was going to make it. She was going to hold on, haul herself back up.
And then Buddy must have stamped on her hands or kicked her in the face.
Frankie saw Nikki plummeting towards her, legs first, but there was nothing she could do about it. It took less than a second. The falling woman crashed into her and Frankie tried to cling to the rung she was holding, but the force was too great. Pain exploded in her shoulder and she was thrown to the side, hitting the ground face down, knees and hips and belly smashing into the hard floor.
Nikki hit the ground beside her with a crack.
Ryan rushed over to Frankie. ‘Are you okay? Frankie? Speak to me!’
Frankie lay still for a moment, all the breath gone from her body. Pain pulsated through her but began to fade as her breath returned. She was aware of Ryan crouching beside her, saying something that was drowned out by a high-pitched drone in her ears. She managed to turn on to her side and look upwards.
The ladder was moving. Buddy was pulling it upwards.
‘Ryan,’ she gasped. ‘The ladder.’
He turned, got to his feet, but it was too late. The bottom of the ladder was out of reach. Buddy hauled the remaining rungs through the gap then peeked through, a grin on his face.
He slammed the hatch shut.
Chapter 46
The weather was getting worse, the wind picking up and shaking the branches of the trees opposite Paradise Loop. Rain lashed against my face and ran into my eyes, half blinding me. I stood by the tree line, trying to figure out where the clearing was, the one where Frankie had seen the masked figures, where I’d looked for her phone with Carl. I thought I knew how to reach it following the path back to the resort, but that was a long way round. There had to be a shortcut, another way through.
‘What ya doing?’
I whirled round. It was Wyatt, coming across the road towards me. Rain had flattened his long, matted hair to his bony skull, and the water bounced off his cheeks and nose. It had removed some of the dirt from his face, though it was still hard to tell his age. Fifties? Sixties? What did it matter? Maybe he could help.
‘The wind chimes,’ I said. ‘I need to . . . find them.’
He squinted at me like I wasn’t making sense.
‘My daughter’s missing. I think she’s wherever those wind chimes are. There’s a clearing. Do you know—？’