Chapter 19 - The Sinking Spire
"Run!" Marcus roared, grabbing Toby by the arm and shoving Clara toward the upper exit. "Get to the cliff! NOW!"
The first detonation ripped through the sub-basement with a violent, concussive boom that threw Clara to her knees. Dust, pulverized stone, and acrid sulfur smoke filled the air, choking their lungs. The massive stone walls of the 150-year-old lighthouse groaned—a terrifying, metallic shriek of granite buckling under explosive decompression.
Clara scrambled to her feet, clutching Leo tightly to her chest with one arm while gripping Toby’s hand with a vice-like hold. "Toby, don't look back! Keep running!"
Above them, chunks of the ceiling began to collapse in a shower of deadly debris. Reyes’s dying laughter was swallowed whole by the secondary explosions tearing through the support pillars below. The entire tower tilted dangerously toward the crashing sea.
Marcus led the way, firing his rifle through the jammed wooden exterior door, kicking it open into the howling gale of the hurricane.
The wind nearly ripped baby Leo from Clara’s arms, but she turned her back to the storm, shielding the infant with her entire body. Toby stumbled on the slick, rain-soaked rocks, his knee catching a sharp edge.
"I can't!" Toby cried out as the lighthouse began to slide down the cliff behind them like a falling colossus.
"You can, Toby!" Clara screamed over the tempest. "Look at me! You are Julian Vance's son! Stand up!"
Toby looked into his mother’s eyes, finding the same raw, unbreakable steel that had kept her alive in the freezing depths of the ocean. He surged to his feet, lunging forward just as the top hundred feet of the lighthouse snapped off, crashing into the rocky plateau where they had stood seconds before.
They scrambled toward the cliff’s edge where the RHIB boat was tied below, tossed violently by the twenty-foot waves.
"We have to jump!" Marcus shouted, looking over the precipice into the swirling, foaming cauldron below.
"The baby!" Clara yelled in horror.
"Wrap him in the waterproof survival pack!" Marcus ordered, rapidly unzipping his tactical flotation gear and swaddling Leo securely into the airtight, buoyant harness. He clipped the baby to Clara’s chest and linked his own harness to Toby. "On three! We jump together! Trust the water, Clara!"
The lighthouse gave one final, cataclysmic shudder. The remaining foundation collapsed inward, an avalanche of tons of granite rushing toward them like a tidal wave of stone.
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"One! Two! THREE!"
They leaped into the abyss.
