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She swung a leg out the window and tested the tiny ledge with her toes. It seemed to hold well enough. Then again, she hadn’t put much weight on it yet. Melody imagined settling both feet, both legs — her entire body’s weight on that thin piece of wood.
Go on, the little voice in her head said decisively. Because you can’t stay here.
Melody set both feet on the ledge. She tested it with the weight of her body, keeping her hands locked on the window sill just in case. When it held her completely, she inched her way out until only the tips of her fingers still gripped the window’s frame with one hand.
Then she let go.
A numbing cold stippled her skin. The air was much cooler than it was last night. Melody shuffled slowly along the outside of the manor’s second floor, her toes cramping painfully as they maintained their grip. Her goal — the next ledge — was only fifteen feet away.
What will you do when you get to the next room?
She didn’t know. The question hadn’t even occurred to her, but it was too late now. Melody kept her body tight against the building’s facade. She kept shuffling.
A thousand different noises reached her ears — the cacophony of near endless sounds that made up the Louisiana night. The opposite ledge was getting closer. If she reached out, she could almost touch the iron banister…
CRRRRACK!
She felt it before the sound registered in her mind; the unmistakable snap of wood giving way beneath her left foot. Melody had the presence of mind to dive — to at least extend her arms and try for the railing. But it was too far. Too long of a reach…
In the end she fell, pinwheeling with a yelp and a cry, to the ground below.
OOOF!
The impact knocked the wind from her lungs. It left Melody gasping, rolling back and forth in the wet grass on the side of manor house. Once she got her breath back, it wasn’t so bad. The ground had been soft enough to break her fall, and she hadn’t twisted anything — at least not as far as she could tell — when her body had finally hit.
She got up and brushed herself off. The windows in the manor were mostly dark. No one had seen her. No one had—
Melody froze. Something moved.
Her legs trembled as she crouched there, hands on her knees, peering out into the darkness. There was a small copse of trees just past the gazebo on the side veranda. And one of those trees had… shifted?
No. Not the tree.
She shivered, her body now shaking from the cold.
The thing behind the tree.
Melody peered some more, waiting for her eyes to adjust. And then she saw it. Low and thick — a pair of shoulders. Followed by a pair of haunches, equally strong, equally terrifying.
A thick, bulbous head came into view. Two slitted eyes, shining yellow and silver in the darkness.
And the low, angry growl of a very large dog…
19
The decision to run came instantly this time. There was no hesitation, no deciding whether or not she should do it.
The only real choice was which direction to go.
Melody took off in a fast sprint… straight in the direction of the carriage house. She could’ve tried the side door, but she knew it would be locked. She might’ve been able to make the front entrance, but at this hour? That would be locked as well.
The chase started immediately. There were more than one dog again, that was for certain. This time she could hear three or four, panting hard, their paws pounding the damp nighttime soil as they dug in for the chase.
Melody ran uphill, her legs taking long, powerful strides. She skirted around trees and edged past the end of a stacked stone wall. But she never stopped moving. Never stopped running.
The braying of the dogs was chilling. She wanted to yell, to scream — maybe she could even warn Lucus ahead of time, so he’d be prepared for when she got there. If she got there.
Wisely though, she saved her breath. She’d need to squeeze every ounce of oxygen from her lungs if she was going to make the carriage house.
