Into the Woods (52 page)

Trent came closer, lifting his hand in a gesture of disbelief. “She cried for her bottle.”

The echo behind the wall changed, and she straightened. “I wasn’t looking at Lucy. I was looking at you. Go. Before I change my mind.” Her fond smile faltered, and she reached out, tucking Lucy’s blanket in properly around her. “I’m going to miss you, sweet pea,” she said, giving the fussing baby a kiss on the forehead. Lucy clamped a fist on her bangs, and blinking fast, Ellie disentangled her fingers, placed her tiny hand on her middle, and then turned away, her head low.

Guilt hit him, and he took out his tiny explosives he had to pick locks. Jenks
ooo
ed and
ahh
ed over them, taking his sword and punching through the wallboard to place them properly.

“Ellie, why?” he asked again.

“I’ve been following your progress,” she said softly, still not turning around. “Not today, but since your father died. I thought that you were misguided, easily led. I was wrong—you were keeping your enemies close. I thought that you were too timid, unable to think flexibly—yet you got in here with very little effort and against changing odds. You have been too careless with life—but something in you has shifted and I’m willing to chance you raising my granddaughter better than I have raised my daughter.” She turned, her tears obvious. “We need Lucy, but we need her with the strength that I know you can give her.” She dropped her head, tears falling from her unremarked upon and untouched. “You have made sacrifices,” she said, turning Trent’s hand over and tracing a finger upon his palm and the twin life lines that had bothered his mother and made his father frown. “Not just in the past, but the future as well. Besides, Ellasbeth has lots of dolls already.”

It was bitter, and Trent swallowed hard, her grief washing over him like a bright wave, sun sparkling on top, harsh and cold below. He took a breath to say something, anything, but nothing was to be said, nothing that he could give her. Ellie was making the largest sacrifice of them all.
Give me strength today, and I will strive to find within me the person that can be both
.

“Okay! We’re set!” Jenks said brightly as he wiggled out of the hole in the wall that he had made, a string of ignition wires trailing behind him. “You want me to use what’s left over to seal the door?”

Trent nodded, and Ellie set her shoulders resolutely, sniffing back her tears. “I’m a foolish old woman,” she said softly, a determined fix to her jaw.

“Get your rappelling stuff out,” Jenks said, clearly excited as he darted into the outer room ahead of them. “Don’t you have a sling for her or something?”

Trent nodded, hesitating as he realized he was going to have to set Lucy down to put it on. Ellie held her arms out, and he reluctantly set her into her grandmother’s arms. The little girl reached up, patting her damp cheeks, and Ellie make a choking gurgle of a laugh, smiling through the tears.

Jenks gave Trent a sick look, then went back to check the linkages. Head down, Trent prepped himself for the trip down, fastening the safety harness around himself, checking that the baby sling would not be pinched, coiling the wire-thin, strong filament that would hold them into a smooth bundle. Ellie was cooing at Lucy, and the little girl was cooing back. Trent’s stomach churned.

“Nine months,” he said, unable to take it anymore, and Ellie looked up, confusion in her expression. “Give me nine months alone with Lucy, and I will reconsider renegotiating a new settlement with Ellasbeth,” he said, taking the baby from Ellie’s unresisting arms.
Damn it, why did I do that?
he thought, but the woman had lit up, her tears making her beautiful. “I’m doing this for you, not Ellasbeth,” he added, embarrassed.

“Thank you,” she said, clutching at his arm and glancing at the door as if she couldn’t wait for them to escape so she could tell someone. Seeing her joy, Trent became even more angry at Ellasbeth. This could have been avoided. The trip out here, the deaths, the turmoil, everything. Ellasbeth was a selfish fool.

But looking down at his feisty daughter, he found himself smiling again. “I hope you’re rested, Lucy,” he said, jiggling the baby as Jenks came back in. “We have a busy afternoon. Can you be quiet for me?”

Jenks hovered over his shoulder, eyeing the baby now reaching out for the little man with wings. “You do know she doesn’t understand a word you’re saying.”

Trent shrugged. “You ready to do this?”

“Does a troll pee green piss?” The pixy laughed.

FIVE

A
re you sure this isn’t overkill?” Trent muttered to Jenks as he crouched between Ellie, Lucy, Bob the guard, Megan, and the open archway to the nursery. His explosive gum would only make a tiny pop, and Jenks was treating it as if it were a stick of C4.

