Page 184 of Twisting Beauty

I yanked it out of my pocket and my thumb was already working before the screen lit up. Lorcan. I hit call and jammed the phone to my ear.

“That’s not going to work,” Deargán said from behind me.

I didn’t turn. “It will. Lorcan will help us.”

“That little bastard is the reason you’re in here.”

The line was dead silence in my ear. I yanked the phone away and stared at the screen.

I tried the emergency number. But that too wouldn’t connect.

“No reception in here,” Deargán muttered. “On purpose.”

Fuck. Meticulous.

I shoved the phone back in my pocket and turned in a circle, eyes raking the cell. Think. Think.

The wallpaper above the doorway was starting to curl up at the corner where the smoke was crawling in along the seam.

I looked up.

Shit. Smoke was already pouring in through the floorboards above. Thick brown wisps of it pushing between the planks, gathering along the ceiling.

Upstairs is on fire, too. He set the whole fucking house on fire.

My eyes caught on the only window in the back wall, light filtering in through the smoky haze.

“The window!”

Wide enough, maybe. Too high to reach. I ran to the chair, grabbed the back of it, and pulled.

The chair didn’t move. It was bolted to the floor.

Dammit, Deargán.

I ran under the window and jumped as hard as I could. My fingers didn’t get within a foot of the sill.

Deargán came up beside me, looking up at the window. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Told you. Meticulous.”

I yanked my jacket off and started winding the sleeve around my forearm, padding my elbow. “Hoist me up.”

“What—?”

“I go out first. Then Rua. Then we both pull you out.”

He glanced past me to where Rua was scrambling to her feet, tears still streaking down her face, her eyes wide, her voice a panicked shriek, “Don’t leave me.”

He looked back at me.

I put my hand on his arm. “I promise. We’ll get you out.”

He held my eyes for one second longer. Then he nodded and held his hands out for my waist, lifting me like I was made of paper.

I clutched the sill, fingers scrabbling on stone, finding my balance before driving my padded elbow into the glass.

It shattered. A spray of cold air rushed in over my face and I sucked it down greedily as I knocked out the rest of the jagged edge with my elbow, working my way around the frame, glass falling away into the grass on the outside.

I hauled myself up, the frame catching along my belly, the broken edge of the glass dragging along my skin under my shirt, leaving stinging lines of pain. I clawed forward into the dirt, hands sinking into wet grass, and I was through.