But thirty seconds was too long.
The smoke dropped lower, filling the room. I began to cough, a violent, hacking sound that tore at my lungs, but my limbs still refused to obey me. The poison had completely disconnected my brain from my body. I could only watch as the smoke crawled across the floor, creeping toward Noah’s motionless form.
Get up, I screamed at myself. GET UP!
I managed to twitch my fingers. That was it. Just a twitch.
Through the roaring crackle of the flames in the hallway, I heard the front door slam shut. Daniel and Vanessa were gone. They were escaping into the night, leaving us to burn alive in the dark.
Then, a sound broke through the roaring fire.
It wasn’t the sirens. It wasn’t the crackle of burning wood.
It was a heavy, metallic crash from the back of the house. The sound of the kitchen window shattering.
