The sheer terror numbs my pain. I’m petrified, unable to move a fraction of an inch and risk rolling over.
There’s nowhere to go …
Ophelia’s eyes flutter open. She looks dazed at first, as if she’s woken up from a dream and isn’t sure where she slept. She lifts her head. Rain spatters her cheeks and she rubs it away. “Where-”
A gasp bursts from her lips.
Her eyes open wide and flit about. When they settle on me, it’s like flint igniting fuel.
“You’re trying to kill me too! ” The sound of her voice barely carries over the roaring storm. Her face contorts into a hateful mask. Hands clamp around my throat, squeezing.
My own hands lock onto her forearms, trying to rip her grip loose.
She squeezes even tighter …
Everything grows impossibly darker … and then the stars finally appear … bleeding through the sky … but I know it’s really the lack of oxygen … shutting me down … killing me …
No.
Releasing her arms, I ball my hands into fists and pummel her face with as much strength as I can muster.
When she lets go of me to shield herself, her body rolls halfway off me and I squeeze out from under her. She gropes for me but slips on the slick stone, hooking her hands around one of the robe’s folds. The powerful air currents rock her body.
For a second it looks like she’s going to topple over.
But she regains her balance and crawls back over. “I should have finished you off earlier. Tycho, too.” She leers at me. “But he wanted me to watch you, keep you two alive so you could feel the pain of losing each other in the end. And now that Tycho’s gone, there’s no reason to keep you around any longer.”
“What are you talking about? Who wanted you to spy-?”
Her eyes are glass. “Prefect Thorn. He wanted to teach you two a lesson … make you suffer … he made a bargain with my mother and me … ”
I nod numbly. “He’d help you win in exchange for you being his spy, making sure nothing happened to us during training. Planting a camera on us so he’d have his little footage for the Graduation Ceremony.”
She smirks. “All I care about is my sister. And my Mama. She’d still be alive if you and Tycho hadn’t plotted-”
“Don’t you see?” I burst out. “He’s manipulating you. Just like he tried to do with Digory and me. Right after our last Trial, he showed up and offered me a free pass to get here first and beat you. Since I didn’t take it, he’s using you to get his revenge. He doesn’t care about any of us. We’re all just pawns in his own sick games.”
She shakes her head. “You’re lying!”
She pounces-
Instinct blots out the fear. I kick out, booting her in the face. She slams back against one of the stone ripples. Blood seeps from her nostrils.
She glares at me and keeps on coming …
Ignoring the agony in my side, I move the only way I can … away from her … forward.
When I drop to a crawling position, my knees hit the stone and I scream out in anguish, my voice blending with the moaning wind that’s determined to drag me away to my doom. Hand over hand, I haul myself up the steep incline of the Lady’s arm, using the stone mounds of gathered cloth as steep stairs. Rain stings my eyes, making it almost impossible to see, which probably keeps me from focusing too much on just how high up I really am.
Through the howling winds, I can swear I hear her breaths … the sounds of her boots digging into the stone … getting closer … closer …
I climb the last ridge, now hugging the bare stone arm, clinging to its slick, smooth surface for dear life.
Dead end. I’m trapped.
My face presses against the thin flesh of the Lady’s inner elbow, inhaling the pungent aroma of copper and mossy stone.
All those nights I told Cole the story of the Lady, I never realized I was describing the place I would die.
Then, I notice a thin slit of light visible between the panels of skin. I press on one of them, and it buckles.
The rotted panel crashes inward-
I lose my balance and my upper body wedges through the twisted metal, into the statue’s arm. As startled as I am, it doesn’t compare to the shock of what I see.
Hidden inside is a rusted ladder, extending up the entire length of the arm.
Up toward the torch.
That’s where Cole is.
My upper body squeezes through. Pain rips through my fractured rib. I bite down against the tears and seize the nearest ladder rung with both hands.
Ophelia’s hand clamps around my ankle. Her giggles turn into a howl that rivals the storm winds. The sound of splintering stone pierces through the horrific yowl. Her eyes bulge.
I turn just in time to see the stone ledge she’s perched on disappear beneath her. More lightning flashes, providing me with a clear view of it tumbling down the dizzying abyss toward the foamy sea.
Still clutching my foot, Ophelia drops, yanking me downward and jamming my rib cage against the warped panel.
“Ah! ” The pain’s like a thousand knives carving into my flesh. I can’t breathe …
“Please, Spark! Please!” Ophelia whimpers. “Don’t let me fall! I can’t die! Maddie needs me! Help me! ”
“Hold still!” I yell at her over the pounding fury. Only my tenuous hold on the ladder is keeping us alive. The wind bats us from side to side. With each swaying movement, the metal saws at my ribs.
I grip the ladder tighter. “Hang on and work with me, Ophelia! ”
It feels like my shoulders are tearing from their sockets. But I pull with all my might until I lift her high enough that she can crawl through herself.
Then we’re finally perched on the ladder, her on the rung opposite me, both gasping for breath.
But there’s no time to rest.
Our eyes lock through the crossbars.
We both grab the rung above at the same time and begin the most important race of our lives.
I scramble upward as fast as I can, ignoring the searing ache in my side with each strain of my arms, the flashes of anguish that burst through my lower body with every pop of my mangled knee. As much as I struggle to outpace her, Ophelia’s eyes are a constant on the other side of the ladder like my dark shadow, a reflection of what I might so easily become if I let my guard down.
With every clang of our boots against the rungs, the ladder shudders and creaks. Just above us, there’s a semi-circular landing leading to a short, curved staircase that twists its way up to a door.
The door that leads to the torch.
Ophelia’s on the side of the ladder that dead ends underneath the half-moon slab of steel, giving me the edge I so desperately need.
One glance into her wide eyes tells me she knows it, too.
Gritting my teeth against the relentless aching tearing through me, I reach up and grab the next rung to haul myself onto the platform-
Rip!
The ladder breaks apart from its moorings and cants away from the landing, tilting me backward-
Ophelia whips around me and leaps, grabbing hold of one of the steps of the smaller staircase.
She twists her body around until she’s facing the rusted crosspieces composing the steps-
I spring after her just as the ladder topples beneath me, leaving nothing but a fifty foot drop into darkness.
Ophelia skitters up the remaining six steps of the smaller staircase. She lunges for the handle on the door-
I tackle her, pinning her down before she can open it. Her elbow slams me in my ribs. The pain’s excruciating and I roll off her, curling into a ball, writhing in misery.
She springs to her feet and stares at me with her emotionless eyes. The toe of her boot mashes into my ribs, and I let loose an agonized scream that echoes down into darkness.