Heroes Are My Weakness(110)

Theo grabbed a heavy slab of driftwood. He shoved it under the top boulder to make a makeshift lever, then hesitated. “I can’t take the chance. If I do shift the boulders, there’s no guarantee they won’t seal up the entrance even tighter.”

Jaycie’s cheeks were ashen. She clutched the torn pink fabric from her daughter’s coat. “Why did she go in there?”

“I don’t know,” Annie said. “She likes to explore. Maybe—”

“She’s afraid of the dark! Why would she do this?”

Annie had no answer.

“Livia!” Jaycie cried. “You have to come out now!”

Theo had begun digging at the hard sand at the bottom of the crevice. “I’ll go in after her, but we have to widen the opening.”

“You’re too big,” Jaycie said. “It’ll take too long.”

The tip of a wave crested over the rocks and splashed their feet, returning some of the sand that Theo had moved. Jaycie tried to push him aside. “I’m going in.”

Theo stopped her. “You won’t fit. We need to shift more sand.”

He was right. Even though he’d deepened the opening, the seawater kept trying to move the sand back, and Jaycie’s hips were too wide. “I have to,” she protested. “Right now, she could be . . .”

“I’ll do it,” Annie said. “Get out of my way.”

Even as she pushed Jaycie aside, she wasn’t sure whether she would fit, but she stood a better chance than either of them. Theo’s eyes met her own. “It’s too dangerous.”

Instead of arguing, she gave him her cockiest smile. “Out of my way, dude. I’ll be fine.”

He knew as well as she did that she was the only one of them who had a chance of doing this, but that didn’t ease the struggle that played out in his eyes. “You be careful, do you hear me?” he said fiercely. “Don’t you dare do anything crazy!”

“Not planning to.” She took off her coat and passed it to Jaycie. “Put this on.”

She surveyed the tight opening, then pulled her sweatshirt over her head and tossed it aside, leaving herself in only jeans and a bright orange camisole. The cold raised goose bumps on her skin.

Theo dug furiously at the sand, trying to give her more room. She crouched down, wincing as an icy blast of spray struck her. “Liv, it’s Annie. I’m coming in with you.” She gasped as she lay down in the cold sand. As she pushed her feet inside, she imagined getting stuck in the cave entrance like Pooh in the honey jar.

“Easy now.” Theo’s voice was unnaturally tight. “Go easy.” He did his best to help her maneuver, but at the same time, she detected an almost undetectable resistance, as if he didn’t want to let her go. “Careful. Just be careful.”

It was a word he repeated half a dozen more times as she threaded her legs through the crevice, then turned her body so that her hips were roughly parallel with the opening. Another wave sprayed her. Theo shifted his position, trying to shield her.

Her sneakers were underwater inside the cave, renewing her fears about the water’s depth. Her hips wedged between the rocks. “You’re not going to make it,” he said. “Come back out. I’ll dig deeper.”

She ignored him and sucked in her stomach. With the upper half of her body still outside, she pushed as hard as she could.

“Annie, stop!”

She didn’t. She bit her lip against the sharp edges of rock and dug her feet into the sand. With a final twist of her shoulders, she was inside.


AS ANNIE DISAPPEARED INTO THE cave, Theo felt as though he, too, had been sucked in with her. He passed the flashlight to her through the crevice. He should be the one in there. He was a stronger swimmer, although God knew, he hoped the water inside wasn’t deep enough to make that a factor.

Jaycie stood behind him making helpless sounds. He kept digging at the sand. He should be the rescuer, not Annie. He tried not to think about how this scene would play out if he’d been writing it, but the ugly scenario unwound in his head like a filmstrip. If this were a scene in one of his books, Quentin Pierce would be inside that cave waiting for an unsuspecting Annie to become the victim of his next sadistic butchering. Theo never wrote detailed descriptions of the brutal deaths of his female characters, but he planted enough clues so the readers could fill in the cruel particulars for themselves. And now he was doing that in his head with Annie.

The very reason he’d been drawn to writing horror novels mocked him. By creating his gruesome tales of twisted minds, he’d achieved a sense of control. In his books, he had the power to punish evil and make certain justice was served. In fiction, at least, he could impose order on a dangerous, chaotic world.