“I’m ready when you are,” Lara said on a shaky breath.
Meg led the way to the container for the corn that was once ground there. “Be careful. The mechanism must be faulty now. We don’t want to end up milled,” Meg said.
“Just get to the ledge, get over it to the other side so it acts like a counterweight, and I’ll give you my arm,” Lara told her.
“Yes.”
“You have the strength...”
“Yes,” Meg said firmly. She was glad of the brutal hours of training she’d gone through at the academy. She was strong. They were going to survive.
She raised Lara up, trying to angle her to stand on her shoulders. Lara giggled softly.
“What?” Meg asked.
Lara’s giggle was of an hysterical sob. “This would make one helluva porn movie, wouldn’t you say? Maybe a snuff-porn movie,” she added grimly.
“Get up there. If anyone is getting snuffed, it’s those responsible for all the deaths—and this situation.”
“All the deaths?” Lara repeated. “All what deaths?”
Meg realized her friend didn’t know about the three women who’d died since her disappearance. This didn’t seem the time to tell her. She didn’t reply.
“Get up there!” she said instead, balancing her weight, trying to get Lara onto her shoulders, then standing, so Lara could grab the lip of the stone container.
“It’s just beyond my reach,” Lara said.
“Stretch!” Meg ordered her.
“I—I can’t...”
“Stretch, damn you! I am not dying down here!” Meg snapped. “And neither are you!”
A second later, she felt Lara’s weight lift from her shoulders. And after another few seconds, when she fumbled around in the darkness, she found Lara’s hand. She took a deep breath. She was in good shape, excellent shape, and she prayed she could hoist her own weight with enough power to drag herself up to the ledge.
She clasped Lara’s hand and braced against the stone with her feet. It wasn’t going to be enough.
“Hang on!” she called to Lara. She took another deep breath and assessed her situation. She tried again. No, it really wasn’t going to work. But then she heard Lara grunting, swearing, sobbing. She pressed her feet against the stone and used the leverage to hoist her own weight. She freed one hand from Lara’s grasp and reached...
And she had it; she had the ledge. With tremendous force she pulled herself up.
They were still in stygian darkness, perched precariously on the ledge. Balancing carefully, she began to feel around. She found the platform by the ledge and dragged herself over, hoping that the wooden flooring would hold.
It did. She reached back for Lara, telling her to follow the sound of her voice. A minute later, she felt her friend’s hand. They were both on the platform.
Meg lay back for a moment, breathing hard. And then she realized that she was seeing a pinprick of light. The moon was peeking through a hole in the mill’s roof.
The light seemed to burst into her like a thrill of hope. She squeezed Lara’s hand. There was no response.
“Lara!”
“Meg... I... I can hardly breathe.”
“We’re close, so close to help. Get up! Come on!”
Meg stood. She held Lara, who could barely make it. Her friend had obviously used the last of her strength to pull her up.
She kept still, not moving at all, and let Lara regain her balance. Her eyes adjusted to that little bit of light. There was a break, she saw now, in the giant barnlike doors to the place. Despite the rough flooring—the pebbles, splinters and everything else on the ragged wooden floorboards—she headed for the door, half carrying, half dragging Lara.
When she got to the doors and pushed her way through, the moonlight seemed so bright she had to blink against it.
But she’d been correct. They were at the ruined mill. And beyond it, she could see the ruins of the old house and, beyond that, the Yankee reenactment camp, quiet now in the night.
“Come on! I can see help just over there!” she told Lara.
She realized then that her friend had passed out, that Lara’s entire weight was hanging on her. She gritted her teeth and lifted her up, starting across the overgrown grasses and bracken and through the trees. She was going to live—and see that Lara lived, too.
*
“Oh!” Maddie said in confusion. “Meg is gone? Gone—how could she be gone? She said she’d stay with me! Oh, dear, she must be so worried about her friend that she decided if I was sleeping she’d go out and look for her!”
“She didn’t go past me!” the Capitol man insisted.
“No, it’s obvious.” Kendra Walker grimaced. “She climbed out her window and somehow got down to the back porch, which is right underneath this room. So much for the security people. Great job! She went out a window and disappeared.”