Chapter 34
I tore my fingers open on the flat nub of the screw pin securing the chain, but the cold was winning. I felt increasingly listless and unfocused in spite of the deadliness of my position, my chattering teeth contributing to my distraction. You’d think that knowing the dangers of hypothermia would help you fight it, but that’s not how it works. I could feel myself simultaneously succumbing and ceasing to care.
I took a break from working at the clasp and sat in the water. My legs were cramping from crouching for a half hour or more, and I needed to take the weight off them for a bit. I shivered again from the chill of the sea and tried to figure out if there was anything I’d missed, some way out of my predicament I’d overlooked.
The splash of the rat’s return galvanized me to action, and I flailed at the surface of the water again with the chain. The effort threw me off balance, and I caught myself against the submerged floor with my bound hands. As I pushed myself upright, my right index finger scraped along a gap between the stones. An idea popped into my head, and once I was sure that the rat had retreated to safer ground, I felt along the joint until I found the opening again.
It took four tries to slide the shackle around until I could wedge the flat end of the pin in the groove. Once it was firmly seated, I fought through the hypothermia fog to recall which direction the pin would need to turn in order to unscrew. After a seeming eternity I remembered it was counterclockwise, and I heaved with all my remaining strength.
The pin pulled free of the gap and I toppled sideways into the water, the icy splash shocking me into full awareness. I cried softly as I pushed myself back into a sitting position and repeated my exploration of the floor until I had the pin wedged securely again.
This time when I tried to twist the shackle, the pin moved. Only a fraction of an inch, but still, I felt it shift. I exerted steady pressure, and it continued turning. I gasped in relief and extracted the shackle from the gap, and then worked the pin free with my bleeding fingers.
The pin dropped into the water with a splash, and I focused on twisting the shackle free from the links. After I’d done so, I began the slow process of flipping the end of the chain so it unwound from the rope that bound my wrists. Five minutes later I was feeling my way along the slimy wall toward the stairs. When I reached the door, which Victor had left ajar, I rubbed the rope against the rough stone edge of the doorway corner, sawing at the binding until it frayed. I ignored the shredding of my forearm skin in the process – I was free of the cell, and soon I’d be unbound, making any price I paid more than worth it.
Eventually the rope gave way and I pulled my wrists apart. Feeling returned to my numb hands with a thousand pinpricks of agony, and I clenched and unclenched them until the pain subsided somewhat. I swallowed and took several deep breaths while the water lapped at the step upon which I stood – I’d managed to liberate myself, but now what? It was pitch black, I had no idea what was going on above me or where Victor had gone, and I had no weapon. Other than that…
I shook off my paralysis. Jared needed me – I was his only hope, if Victor had been telling the truth. Somewhere in the darkness above, Victor was lying in wait with a crossbow, which I guessed wouldn’t do much if Jared had his powers, but without them it might incapacitate him long enough for Victor to finish the job.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to recall the position of the stairway relative to the entrance. We’d walked…fifteen yards? Twenty? I wasn’t sure.
I reached out with a trembling hand, felt along the cold stone stairwell wall, and took a hesitant step up. Halfway to the top a flash of lightning illuminated the shaft, and I remembered from our sailboat outing that the roof and top parts of the fort walls had collapsed inward, so it was open sky above.
The boom of thunder two seconds later told me the storm was pushing out to sea. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I continued toward the top of the stairs, moving cautiously to avoid slipping and falling. When I reached the top, I stood in the doorway and peered around, but I couldn’t make out a thing. I silently prayed that Jared would stay away, but I didn’t have much hope.
Another momentary glow from the clouds lit the interior, and I got an instant visual of the large room. The center of the floor was littered with rubble, and alcoves and partially collapsed walls ringed the space. The entryway lay directly across from me, about a dozen yards away. I debated sprinting for it, but remembered the crossbow. I wasn’t sure how Victor was planning on seeing anything in the absolute darkness, but my suspicion was that if his potion hadn’t imbued him with vampiric night vision in addition to strength, he probably had some sort of scope or goggles, like I’d seen on cop shows.
I waited in silence as the rain fell around me. My body temperature was slowly climbing now that I was out of the water and had moved a bit, but the drizzle was hindering the process. My heart was beating rapidly as it labored to pump blood to my oxygen-starved muscles, and my pulse was creating a flash of light in my eyes with each beat of my heart. I turned my
