by Ginger Zee
But not without Andy.
“This is not how I wanted to say good-bye.”
Helicity looked up from Sam’s car to see Suze was trundling down the front stairs with a suitcase in each hand. Mia was right behind her with her own luggage.
“Me neither,” Mia added miserably as she loaded her belongings into Suze’s hybrid sedan. “But if we don’t leave now, we’ll miss my flight.”
Helicity bit her lip. Mia’s flight home wasn’t until nine that night. On a good day, she and Suze could have left two hours later and still made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.
It was far from a good day. While they’d been battening down the Beachside and packing, the hurricane had ballooned to a Cat-3. All reports indicated it was growing even stronger, and while the outer bands weren’t expected to hit for another hour or so, carloads of anxious people were already streaming onto the main highway off the peninsula in droves.
A sudden gust of wind tossed Suze’s hair into her face. She pushed it aside impatiently, then fixed Helicity with a troubled stare. “I don’t like leaving you here alone.”
“She’s not alone.” Sam slammed his car trunk and came to stand beside Helicity. “And we’re only hanging around until Andy gets back. Then believe me, we are hitting the road.”
“When is he getting here?” Mia wanted to know.
“Pretty soon,” Helicity said vaguely.
Suze held her gaze for a moment longer. Then she turned to Sam and folded him into a hug. “You are always welcome here, my friend. And listen: you take care of her. And yourself.”
“I will,” Sam promised.
Suze let go and faced Helicity. “Your parents are very lucky people to have a daughter like you. And Mia is even luckier to have you in her life.”
“Totally,” Mia agreed with heartfelt conviction.
Helicity tried to thank Suze, but the words caught in her throat. Instead, she threw her arms around her in a tight hug.
“Come back anytime,” Suze whispered in her ear. “Your room will be waiting.”
Helicity hugged Mia even more fiercely. “See you at home in a few days.”
“Yeah. We’ll go back-to-school shopping. Yippee yay,” Mia said with mock enthusiasm.
Helicity smiled as they hugged one more time. Then Mia and Suze climbed into the car, Suze started the engine, and they drove off.
Helicity’s smile faded when she turned back to the Beachside and saw Sam’s frown. “Still nothing from Andy?” he asked.
She checked both her phone and her brother’s and shook her head.
He glanced at the sky and scanned the thickening clouds overhead. His frown deepened. “I’m going to gas up the car. And I’m sorry, Fifteen, but when I get back, we’re leaving, Andy or no Andy.”
Helicity sucked in her breath. “What? No!”
He took a step toward her. “Remember our pact? And the promise I just made to Suze? Well, I’m keeping both and getting us out of here safely.”
“But—”
Sam silenced her with a finger to her lips. It was a featherlight touch, but it sent a shock wave through her system. She stopped breathing. He stared down at her for a moment longer, as if daring her to speak. She held his gaze unwaveringly. Defiantly.
His look changed to something softer then. Warmer. His finger shifted, and he traced a line across her mouth and down beneath her chin. Time suddenly seemed to stand still as he tilted her face upward. Then he leaned forward, and softly, gently, touched his lips to hers.
Helicity didn’t even have time to close her eyes. She was stunned, her eyes still locked with his.
“Be back soon, Fifteen,” he whispered. Then he pulled away, got into his car, and roared off.
Helicity climbed the stairs to the kitchen in a dream, barely registering that the wind was buffeting her with every step. Inside the house, things looked completely different. The view of the Gulf through the picture windows had been replaced by a wall of plywood boards. Stacks of Adirondack chairs from the deck and fire pit clogged the common room. The bicycles leaned against the hallway wall, and the Boogie Boards and other beach gear sat in forlorn piles here and there. The whole place had a melancholy feel of abandonment. The only spot of brightness was a sun-drenched shot of the Bolivar lighthouse—one of Sam’s photographs, she knew.
