Daniel shrieked, letting go of my hair as he clutched his bleeding face. “You miserable whore!”
He backhanded me. The force of the blow cracked my head against the porcelain base of the sink. Sparks exploded in my eyes, and I collapsed onto my side, completely paralyzed this time. I could feel warm blood trickling from my temple, mingling with the cold water on the floor.
“Daniel! Red lights! I see red lights through the trees!” Vanessa screamed from the front of the house, her voice rising to a panicked shriek. “They’re here! The cops are here!”
“Get the car started!” Daniel yelled back, wiping the blood from his cheek and looking down at his hand in disbelief. He looked back at me, his eyes burning with a demonic hatred. “You think you won, Rachel? Look at your boy. He’s gone. And you’re about to join him.”
He didn’t look for the phone anymore. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, silver object.
A lighter.
My breath hitched.
“If the poison doesn’t finish the job, the smoke will,” Daniel whispered. “A tragic house fire. Destroys all the evidence. It’s perfect.”
He walked out of the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. From my position on the floor, unable to move a single muscle, I watched through the hallway as he grabbed a bottle of high-proof bourbon from the living room bar. He splashed it aggressively across the hallway carpet, the curtains, the wooden stairs.
“Daniel, hurry!” Vanessa’s voice wailed from the front door.
He flicked the lighter. The small flame danced in the darkness of our home, casting long, monstrous shadows against the wall.
“Goodbye, Rachel,” he said loudly.
He dropped the lighter.
Whoomp.
The alcohol-soaked carpet ignited instantly. A wall of bright, aggressive orange fire erupted in the hallway, cutting off the bathroom from the rest of the house. The heat hit my face like a physical blow, instantly drying the sweat on my skin. Thick, black, acrid smoke began to billow toward the ceiling, rolling along the molding and pouring into the bathroom like a dark tidal wave.
Outside, the faint, distant wail of sirens finally broke through the night air. They were close. Maybe thirty seconds away.
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.
