I failed her.
Ten seconds gone.
The flames raced ahead of me, eating the distance faster than my legs could cover it. Fire climbed the siding like it was racing me to her. Like it knew exactly where she was hiding.
Fifteen seconds.
I could feel the heat blistering the air in my lungs with every breath. The cold dirt and grass beneath my feet had already started to melt, turning the ground slick. My heel slipped. I caught myself. Kept running.
Twenty seconds. The entire front of the house was engulfed.
Orange light turned the night sky into something hellish. Shadows danced and twisted. The windows on either side of the front door glowed from within, the curtains already burning.
By the time I reached the porch, the front door was already consumed. So were the windows. Flames clawed at every surface, and the gasoline fumes hit my throat like swallowing broken glass.
But I didn’t care.
Thirty seconds. Flashover was coming.
Harper was in the bathroom. Down the hall. Behind a locked door she wouldn’t open because I’d told her to wait for my voice.
And my voice couldn’t reach her through this.
“Harper!” The scream shredded my throat.
No response. Just the roar of the fire and the crack of wood surrendering to heat.
She couldn’t hear me. The bathroom was too far from the front of the house. She was still in there, still waiting, still trusting me to come back.
Forty seconds.
I slammed my shoulder into the front door. The wood was already warping from the heat, the paint bubbling and peeling. Fire licked up my arm instantly. I yanked back, hissing at the pain.
“Harper!”
I kicked. Bare foot against burning wood. The impact sent fire racing up my ankle, and I felt my skin split and blister in the same heartbeat. Pain screamed through my nervous system.
I kicked again.
The door groaned but held. The frame was swelling from the heat, sealing it tighter.
Fifty seconds.
Smoke was pouring from under the eaves now. Black and thick and poisonous. If it was this bad out here, inside would be …
No. Don’t think about that. Just get to her.
I stepped back. Three feet. The heat was unbearable. My lungs were full of ash and chemicals. Darkness crept at the edges of my vision like something patient. Something waiting.
Fifty-five seconds.
I thought about Harper in that bathroom. The way she’d looked at me before she closed the door.
“Come back to me.”
“Always,”I’d told her.
I’d meant it.