Suze had told them earlier to take whatever food and drinks they wanted for their ride. Helicity was stuffing granola bars, apples, and bottles of water into her backpack when her phone suddenly buzzed. Her heart leaped into her throat. Someone was trying to video chat with her. It wasn’t a number she recognized, but if there was even a chance it was Andy…
She hit ACCEPT. At first, the screen showed nothing but a distortion. Then a shadowy figure in a hoodie appeared.
“Andy?” she whispered.
“Hel…”
Helicity let out a sob. “Andy! Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Someplace safe.”
He didn’t say anything else for a long minute. She tried to see his face, to connect with his eyes. But he must have moved his hand because the picture shifted abruptly. She caught a quick glimpse of his surroundings. A wide-open expanse of patchy grass. Palm trees. A building on stilts in the background. Something about the area looked familiar, but before she could identify the location, Andy came back into view.
“Andy!” she cried. “Listen, just tell me where you are. Sam and I will come get you.”
“No. Stay away from me.”
He looked so tortured, sounded so defeated, her heart nearly broke. “That’s not going to happen, but I need to know where to find you,” she pleaded.
Andy hesitated. Then he scrubbed his face with his hand and looked directly into the camera. “I’m—”
Suddenly, a ferocious blast of wind rocked the Beachside on its stilts. Startled, Helicity dropped the phone and clutched the island countertop with both hands. She recovered after a second. But when she picked up the phone, Andy was gone.
“No, no, no, no, no!” She stabbed her finger at the screen, desperately trying to reestablish the connection. But her attempts bounced right back. Message failed. No signal. Message failed. She got the same results when she tried Sam.
Frustrated by her helplessness, she paced the room like a caged animal, her eyes darting from the stacked chairs to the beach gear before landing on Sam’s photograph. She froze as she took in the full image. Not just the tall black tower, but its surroundings, too. An expanse of patchy grass. Palm trees. A building on stilts. Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “He’s at the lighthouse!”
Her joy lasted only a second before reality hit. Yes, she knew where Andy had been when he called. But would he stay there, and for how long? Or would he disappear again before she could reach him?
Panic pulsed through her veins. She ran to the kitchen window, praying she’d see Sam pulling into the parking area. Nothing. Tried his phone again. No signal.
Outside, the wind howled. The thought of Andy alone out in the gathering storm…
“No,” she said out loud. “I’m going to get him.”
She looped her arms through her backpack straps and grabbed one of the bikes. The Bolivar lighthouse was just a short ride away. She could be there in no time. Then Sam could come get them. Or they’d walk back to the Beachside together. And if Andy refused to leave…well, she’d deal with that when she found him.
She dashed off a note to Sam explaining where she was, then muscled the bike down the stairs. Moments later, she was pedaling furiously along the main road. A long line of cars, all headed in the opposite direction, stretched in front and behind her. Some honked as she passed. A few people yelled at her that she was going the wrong way. A snarling dog lunged at her through an open window, making her swerve sharply. But she didn’t stop, not even when the wind gust threatened to blow her off the road into a ditch.
Hold on, Andy. I’m coming.
“Shoot!”
Helicity was pedalin
g so hard against the headwind she missed the turnoff to the lighthouse. She wheeled about, bouncing painfully as the smooth pavement gave way to the more rugged asphalt of the side road. She rose up in her seat and pushed on. The road to the lighthouse was isolated—just fields, trees, and marshy pools of water—and straight as an arrow until the very end. Eyes trained on the black tower on the stormy horizon, she swept around the curve—and nearly crashed into a metal gate blocking the entrance.
Swearing, she skidded to a stop. Attached to the gate was a handful of signs, all of which said essentially the same thing: PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING.
She hesitated.
I’ve come this far, she thought. I’m not leaving until I’ve looked for him.
Like the Beachside, the two houses adjacent to the lighthouse were boarded up. There was no sign of movement anywhere on the property and no cars in sight. The owners appeared to have left ahead of the storm. But what about Andy?
