Chapter 9 - The Fall from Grace
Chloe didn't hesitate. Adrenaline surged through her veins, drowning out the paralyzing fear. She kicked the revolver with the toe of her boot, sending it skittering across the floorboards and down the open stairwell. It bounced loudly down the wooden steps, clattering onto the second-floor landing out of reach.
On the attic floor, Arthur let out an animalistic roar, scrambling to his knees. He grabbed Susan by the hair, throwing her violently against the timber support beam. Susan cried out, her head slamming against the wood, and she slumped to the floor, momentarily dazed.
Arthur turned his frantic, bloodshot eyes on Chloe. He was bleeding from a shallow cut on his cheek where the broken glass had grazed him, his white shirt torn and coated in attic grime. He didn't look like her father anymore; he looked like a predator cornered in a trap of his own making.
""You foolish little girl,"" Arthur hissed, rising to his feet and blocking the path to the stairs. ""Do you have any idea what you've done? That flash drive was the only leverage we had against the bank! Without it, we lose the house! We lose everything!""
""I don't care about this house!"" Chloe screamed, backing away toward the shattered window. The cold autumn wind tore through her oversized knit sweater, chilling her to the bone. ""I hate this house! It's a tomb!""
""You'll learn to care,"" Arthur said, taking a predatory step toward her, his hands curving into claws. ""We're going down to the basement. You're going to stay in the wine cellar until I find that drive in the leaves tomorrow morning. And if you scream, no one in this valley is going to hear you.""
Chloe felt the jagged edges of the broken window frame pressing against her lower back. Behind her was a forty-foot drop down to the stone patio below. There was nowhere left to run.
Arthur lunged.
His hands shot out to grab her shoulders, but Chloe dropped suddenly to the floor, rolling beneath his outstretched arms. Arthur’s momentum carried him forward, his chest slamming hard against the wooden windowsill. The rotted wood of the ancient frame groaned under his weight.
From the floor behind him, Susan stirred. Through her daze, she saw Arthur leaning half out of the broken frame. With a desperate, feral burst of strength, Susan pushed herself up from the beam, grabbed Eleanor's broken wooden easel, and rammed the heavy oak frame straight into Arthur’s back.
Arthur let out a choked gasp of shock. His hands scrambled frantically against the smooth, wet exterior stone of the exterior wall, searching for a purchase that wasn't there.
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""Susan—!"" Arthur gasped, his voice instantly swallowed by the roaring wind.
His fingers slipped. His body tipped forward over the sill, disappearing into the dark void of the night. A second later, a sickening, dull thud echoed from the stone patio far below, followed by an absolute, terrifying silence.
