Chapter 2
Chapter Two
A blaring siren sliced through my sleep, piercing my dreams and dragging me into consciousness, its howl drilling into my skull before my mind could process what it meant.
My back lifted off the bed as the smell of smoke filled my lungs.
Fire.
My hand fumbled for the bedside lamp as I sucked in a breath.
The smoke detector's wail bounced off the wall as my fingers found the light switch.
Click.
Nothing.
There was no power.
Jumping out of bed, I bolted to the window. I was on the second floor, but I was pretty sure the jump wouldn't kill me.
My fingers slipped and fumbled on the window latch, my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth. Each failed attempt to open the window sent my pulse higher, until my hands shook so badly, I could barely grip the frame. The smoke pressed closer, turning each shallow gasp into a battle for air.
My breath caught as I stared at my bedroom door, the wood warping and crackling in the heat. Sweat trickled down my neck as I tried to guess what horrors waited on the other side.
Orange light flickered beneath the door frame, casting dancing shadows across my walls. The stench of burning plastic stung my nostrils. Thick gray tendrils curled through every crack, filling my lungs with each shallow breath. The smoke alarm's shrill warning had fallen silent. The wallpaper beside the door began to bubble and peel. Even from three feet away, the heat pressed against my face like an open oven.
I had no idea if Emmett, my older brother, was in the house or still out for the night. Most nights, he didn't come home, so it wouldn't be unusual for him to be gone for the night, but it didn't matter. If I couldn't get myself out, I couldn't help him. I had to hope he had escaped and was calling for help.
I stumbled back to the window, fingers clawing at the frame as I pulled with what strength I had left but it was no use. It was stuck.
"There has to be something I can break it with," I muttered, squinting through the darkness for anything solid enough to shatter glass. But the smoke had turned the room into a black void.
My lungs screamed for clean air, each inhale like swallowing sand. The room began to tilt and sway, dark spots blooming at the edges of my vision like spilled ink. My knees buckled, sending me crashing to the floor where I'd desperately hoped to find cleaner air. But even here, the same thick smoke burned my lungs and coated my tongue with ash. As the ceiling above me blurred and darkened, my limbs becoming too heavy to move, the door burst open with a bang that I felt more than heard through my fading consciousness.
A deep, hoarse voice yelled my name; "Olivia."
"Here," I coughed, trying to get up, but my body wouldn't respond to what my brain told it to do.
Warm arms wrapped around me, jerking me off the floor; I threw my arms around his neck. He pulled me tight against him protectively, and I buried my face in his chest to protect it from the heat beyond the door. In a rush, he carried me out.
"Emmett," I muttered, most of it muffled by his chest.
"Emmett's fine; he's not home," he said as we exited the house. It was Anthony. Anthony had worked as a driver for my parents before they died and stayed with Emmett and me after. He mostly chauffeured me around, but I considered him a friend, part of the family.
I expected him to set me down once we were safely outside the house, but he didn't stop until we were standing at the driver side of his white Cadillac Escalade.
"Anthony, I'm fine." The words came automatically, though my lungs still burned with each breath. "I don't need the hospit?—"
"The airport." Anthony's hand found the small of my back, the familiar gesture made foreign by its urgency. His fingers trembled against my spine.
The orange glow of the fire painted strange shadows across his face, highlighting deep lines I'd never noticed before.
"Airport?" The word tasted wrong. "But the flight isn't until?—"
"Now." One syllable, stripped of his usual warmth. He yanked the SUV's door open with enough force to rock the frame. I'd never seen him treat his precious Escalade so roughly. "Get in."
My bare feet rooted to the pavement. In twenty years, he'd never cut me off, never used that tone—like he was more afraid of standing still than of whatever we were running from.
Sliding in, the leather seat was cold against my bare legs. I twisted around to watch our house shrink in the distance as he surged forward, smoke billowing against the dark sky. Anthony's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his eyes constantly checking the rearview mirror.
"What about Emmett?" My palm left a sooty print on the window. My mind raced through a hundred scenarios, each worse than the last. "We can't just leave him?—"
"Emmett gave the order."
Three words that rewrote my entire world. Emmett, who'd barely spoken ten sentences to me in the past month, had planned for this. The same brother who'd forgotten my last two birthdays had an evacuation strategy ready.
But why?
Anthony's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror for a split second—long enough to see the apology there—before the privacy window hummed upward. The barrier sealed with a soft click, trapping me with my questions and the smell of everything I'd lost. In the condensation on the window, my sooty fingerprints began to run, like the tears I couldn't let myself cry.