Jenks eyed him, then darted to the door where Trent had pasted the last of the gum on the door that led to the hall. A curious sliver of green dust slipped down, and, arms over his chest, he dramatically snapped his fingers.

A tiny wave of force exploded out of the lock, making Trent duck and Ellie gasp. Jenks rode the bubble of air like a surfer, grinning as he spun to a stop in front of Trent’s nose. From the hallway came muffled, alarmed voices. “You might want to duck,” the pixy said saucily. “I put ten times that between the drywall and insulation over the window.”

“Right.” Glancing at Ellie, he shifted his weight to resettle Lucy in her baby sling. “Everyone cover their eyes.” His hand went protectively under the little girl, and she gurgled happily. Trent couldn’t help his proud look down at her. He’d known her for only five minutes, and he already liked what he saw: grit, determination, acceptance of excitement. He didn’t have much experience with babies, but how could this be a bad thing?

“Here we go!” Jenks said as he tucked in under Ellie’s ear, then made a chirp with his wings, the two-toned sound like tinfoil on Trent’s teeth.

A flash of sound and light boomed through the open archway. Orange and green mixed like auras against his vision, blending with the memory of thunder. The floor shook, and Trent met Ellie’s eyes, seeing the pain of Jenks’s wing noise still in her expression. It turned to shock as they all stumbled, even crouched on the floor as they were, and Trent put a hasty hand on the stone to keep from falling.

“My God . . .” Trent breathed, absently patting Lucy as she stared horrified at him to see how she should react before finally giving up and beginning to wail. “Oh no, it’s okay, Lucy,” he said as he stood, his free hand extended to help Ellie rise. Bob and Megan were still unconscious, and Jenks took off from Ellie’s shoulder, his passage making twin whirlwinds in the dust now spilling into the outer room along with the muted sounds of the ocean and a bright white light.

They’d done it. The amount of light coming through was substantial, and Trent tried to quell his growing excitement. Taking a huge breath, he shoved it deep under a thick layer of hard-won boardroom protocol. “Are you okay, Ellie?” he asked calmly, even as he stifled a tremor at the moist smell of ocean. Lucy’s wailing had become loud, and the pounding from the door even more frantic.

“Fine,” she said, letting go of his hand and bending to brush the dust from Megan’s face. “I wanted to redecorate the baby’s room anyway.” Her brow pinched, and she looked away.

Guilt tugged at him, even as he clenched his jaw resolutely.

“We got a hole! Let’s go!” Jenks shouted from the other room, and Trent leaned into motion, patting Lucy through the carry mesh when her furious, red-faced wailing cut off sharply as she coughed.

“That’s a good girl, Lucy,” Trent said, smiling down at her and giving her a jiggle. Distracted by her cough, she forgot what she was crying about and her complaints subsided into a tear-streaked pouting. “See at the sunlight on the ceiling!” he said as he looked into the demolished room, and even though she had no clue what he was saying, his tone soothed her.

“Wow.” Trent blinked at the destruction, thinking he’d never used the word before, but Jenks was right. They had a hole. A bloody big hole with the sky and water beyond it, blue and sparkling. A fresh breeze eddied in to dispel the last of the powdered rock, replacing it with the scent of salt and seaweed. From her sling, Lucy squinted at the bright light, fussing when he shifted to put her in the shade.

Trent half turned as Ellie came in, exhaling in dismay. The desk was a mangled mess of rock and wallboard. The crib was broken. “Don’t let Ellasbeth see this without knowing that Lucy is safe first,” he said, and Ellie’s feet scuffed.

“I won’t,” she breathed. “Trenton . . .”

It was time to go. He could hear a power tool whining at the door. One hand under Lucy, he peered down the drop-off. He was too practical to be afraid of heights, but his stomach clenched as he saw the perfect unmarred water and then looked at his watch.
Where’s the boat?
Feeling his tension, Lucy kicked.

“You got a hot date or something?” Jenks asked, darting in and out of Lucy’s reach to make the little girl squeal. “You keep looking at your watch.”

“Something like that.” The boat wasn’t there, but it could be just around the spit of land, and they’d never see it until it was almost on them. “Let’s go.” Fingers fumbling, he brought out a mountaineer pin. If it worked in friable cliff rock, it would work here. Kneeling, he hammered it into the floor, his strikes mixing with the blows to the outer door in a harsh discord.