She maneuvered the bike through an opening in a hedge next to the gate and dropped it and her backpack near an electric pole. Feeling like a criminal, she hurried across the grass to the first house, crept up the stairs, and tried the doorknob. It was locked. She listened carefully. Except for the wind, the only sound was the persistent clang from a nearby flagpole. She moved on to the second house. Same thing.
That left the lighthouse. From far away, its cast-iron panels looked black, but up close they were the reddish brown of years-old rust. The tower loomed several stories above her. A wide wooden platform circled the top like the brim of a hat. Above that was the enclosure from which the brilliant beacon used to shine.
“Andy?” she called as she circled the base looking for a way in. “Andy, are you here?”
Any doubts that she was in the right place disappeared when she found the door. It was the one from Andy’s phone—a rusty metal slab with an X riveted to the front. In the photo, it had been padlocked shut. But someone had busted open the lock. Recently, she guessed, when she spied a chunk of concrete lying half hidden in the grass.
She laid her hand on the door and was about to push it open when something occurred to her. What if the person who’d broken the lock was inside—and what if that person wasn’t Andy?
You can’t chicken out now, she scolded herself. Go in.
With silent apologies to the owners for trespassing, she gave the door a shove. It swung open easily, startling her when it banged against the wall. She took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The air was cooler inside the tower and smelled faintly dank, the way the basement in her old house had before her father converted it into a man cave. She detected a whiff of bird droppings, too. Natural light probably filtered in when the sun was shining, but right now, it was so dim she could only make out vague shapes. She thumbed her phone to flashlight mode, squinting for a moment against the sudden glare.
Unlike the black metal exterior, the interior walls were made of whitewashed brick, pockmarked and scuffed with age. Spiraling up through the center was an iron staircase with narrow, open-backed treads and a skinny iron handrail bolted to the wall. Arched doorways led to small rooms off the main entrance. A few steps in was a shallow storage area with wooden shelves canted at odd angles. She shivered, remembering the shelves in the derelict cabin that had lifted the tree off Trey’s leg.
A scuffling noise from above rocketed her back to the present. Her free hand crept to her lightning bolt necklace, now paired with Trey’s keepsake. “Andy?”
The noise stopped. She aimed her phone light upward and craned her neck to peer up the stairs. But the light only reached so far. If it was Andy up there, she couldn’t see him. And maybe he didn’t want her to.
No. Stay away from me, he’d said.
“Not going to happen,” she muttered.
With the phone in one hand and her other hand grasping the rail, she began to climb. Her footfalls tapped out hollow tones on the old metal steps. She hadn’t realized how thick the walls were until she passed a small landing that tunneled horizontally for several feet before ending in a tiny window. She couldn’t see anything through the window. But from the continuous moan of the wind, she imagined the outer bands of the hurricane were inching closer by the minute.
She picked up her pace. One circuit above the landing, she heard the scuffling again. She paused and shone her phone straight up, trying to identify the sound’s source.
She gasped when the light flashed onto a pale white face. Two piercing black eyes stared down at her. Before she could comprehend what she was seeing, there was a bone-chilling screech and the face streaked down at her with unbelievable speed.
With a cry of terror, she flung up her arms. The sudden violence of her movement jerked her off balance. As she flailed for the railing, her hand smacked into a step. Her phone went flying, its beam of light whirling crazily as it ricocheted down the stairs. Then the phone shattered on the floor and the light winked out, plunging her into gloomy darkness.
Clutching the railing and breathing heavily, she pressed her back against the wall and willed her wildly thumping heart to slow.
“It was just an owl,” she whispered. “Just an owl.”
And it was likely the owl, not Andy, that had made the scuffling sounds. Even now, she could hear the bird settling back into its roost. No doubt it knew exactly where she was, too. She wondered if it would attack her again if she continued up the stairs.
So…keep going? Or turn back?