Anthony took each turn like we were being chased, the SUV's tires squealing against asphalt. My shoulder slammed into the door as we swerved onto the highway, the burning house shrinking in the side mirror until it was just another orange glow in a city of lights. Strange—I should have felt something watching my home burn, but all I could focus on was the way Anthony's eyes had kept darting to the rearview mirror, checking for something more threatening than flames.
The SUV's tires shrieked against asphalt as Anthony took another corner at double the speed limit. Red lights meant nothing to him now—he blew through three, leaving a chorus of angry horns in our wake.
The airport parking garage swallowed us, our tires squealing against concrete as Anthony took the spiral ramp at twice the posted speed.
I was out of the car before Anthony could reach my door, my bare feet meeting cold concrete. The pink and gray fabric of my nightshirt fluttered around my knees.
Anthony placed his hand around my arm above my elbow and dragged me quickly toward the elevators. "Anthony, I don't have any shoes."
He stopped abruptly, jerking me around to face him. "Olivia, your shoes are toast." His tone was harsh, harsher than he'd ever been with me. His grip tightened around my arm. "Don't worry about shoes or anything else." He paused briefly. "Under no circumstance are you to leave this airport by any means other than a plane. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," I whimpered. He began walking, deciding to skip the elevator and take the stairs.
"You can get shoes once you're safely in Florida. Nicholas Pearson will be there to meet you. Emmett said he would call him and explain what happened."
"Nick?" My face twisted with confusion. I hadn't seen Nick in nearly nine years; it was the summer when everything had fallen apart, the one that still haunted my dreams. I'd never blamed Nick for running away; I'd wished I'd had the same option many times, but I was only twelve at the time.
"Yes, Nick. Make sure you're on the plane, Olivia."
My fingernails dug half-moons into my palms, and the fluorescent airport lights seemed to pulse brighter with each shallow breath. The crowd's chatter morphed into white noise, pressing against my ears.
The airport doors parted with a whoosh that sounded like a gasp for air. Anthony's hand on my elbow guided me past a blur of early-morning travelers—business suits and rolling luggage forming a tide that parted around us, then closed again. The collective stares of strangers prickled against my skin.
A plastic airport chair caught me more than I chose to sit in it. The airport spun in fragments: a child's red backpack, the squeak of wheels on tile, a voice announcing Gate 23. My hands trembled so badly I had to sit on them, and each breath caught like fabric on a nail. Time stretched and snapped like a rubber band.
Anthony knelt, his face level with mine. "I'm sorry, Olivia." The harsh airport fluorescents carved deep shadows beneath his eyes, aging him decades in moments. When had his hair gone so gray? When had those worry lines become permanent fixtures? The man who'd practically raised me was dissolving before my eyes, replaced by someone weighted down with secrets he wasn't sharing. "I wish I could tell you something. Explain all this to you, but I don't know what's going on either. Don't worry, and call Emmett once you're safely in Florida." He stood and left, disappearing into a crowd of people.
The last few years had been anything but ordinary, but this blew everything else out of the water. I had no idea what was happening, but I couldn't help but think Emmett was in trouble.
Emmett's face flashed in my mind—not the brother who'd raised me after our parents died, but the stranger he'd become. The ghost who'd drift through our house every few months, leaving nothing but a trail of freshly laundered clothes and mumbled goodbyes.
Last month, he'd dropped a South Florida University acceptance letter on my desk. "You can't stay here forever," he'd said, already turning away.
I looked around the airport for anything suspicious, but I had no idea what I was looking for. Because it was so early in the morning, the corridors were jammed with travelers hustling around from one point to another, looking for their destination. Perhaps I was overreacting. Maybe Emmett didn't want me to deal with the fire's after-effects.
My body was still shaking from all the adrenaline coursing through my blood. I looked down at my bare feet.
My toes curled against the cold airport tile, trying to make myself smaller. My fingers twisted the hem of my nightshirt, pulling it lower over my knees.
A group of teenagers huddled near the gate with their designer luggage. Their whispers carried across the terminal: 'Did she, like, sleepwalk here?' followed by poorly concealed laughter. I wrapped my arms tight around me, wishing the molded plastic seat would swallow me whole.
My eyes widened as it sank in that I had nothing. Not only did I have no clothes, but I had no purse, no wallet, no identification, and no airline tickets.
What the hell do I do ? I didn't have a phone to call someone, and I was terrified to leave the airport.