“Trent,” Ellie tried once more when Lucy, frightened at the rough motion and sound, began to cry again, but he ignored the older woman. It was clear Ellie wanted to hold her one last time, but he was afraid to let her. Here, at the literal brink, she might change her mind. No wonder Ellie hadn’t wanted him to touch Lucy. Something had shifted in him when he had. Without warning, he had become witness to something that stretched back through the eons, ties both elastic and enduring, surpassing death, surpassing life. She was his child. It was that simple and that complex.

Head down, he fastened the cord to lower himself to the pin, then the pulley on his harness. It looked too thin. His jaw tightened when Ellie came close, and then he looked up. The noise from the hall was furious, but words needed to be said.

“Thank you,” he said simply, hoping she would understand. “If not for you, I would have had to . . .” His words faltered, and understanding broke over him. If Ellie hadn’t come in, he might have had to storm the hallway. He would have done what was needed, killing not just the men in the hall, but his last hope of being something he wanted.
I think you saved me
, he thought, but he couldn’t say it.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered, tears slipping from her as she smiled. Ellie gave them a hug, her breath catching as Lucy squealed happily at the contact. “It would have been messier, perhaps,” she said, glancing to the hallway, “but you would have done it.”

She didn’t understand the narrowness of where he had been balanced, and he turned away, ashamed that he could have failed so easily. Perhaps he owed the Goddess a little more faith. “Thank you, Ellie. Knowing you accept this means more to me than you will ever know. Don’t let Ellasbeth silence you. That tradition dies tomorrow.”

The older woman, nodded, her sad smile becoming more intense as Lucy grabbed her finger and tried to stick it in her mouth. “I’m still going to hold you to our nine-month agreement. You’d better go. That door isn’t going to last much longer.” She leaned forward and gave Lucy a kiss on her forehead and disentangled her finger. “Bye, sweet pea. It was good to see you smile.”

Jenks’s wings were a harsh clatter as he darted back in, his dust edged in red. “Ah, I hate to break this up, but they’ve got a blowtorch . . .”

Nodding, Trent turned away. Feeling protective of Ellie, he picked his way through the rubble to the edge. Still no boat. Checking his gloves, he winced at his bare feet, and started to descend.

“Be careful!” Ellie said, and he looked up, unable to wave back.

Then the wind hit them, and he looked down to pay attention to what he was doing.

It was shockingly cool, the wind coming up from the water cutting right through his tattered biking tights. The hiss of the specially designed rope was a steady
shush-shush
as he bounced away from the rock face and found it again. Practice kicked in, and muscle memory took over. Lucy protested at the wind and brighter light, looking as if she was considering crying again.

“Jenks?” Trent called, his legs and arms aching. “How far down is it?”

The pixy dove from somewhere, the cheerful sound of his wings drawing Lucy’s attention like a magnet and cutting her whimpering off. “You’re about a third of the way,” he said, bobbing up and down, his wings making music as he struggled to stay in one spot in the stiff wind.

Trent’s brow furrowed. He had asked that the cord be made to the height of the cliff, but it did tend to shrink in the cold.

The sudden ping of shattered rock struck Trent, as he kept one hand on the wire, one on Lucy.

“They’re shooting at us!” Jenks shrilled indignantly, looking up and darting sideways as Trent pushed out again, making his swing more erratic.

Angry, Trent pulled Lucy’s blanket over her head, making the already fussy baby begin to wail. Faster now, he pushed the lowering mechanism to its limits, starting to shake as two more slugs shattered the rock where he had just been. If he fell, they would both be dead. Was Ellasbeth truly insane?

“Talk to me, Jenks!” he shouted, the cord beginning to hum in the wind. He knew it was because of the distance and how fast he was moving, but he couldn’t help but wonder if they might cut the cord. Again he pushed out from the wall, his jaw clenched and his knees flexing to absorb the impact. He looked down, blanching. Almost there, but still too high for his liking. The rocks were wet with spray. There was no beach here, just jagged corners and pounding waves.

“Jenks!” he shouted again, wondering if the pixy had gotten himself killed. Lucy cried and kicked, and he tried to calm himself.
She is like a little barometer
, he mused as he pulled her blanket back enough so she could see him, and her cries ebbed into angry fussing. She saw Jenks before he heard his wings, and relief spilled into him even as he pushed off and descended another few feet.