Under the Floorboards (and In the Walls)

Over the Edge With You-Lockwood

I stood on the edge of the roof, but I didn't look down. I wasn't going down. I was going across. I looked behind me at Lucy.

She stood in the dim light, smiling encouragingly, if not a little scared. Her cropped hair blew in her face with the sharp London wind. Arms wrapped around herself in an effort to keep warm, I felt bad for taking my jacket back. But the extra weight for this next bit would have encumbered her. And I needed my gear. We'd be inside soon. 

Her necklace glinted in the ghost lights from down below. It felt so good to see it on her again.

 When I had found it broken in her room, I had been a little upset. I thought she was mad at me and broke it in a fit of rage. Then tossed it across her room. I mean, I wasn't sure what I did if that was the case, but I always seemed to be putting my foot in my mouth with her. Like when I gave her the necklace. I was so nervous and scared. It felt so obvious that I liked her. Giving her a necklace. So I tried to make it more casual by telling her it would look nicer if she shut her mouth. It was supposed to be a joke. I wanted to make her laugh. But she had just snapped her hanging jaw shut and taken the necklace. 

She never knew the feeling behind the gift. But maybe that was for the best. If she knew how much it meant to me that she wore it almost every day since she might have been freaked out.

When I found it in her room I immediately brought it to be fixed. I guess I was planning on putting it back in Jessica's room, but I forgot.

I'm so glad I forgot.

Holding my hands above my head, I gripped in each hand the end of a leather strap. The strap was long enough to wrap each end around my hand a couple times. So, I did. It was crazy. But it would work. We weren't sure if people would be staying there overnight so it probably wouldn't be safe to sneak in through the second level, even though the windows probably had less sophisticated locks than the ground floor. When entry into the ground floor had initially failed, I was willing to break a window. Might have alerted someone to the situation, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Lucy had the brilliant idea of using the cable over the roof. The cable stretched sleek and black over to the SPI headquarters. Classic London fog had made it slick. Hopefully that would make this part easier.

We just needed to slide across. Gravity was on our side. I looked back at Lucy, the smile had dropped.

"You can do this," I said in the way of encouragement. She grimaced. I had seen Lucy jump off a building into the Thames but behind all that daring, she was terrified of heights. She gave me a curt nod. No sense in delaying any longer. I pushed myself off the ledge and let gravity do the rest. I shot down. I had been worried about getting stuck in the middle. I shouldn't have. The cable ran over the Saunders building and connected to a poll across from that. So I needed to jump at the right spot, before I hit the pole and broke every bone in my body. When I was just above the gravel of the flat roof I let go of the leather strap and fell. Landing lightly on my feet I took a moment to gather myself and then turned to watch Lucy.

She stood on the ledge where I had just been. She had flung her strap over the cable and froze. If she waited much longer, I was afraid she would lose heart.

With a shake of her head she leapt.

Too fast. She was zipping towards me at frightening speeds. I could see the whites of her eyes as they widened in terror.

"Lucy!" I called as loudly as I dared and held out my arms, backing up.

She let go at the perfect moment and slammed into me. I fell with her in my arms. We rolled twice and stopped. I lay on my back in the gravel, her head on my chest. I could feel her breathing wildly.

"You ok?" I groaned and she rolled off of me. I looked over at her. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her breath was coming in as gasps.

At least the wind wasn't completely knocked out of her.

"Hey," I got up on my knees and leaned over her and began feeling for injuries. "Luce, are you ok?"

"Yes." Her voice was small. "Just give me a minute."

Our hands found each other. When her breath became steady I helped her to her feet. She was still shaky with adrenaline.

"You were brilliant, Luce," I said, rubbing her hand with my thumb.

She scoffed, dropping my hand. She rubbed her arms and legs in an act of shaking off the dirt and the nervous energy. "I acted like a scared toddler. You did it no problem."

I shrugged. "It was easy for me. I'm not afraid of heights. But you are. It was hard for you, but you still did it."

Together we stood, as we had on the building thirty feet away. Now we faced the hardest objective of the night. Find George and Flo. They were somewhere in the building below. And they were in trouble. 

Again, I am an American writing about Brits. I've heard that we do building levels differently. I tried to be clear but there was some points where I wasn't sure how to. In America we go up from basement, ground/first floor, second floor, third floor, etc. In case there is any confusion. 

Thanks for reading, hope you all have a lovely day.  #SaveLockwoodandCo #LockwoodAndTheFlight