Chapter 8 - Smoke and Leather
The heat rose fast through the floorboards, warming the soles of my feet through my socks.
Smoke filled the top half of the room, turning the light an ugly, murky orange as the fire consumed the drywall below.
I dropped to my hands and knees, coughing violently, my eyes stinging with tears.
I beat my fists against the bottom of the locked oak door until my knuckles bled, but no one answered. The hallway was completely silent save for the crackle of burning wood below.
They were going to let the house burn. They were going to claim it was an accidental electrical fire, started by their unstable daughter who had tragically perished in her old bedroom.
They would wear black to the funeral. My mother would accept casseroles from the church group and talk about grace through unimaginable grief.
No.
I pulled my shirt collar up over my nose and scrambled across the floor toward the closet.
The room was filling with heat, the air growing thick and suffocating.
I reached the bottom of the closet, shoving aside old boxes until my fingers touched the worn leather of my old riding boot.
The left boot.
I reached inside, pulled up the fitted leather insole, and grabbed the prepaid Walmart flip phone I had hidden there seven years ago.
My hands shook so violently I could barely press the buttons.
I dialed 911, pressing the small phone tightly against my ear.
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“911, what is your emergency?”
“My name is Caitlyn Monroe,” I choked into the speaker, gasping for fresh air near the floorboards. “I am locked inside the second-floor bedroom at 412 Bennett Street. My mother, Deborah Monroe, and my sister, Jessica Monroe, locked me inside and set fire to the house. Please... I can't breathe.”
