The bolt came away with a piece of the door attached.
Elena let the poker fall and pulled the handle. Water drove the door inward. Miles's shoulder hit it, and he fell against her. She caught him badly, one arm around his neck, the other beneath his ribs. His feet slipped on the flooded carpet. They went down together.
He made a sound that sent her struggling upright before she knew what had happened. His right hand had come free. It lay against his chest, swollen and cut, the fingers held at an angle she did not want to look at.
“Don't touch it,” he said.
She took her hand away. He had been trying to lift it with his left and failing because his whole body shook. Water rose around their knees.
Daniel stood near the sofa. The floor around his feet was dry. “I can help,” he said.
Miles looked at him with such hatred that Elena almost flinched. Then Daniel's face changed. It became the younger face from the honeymoon, wet hair across its forehead, pleading as he had pleaded for her life. Elena picked up the poker and threw it at him.
It struck the lamp behind his shoulder. Glass shattered. The room's warm light went out. For a moment the doorway was only the doorway of the ordinary sitting room, and the flooding hall led clearly to the kitchen.
Elena put her arm beneath Miles's left shoulder. “We need to move.”
He tried to get up without her. His foot slid, and he hit the sofa with his hip. He swore, then let her help. They got him into the kitchen, where the water was shallower. She set him on a chair and looked for something to cover the hand.
The towels they had used after the lake lay in a heap by the heater. She took a clean one from the cupboard instead. Miles watched her come toward him and turned away.
“I'm not going to—” she began.
“You did.”
She stopped.
His face was slick with sweat. The red mark on his cheek had darkened. He let her lay the towel across his lap, then used it himself to support the injured hand. He breathed through his mouth, shallowly, looking past her at the wall.
“I couldn't move the bolt,” she said.
“You moved it when you wanted to close it.”
She let go of the chair. His phone lay in his left hand, the screen still lit.
“Can you ring someone?”
“And tell them what? We're still in a house they can't find us inside.”
“Tell them you're hurt. They'll be there when we get out.”
He glanced at her. “When.”
She nodded. He unlocked the phone with a clumsy thumb. Elena fetched hers from the hall floor. The screen was cracked, but it lit. Jo and Bea had been calling. Bea's last message said she was on her way with Jo, that police were at the upper track, that nobody could find them. Elena sent, We are alive. Miles has a badly injured hand. Please stay. We are trying to get out.
Miles called Sana. Elena went to the lake door so she would not have to hear him explain. She checked the bolt, then the window above the sink. Black water stood against the glass outside, higher than the path should have allowed. Their ordinary exits were gone for now.
Behind her Miles said, “I'm sorry I didn't tell you. No, not about the mugs.” His voice broke. Elena kept looking at the glass. A pale face drifted past it, her own at twenty-six, eyes closed.
He ended the call. She turned toward him.
“The blue door,” she said.
Miles looked at the stair. “You wouldn't open it.”
“I will.”
“You don't get to change your mind halfway through.”
“I know.”
“You said that before.”
She took the kitchen chair opposite him. He watched her. Water came down the stairs and curled around the chair legs. She held her phone up: two seventeen in the morning. The supper plates were still in the sink.
“I heard you,” she said. “Through the door. Before you screamed.”
His mouth tightened.
“I kept thinking I could have a little longer. That you could wait.”
“I couldn't wait.”
“No.” She looked down at the water. It was carrying a strip of fern paper past his bare foot. “No, you couldn't.”
He shifted the towel in his lap. She reached before remembering not to touch him, and stopped with her hand between them.
“It had us at the table too,” she said. “Your sleeve. I was turning it to dry.”
He caught the towel against his chest, breathing through the pain.
“I remember,” he said.
“If that burns with the rest—” She looked at his face. “You might have to tell me. About this.”
“I'm not doing it now.”
“I wasn't asking now.”
He looked away. She brought her hand back to her lap.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the anger remained. “Get what we need.”
She rose. The cupboard beneath the sink held matches for the grate, spare candles and a torch. She took the matches and the torch. A lighter lay on the table. She picked that up too, wrapped it in a dry kitchen cloth and put it in her pocket.
“You can't burn wet wood,” Miles said.
“Those rooms weren't wet until it wanted them to be.”
He looked at the sitting-room doorway. Beyond it their old bedroom was still dry, the lamp relit, Daniel seated on the edge of the bed. He watched Elena with a patience she now found intolerable.
Miles got to his feet. She reached to help, and he stepped away from her hand.
“Tell me where you're going,” he said. “Don't just take me somewhere.”
“Upstairs. Past the bathroom. The blue door.”
He nodded. “Then go.”
She went first. Behind her he walked slowly, keeping the injured hand against his chest, and each time the house spoke in Daniel's voice she heard Miles swear beneath his breath.