Page 28 of Hot to the Touch
Kaitlyn bawled, as if losing her plants was the worst thing that could possibly happen to her. “I don’t want new plants,” she cried.
“Shh, sweet girl. It’ll all be okay. I promise,” Chelsea soothed, scooping the child into her arms and stroking her back comfortingly. “We’ll figure everything out.”
Chelsea glanced at the house over a shoulder and sighed. She’d lose very little inside. A few outfits and hygiene items at most. But Redmond would lose his entire life, and she knew how much money he made through the fire department. If he didn’t have good insurance, he’d never have enough to repair it after the fire or buy a new one.
She knew he didn’t care about that, though. They were all safe, and that was the only thing that mattered.
Redmond turned and started walking toward the street as a police car barreled toward them. Chelsea heard the sirens before seeing the flashing lights, and she assumed that’s where Redmond was walking.
Then she noticed the man on the side of the street fleeing.
“Red,” she shouted, attempting to disentangle herself from Kaitlyn and follow him. By the time she’d accomplished to move herself, she looked down at Kaitlyn, sitting in the grass and sobbing. “Stay right here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Kaitlyn didn’t so much as nod, but Chelsea took off, racing after Redmond. The officer pulled onto the street and stopped first at the man who walked away from the fire—the one who Chelsea didn’t recognize. Redmond halted in place, and Chelsea slowed, pausing a few feet behind him.
The officer spoke to the man, but she couldn’t hear anything being said. She gaped as the officer stepped out of his car and walked toward the man, refusing to allow him another step away from the scene. She may not have known his name or face, but she had no doubt that Redmond did, and she knew instinctively that he had something to do with the burning house at their backs.
Judging by the officer’s stiff shoulders and hand on his gun, he had a suspicion, as well.
Chelsea took a step back, deciding instead to give her attention to Kaitlyn, who needed support. When Chelsea was a child, if she’d have lost all her belongings, she would have been devastated, so she’d do her best to comfort the child at her back while Redmond and the officer figured out the technical details of the fire.
Chelsea turned. Her eyes met only the green grass that had previously rested beneath Kaitlyn’s bare feet. The only motion she faced was the thick smoke that wafted from the front door of the house.
Theopenfront door.
She knew that Redmond had taken extra care to close it.
“No,” she whispered, her feet moving toward the house before her mind had time to process. She should have asked Redmond for help. She knew she should have, but if time was a factor, breaking Redmond from his trance-like state was far from an option.
Chelsea jumped onto the front stoop and charged through the door, holding her arm over her mouth and nose.
“Kaitlyn,” she shouted, but the smoke seemed to eat away her voice just as it stole her sight. The utter darkness of the house enveloped in smoke had her breathing heavier and coughing more. Darkness had been the single fear that Chelsea couldn’t overcome, and there she stood, enveloped in the darkest place she’d been since that night five months ago.
She froze, coughing and trying to find herself in the darkness. She grounded herself, concentrating on the feet beneath her and the slight pinch in her ankle as she placed more weight on it. Chelsea was no longer in that place where she’d been tortured. She knew that.
Chelsea had a job to do, and she’d find that little girl before anything happened to her.
Her rising panic could wait.
She pushed herself past the foyer and looked to the right, expecting to find Chelsea in her plant room, but she wasn’t there.Think, think, think. Where else were there plants in the house?
Chelsea turned and ran down the hall, passing by Redmond’s room and finding Kaitlyn’s door wide open. Chelsea’s coughing became uncontrollable as she entered the child’s room. She found Kaitlyn balancing on the windowsill to gather a long, dangling plant from her curtain rod. The girl held a rag over her mouth as she had before, and with one hand, she did her best to reach the plant that rested too high for her.
Chelsea began seeing stars in her vision as the oxygen in the room transformed into thicker smoke, and she couldn’t bring herself to say Kaitlyn’s name. There wasn’t enough oxygen for it. She rushed forward and scooped Kaitlyn around the waist, reaching up and grabbing the plant, as well.
Kaitlyn grabbed the plant as Chelsea held her.
The dark spots in Chelsea’s vision multiplied with each cough, and her knees felt weakened by the lack of oxygen, but she pushed through the room and into the hallway. The hallway spun around her, and Kaitlyn coughed into her rag.
For Kaitlyn, Chelsea could make it.
Each step felt heavier than the last, until she felt a knee buckle, and her vision further darkened. Chelsea released Kaitlyn, who stood before her and watched her fall to the ground, coughing. Chelsea dragged herself through the hallway using her arms, but without the slight barrier of her arm, the smoke barreled into her lungs with a vengeance. Kaitlyn stood above her, screaming something that her muted senses couldn’t hear.
“Go,” she told Kaitlyn, hoping that the message reached the child through her coughing. Chelsea knew she was seconds from passing out—knew she didn’t have any other way to escape.
A much larger figure covered both Kaitlyn and Chelsea, towering over them like a protective spirit. Was it a spirit that hovered above her?
Was it the angel of death, coming to collect her soul?