NEITHER GIRL SCREAMED. IT happened too fast.
The second she felt the stunning blow to her back, felt space open up around her, Molly’s arms instinctively flew forward and out, reaching, grasping for something to hold onto.
Her frantic fingers found something … a smooth beam of wood. Then something hot, burning … but she couldn’t loosen her grip. She grabbed the beam and held on.
Stacey, dropping a fraction of a second after Molly, clawed the air in the same desperate, terrified way.
Her right hand found a hold. Grabbed … caught … held on, jerking her body to a halt in mid-flight.
What Stacey’s frantic fingers had found and were clutching for dear life was Molly’s left elbow. Stacey’s right arm was fully outstretched, the rest of her body dangling like a rag doll at Molly’s left hip.
What Molly had found and grabbed was a wooden beam high above the dance floor. It was strung with small, sparkling lights. Two of the small fiercely-hot bulbs were burning the skin on her hand. But she was terrified of moving a single muscle.
They hung in tandem, high above the dance floor, their faces white with shock, their bodies stiff with terror.
Below them, heads lifted. Cries of alarm, then screams rang out as people in the crowd realized what they were seeing. The dancing stopped. Conversation ended, laughter died a sudden death.
The moon emerged from behind its cloud, casting an eerie, silvery-gold halo around the suspended pair.
Hank ran for the stairs. So many people went with him that they formed a logjam at the narrow entry to the stairs, blocking it completely, wasting precious moments.
Stacey’s fingernails dug into the skin on Molly’s elbow painfully. Still, Molly whispered, “Hang on, Stacey, hang on.”
And Stacey’s terrified whisper came back, “I can’t … I can’t, Molly …”
As cautiously as she could, Molly fought to slide the two burning fingers away from the tiny light bulbs. When she had succeeded without losing her grip, tears of relief stung her eyes.
Feet pounded up the stairs.
People overhead shouted, calling out orders.
Molly raised her head to look up.
Hank and Donovan were leaning over the edge of the opening, their arms fully outstretched.
The distance was too great. They couldn’t close the gap.
“Molly,” Stacey said, her voice hoarse with fear, “I can’t hang on. I can’t … it’s too hard …”
“Don’t move,” Molly warned, looking into Hank’s eyes. What she saw in them was sheer panic. She lowered her head again. “Don’t move, Stacey. Keep your legs still. Can’t you pull yourself up higher on my arm? Or climb onto my back? I can hold you, I know I can, if you can just get up on my back. You’re right there, Stacey, it’s not that far. If you swing yourself sideways, just a little …” Stacey was a dancer. She did amazing things in the dance studio and on stage. Couldn’t she do this one difficult but maybe not impossible thing? Save herself?
Had Stacey grabbed Molly’s elbow with her left hand, she would have been positioned almost directly behind Molly. But it was her right hand that clutched Molly’s left elbow, swinging Stacey too far away from Molly’s back.
“No … I can’t reach. I’m barely hanging on as it is. Molly, please, please, help me!”
“Somebody get a rope!” Hank commanded, the same fear in his voice that Molly had heard in Stacey’s.
“Please,” Stacey begged, “please, Molly …”
“Oh, God!” Molly cried, “somebody do something! Hurry!”
There were scrambling noises above and below her, all around her, but Stacey’s fingernails were already easing their grip.
Molly looked down and to her left. Stacey’s eyes, dulled with shock, fastened on hers with a silent plea.
The fingers on Molly’s elbow began to slide.
“Stacey, please!” Molly sobbed, “please hang on.”
“We’ve got a ladder!” Donovan shouted from below. “There’s a ladder. Just hold on, hold on!”
Dragging sounds, metal on wood, across the lower deck.
“Hurry,” Molly whispered, “hurry!” watching all of the color drain from Stacey’s face, watching as her eyes rolled back in her head, feeling the fingernails peel away from her elbow …
“Stacey Cotter!” Molly shouted, sobbing, “you hang on, dammit! Don’t you dare let go! There’s a ladder … they’re bringing a ladder …”
Feeling the fingernails letting go … sliding away … sliding free …
“No!” Molly screamed, her head snapping back up because she knew what was happening and she couldn’t bear to look. “Oh, God, no!”
Stacey fell.
She fell quietly. The only sounds that accompanied her plunge were the horrified gasps of the crowds gathered below and above her.
But she hit the polished wooden deck with a bone-shattering smack.
Looking down from above, Molly’s tear-filled, horrified eyes saw only one thing. Both of Stacey’s legs were bent into impossible angles. Stacey wouldn’t be walking on those legs any time soon, if she ever walked again at all.
And Molly saw again, in her mind’s eye, the Odyssey photograph of Stacey with no legs.
The picture had been, after all, a warning …
And now it was reality.