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Now it’s my turn to laugh as I push to my feet. “Do you not realize he sent you away because he once loved you? Cian and Darragh didn’t even know you were still alive. He still tried to protect you, even after everything you did to him. Shit, did he really mean so little to you it was worth taking the money and running?”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she snaps, coming toward me.
I brace for her to swing the knife and just as she gets within arm’s reach, I hold out the can and spray her in the eyes. Sam swings the knife blindly, and I feel my skin split beneath the blade.
“Fucking bitch,” she screams, as I run through the smoke and out into the hallway between the bedrooms. Beside Cian’s room is a decorative table, and on it there is a large crystal-ball-looking monstrosity. I pick it up with two hands and creep back to wait beside my door, praying she turns toward the stairs.
Sam steps through the doorway, the smoke thick enough to impact visibility and hide my waiting form. I heft the heavy ball in the air, then bring it down against her head. She staggers and falls onto the carpet, blood pooling around her. I drop the ball and run—I need to find the girls.
Descending the stairs two at a time, I take a left and sprint down a hallway to where the safe room is at the far back corner of the house. The fire must be in the kitchen because the smoke thins slightly the further I move down the hall, past the cinema and the games room. This whole side is fun shit, like an indoor sauna. I duck into an empty room, and there is nothing in here besides a bookshelf, but if you pull a book, the case unlatches, leaving a door with a hand pad. I press my hand to it, and it turns red. Fuck! If they are inside, it has gone into panic mode, and they will need to unlock it from the inside.
“Girls, I need you to open the door. Darragh would have shown you how.”
I don’t know if they can hear me, but I hope they can.
Sirens. Thank fuck, I can hear sirens in the distance. “Come on, girls, please open the door.”
The light clicks green, and it opens, then both girls are wrapping their arms around me. “As much as I want to hug you, we need to find a way out.”
They both nod.
“The basement,” Sadie says. “The windows down there are usually open because it smells.”
“Let’s go,” I tell them, taking their hands.
“You’re bleeding,” Eloise whispers, and I look at my arm. Shit, that’s a lot of blood, and I’m feeling woozy on my feet.
“I will be fine. Let’s get downstairs. I don’t know where the crazy lady is, so we are going to run as fast as we can to the basement. Do not let go of my hand, understand?”
They both nod. “Okay, ready, set, go.”
The three of us run back through the house, but the smoke gets thicker and flames now billow out of the hall leading to the kitchen. Shit, we need to go through there to get to the basement.
“Fuck!”
“We can get outside from upstairs,” Eloise says.
I don’t have time to ask her how—it’s the only option we have left.
“Show me,” I say, and Eloise pulls us toward the staircase leading to their room. Once we are past their room, in an alcove of sorts at the end of the hall there’s an emergency exit door.
“It’s normally closed, but I leave it cracked open in case Mom comes back.”
My heart hurts for these girls and all they have been through. I push the door open, and we step out onto a small balcony which has a ladder. Shit, this really is an emergency exit.
“Okay, you girls go first, and I will meet you at the bottom.”
Eloise goes first, followed by Sadie. As I’m climbing down the ladder, the sounds of the sirens stop, and shouting from the front of the house is the only noise breaking the silence.
Once I reach the bottom, I take the girls’ hands again, and we walk toward the front of the house. The quickest way from here is along the side of the building, and we move as fast as we can, but with the amount of blood I have lost, I am staggering a little on my feet. My vision blurs as we step out from beside the house, and my knees give way. The last thing I hear is someone shouting my name.
Someone tripped the alarm—fuck. I can no longer hear Harper while I continue to bring up the feed from the yard. I’d heard her at first, talking with someone, but now, nothing.
“Daddy,” my daughter whimpers.
“Sadie, where is Harper?”
Sadie hiccups. “The bad lady has her. Harper told us to go.”
