Page 52 of The Girl He Wanted

"Help? I don't need help! I just need to complete this. There have to be four winds. The cardinal points. Four winds, four deaths!"

Paige knew then that if she didn't think of something quickly, Alvin was going to kill Zelda, and there would be nothing she could do to stop it. She had to think of something that would distract him, something that would stop him, right away.

An idea came to her; a desperate, dangerous idea. Paige had heard the admiration in Alvin's voice when he spoke about Dr. Kostopoulos. That gave her a chance.

"There have already been four deaths, Alvin!" Paige called out to him.

"Three, there have only been three. I killed them myself."

"Four!" Paige insisted. "Dr. Kostopoulos died earlier today."

"You're lying!" Alvin snarled, pointing the knife at Paige.

"I'm not. He knew what you were planning, and he blamed himself," Paige said. "He threw himself from the roof of his mansion. He said that he was making himself into the fourth sacrifice, that it was the only way to end this."

"No, no, he can't have," Alvin said. "He can't have. It's all wrong!"

Paige saw him let go of his grip on Zelda, stepping away from her as he tried to make sense of it all. Paige knew that she would only have one chance to act.

She rushed forward, pushing Zelda out of the way, determined to get her to safety. She shoved Zelda clear, but then Alvin was turning towards Paige, slashing with the knife.

Paige managed to block that blow, but then they were in close and grappling, struggling for the weapon. Paige felt the edge of the roof under her feet ...

And then the two of them started to topple over the edge, together.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Paige felt herself starting to fall, and in that moment, she was certain that she would tumble from the top of the mall like a plummeting stone to crash to the ground below. She thought of Christopher and found herself wishing that she'd had the time to say all the things to him that she felt.

Then Paige's foot found the edge of the roof one last time, pushing against it, not in an attempt to recover her balance, but to fling herself further out into the empty air.

Paige's arms stretched out, grabbing for the dangling wires that had once held the mall sign's missing letter. She reached for them, extending her arms to their limit as she tried to keep herself from falling to her death.

Paige felt her hands close around the wires, the metal cutting into her hands as her weight hit them, leaving Paige dangling from them, desperately trying to hold on.

Alvin Richards wasn't so lucky. Paige watched him fall, watched his body tumble from the top of the mall all the way down to the ground below. For the second time that night, she could only stare as a life was lost, a life that could have been saved if things had gone differently.

Paige winced at the impact of Alvin's body with the ground. From such a height, there was no hope for survival. His obsession with the Tower of the Winds had cost him his life. It had also cost the life of his mentor, along with those of three innocent women.

Paige just hoped that it wasn't about to costherlife too. Her arms were in agony trying to hold her weight as she dangled so far above the ground, while her hands felt as if the wires were cutting into her skin, dripping blood making it even harder to grip them.

Paige clung on anyway because the only alternative was to fall and die.

Paige tried to climb a little higher on the wires, tried to get a more secure grip, but she simply couldn't do it. After everything she'd been through tonight, she didn't have the strength.

"Paige!" Christopher was there then, on the edge of the roof, looking over at her. There was a strange mixture of terror and relief on his face as Paige hung there. "I thought you'd fallen. I thought you were dead."

"I still might be," Paige replied. "I don't think I have the strength to hold on here."

"Can you swing back across, the way you did before?" Christopher asked.

Paige tried, but even as she swung her legs to generate momentum, she knew it wouldn't work. She could feel her grip slipping with the movement, and she had to stop.

"I'll fall if I try," she said. "I ... I think I'm stuck."

Paige realized then that she was going to die. She was going to hang here in the air for a little while longer and then she was going to fall.

Paige felt tears welling up in her eyes. She had survived so much, so many things. This was the end of the line, wasn't it? All the ghosts in her past were finally going to claim her.

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