Stirred

—slamming it behind me just as the bear pounded into it with a gigantic shudder.

He watches Jack on the monitor, tinted green from the night-vision camera.

That was a close one.

In his hand, Luther clutches the master remote control. His finger had been hovering above the button that would have detonated the explosive collar on the bear. Several times, he’d almost pressed it. Much as the bear had cost him, Jack was more valuable. The goal is to teach her something, not kill her.

Although there is a very real possibility, which he has to acknowledge, that it could ultimately come to that.

There were several close calls, and it has been quite exhilarating to watch. But as Luther had hoped, Jack prevailed.

Time to make it harder for her. He presses the microphone button, activating her headpiece.

“Nice job with Teddy, Jack. I commend you. Was I seeing things, or did you get maternal there for a moment? The mother wolf, protecting her pup?”

“I’m done playing games with you, Luther.”

“No. Actually, you’re just getting started. Do you see that water tower, a hundred yards ahead of you?”

“Yeah.”

“I need you on top of it. There’s a ladder at the base.”

“No way.”

Luther has anticipated this. He leaves the control room, walking toward the seventh circle where Phin and Harry wait.

“I suppose I can’t force you. But maybe I can persuade you. Who would you like me to burn first, Harry or Phin?”

Jack’s voice comes so low it’s hard to hear. “Leave them alone, Luther.”

“Then do what I say. Climb to the top of the water tower, or you can listen to me roast both of them alive.”

Jack doesn’t say anything for a moment.

Finally, she utters a defeated, “Fine. Just don’t hurt them.”

Luther smiles.

It would have been a shame to play that card this early. No doubt Jack would have been horrified listening to her friends fry.

How much worse it will be for her when she stands in their circle of hell and is forced to watch them fry.

It was cool outside, but a welcome relief from the frigid temperature of the bear cave.

I reached the outskirts of a metal fence topped with razor wire, which enclosed the base of the water tower.

“You seriously think I can climb over that, Luther? You do realize I’m eight and a half months pregnant.”

“Walk around to the other side. I’ve cut a hole.”

I circumnavigated the fence, moving over pieces of broken glass that crunched under my te

When I finally arrived at the opening, I stopped. He’d cut a segment out of the fencing three feet across and four feet high. I ducked through and walked the last few yards to the tower’s base.

It was an older structure, the kind that looked like a rocket ship—big metal cylinder on stilts with a pointed cone roof. A walkway circled the perimeter of the tank. The four metal struts stood bolted and buried in a foundation of crumbling concrete. For some reason, I’d expected a spiral stairway that would access the tank at the top of the tower, but there was only a narrow ladder whose bottom rung stopped six feet above the ground. A rope ladder extended down from this lowest rung, bridging the gap. It swayed in the breeze.

I froze, my stomach coiling into knots.

“Luther, please.”

“Start climbing.”

“I can’t.”

“I’m getting bored with threatening your friends.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Fair enough.”

“Wait.”

He snorted. “Make up your mind, or I’ll start—”

“Just give me a second,” I said.

Walking over to the rope ladder, I took hold of it, thinking of the oft-repeated story of Chinese women in the rice paddies, working hard up until they gave birth, then clutching their newborns to their breasts and going right back to work.

If they could do it, why couldn’t I?

I stared up the ladder, felt butterflies swarming in my lower intestines, and then something like an electrical current shot all the way down the length of my legs and through to the tips of my toes.

The ladder must have soared between seventy-five and a hundred feet into the sky, which seemed to be no more than a half hour away from full-on dusk. The low deck of clouds streaming over the tank spit a steady drizzle of cool rain, and though I couldn’t be sure, I felt certain the tower itself was swaying. Imagined I could hear the rusty metal creaking.

“Luther—”

“You have seven minutes to get to the top, or I execute someone you love. And the fun part is that you’ll get to hear it all. Their last seconds. I have a recorder so you can hear it again and again and again.”

I shut my eyes, trying to steady the pounding of my heart. I hated heights. Despised them. For my forty-eighth birthday, Phin had taken me downtown to a Brazilian steakhouse called Brazzaz. But before di

—I’d declined to step out.

Some primal siren in the back of my brain had physically stopped me from walking out onto the glass.

Phin, of course, had taunted me mercilessly.

And now—

“What’s the holdup?” Luther purred in my ear. “Is the fearless Jack Daniels a little bit afraid of heights?”

A little bit? Try a lot.

“Better get going.”

I reached out and grabbed the swaying ladder, the rope damp.

Heaving my pregnant ass onto the lowest rung, I began to climb, the rope ladder stretching under the strain of my weight, the metal rungs above me creaking and groaning.

I took it slow, one rung at a time, the protrusion of my belly adding another element to the challenge.

By the time I reached the first metal rung, I had warmed up from the bear cave and was sweating freely.

The metal was cold and wet, the rungs barely more than a foot wide, and the moisture on my palms made it difficult to get a secure grip.

But I didn’t think. I just climbed, adopting a side-stepping technique since my baby bump made climbing straight on impossible.

Five rungs up, the vibration of my weight caused the entire structure to shudder—a subtle, horrifying vibration I could feel in my bones.

I went on, refusing to look down, maintaining a laser-focus on the next rung, the next step, clearing my mind of all other thoughts and distractions.

Halfway up, I stopped. Not out of fear—I hadn’t dared to look down though I could feel the gaping space all around me—but out of pure exhaustion.

“How we doing?” Luther asked.

“Just catching my breath.”

“No rush, but you have three minutes. I must admit, I’m sort of hoping you don’t make it.”

Sweat ran down my face into my eyes, and I blinked against the sting.

I went on.

One foot up.

Next foot up.

One hand on the rusty metal of the next rung.