The sudden sound of rain drumming against the tower walls decided it for her. She’d come here to find her brother. No bird was going to stop her.
She pulled Andy’s phone from her back pocket, flicked it to flashlight mode, and cautiously moved the beam toward the owl’s roost. She made sure not to shine it directly on the owl itself, but the bird still fluffed out its feathers and hooted a warning. It didn’t move, though, which she took as a good sign.
She shifted the beam to the space above it. The light shone through several more loops of staircase before landing on a steep metal ladder. The ladder led to a small trapdoor set in a metal platform—the brim of the hat circling the top of the lighthouse. The door was closed. But if there was even a chance Andy had crawled through it to the platform…
Keep going.
With one eye on the owl and one hand on the railing, she pushed off from the wall. Step-by-step, she climbed higher into the lighthouse. The walls slowly closed in as the tower narrowed, and at one turn she felt the railing pull free from the bricks. She swallowed hard then, wanting but not daring to call out to Andy, not with that bird following her every movement with its keen stare. With the wind howling louder every second, he might not have heard her anyway.
At the next landing, she risked a look down—and immediately snapped her eyes upward again. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but the ground looked very far away.
Three more circuits, and the stairs would end at the ladder. But first, she’d have to pass the owl’s roost. She wished she had a weapon of some sort. Not to hurt the bird, just to fend it off if it swooped at her.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she drew nearer the roost. Sweat prickled on her scalp and in her armpits. Out of nowhere, a nature show about how predators could sense fear flashed through her mind. She shoved the memory aside even as she edged away from the outer wall to put as much distance between herself and the owl as possible. She was forced to walk on her tiptoes now, for close to the central post the triangular treads narrowed to a blunt point. Her free hand stayed curled around the railing, steadying her more than pulling her forward.
One more circuit and she’d be face-to-face with the owl. I can do—
BRAAANG!
An earsplitting ring shattered the air just as she was taking a step. She cried out in terror as her foot slipped off the tread and plunged into nothingness. Her hand instinctively tightened around the railing, and she swung backward into the wall, hitting it so hard the air was knocked out of her lungs.
&nbs
p; Then all hell broke loose.
The piercing ring came again, startling the owl. Screeching, it swooped down at her. Talons raised and powerful wings beating at her face, it trapped her against the bricks. Too terrified to even scream, she struck out at it with both hands. Its sharp claws tore a gash in her arm before she landed a blow that sent the bird flapping off. Sobbing, her hands trembling and blood dripping from her arm, she scooted down the stairs, putting as much distance as she could between her and the owl’s roost.
BRAAANG!
She finally registered that the ring was coming from Andy’s phone. Sam’s number flared on the tiny screen. With another sob, this time of relief, she sank down onto a step and swiped to answer it.
“Sam?”
“Fifteen!” Sam boomed out. “Finally! Listen, I found Andy! We’re on our way—” There was a crackling sound and his voice cut out.
“Sam? Sam?” she cried.
“—stuck in traffic! It’s taking forever to—” There was more crackling. And then there was nothing.
“Sam!” she shrieked. But it was no good. The signal was lost. For the first time in hours, though, hope wasn’t. Sam had found Andy. They were on their way to the Beachside. She had to be there when they arrived.
“I’m coming, Andy!” She jammed the phone in her back pocket, grabbed hold of the railing, and started to yank herself up. “Sam, I’m—”
With a rasp of metal against crumbling mortar, the railing bolt suddenly pulled away from the wall. Helicity pitched forward, still clinging to the rod. Her arm twisted awkwardly behind her. Then the railing snapped to a halt, wrenching her shoulder nearly out of its socket.
With a scream of agony, she let go. Her foot caught on a step and she plummeted down the stairs. Her head cracked against the bricks. The last thing she remembered before everything went black was the blaring ring from Andy’s phone.
The sound of running water. Of howling wind and on-again, off-again knocking. Dull, thudding pain in her shoulder. In her head. A stinging sensation on her arm.