I gathered every ounce of strength I had left. Every year I’d spent in that concrete hell. Every rep in the yard. Every fight I’d survived. Every night I’d lain awake, thinking about the life I’d have when I got out.
This was that life. She was that life.
Sixty seconds.
And I kicked the door one final time.
59
HARPER
At first, I thought the sound was the wind.
That same howling that had been rattling the windows all night, making the whole house creak and groan. I sat on the edge of the bathtub, hammer clutched in both hands, straining to hear Knox’s voice through the walls.
He’d told me to wait. He’d told me not to come out until I heard him.
So, I waited. The silence stretched and warped until it didn’t feel like silence anymore. It felt like something holding its breath.
Then came the smell.
Faint at first, slipping under the bathroom door like a warning I almost missed. My nurse’s brain cataloged it automatically—not woodsmoke from a fireplace, not a candle left burning. This was sharper. Chemical.
Smoke.
And then I heard Knox screaming my name.
The sound of his voice, raw and desperate, sent me flying off the bathtub before I could think. I yanked open the bathroom door, and the hallway hit me like a fist.
Heat. Poison. A wall of black smoke so thick, I couldn’t see the end of the corridor.
The side of the house was already engulfed. Flames climbed the walls like living things, orange and furious, eating through drywall and wood with a hunger that made my stomach drop. The smoke was so dense, I couldn’t see more than three feet ahead.
“Harper!” Knox’s voice again. Closer now. Coming from the front of the house.
I dropped to my hands and knees instantly. Something from my nursing training surfaced through the panic: Cleaner air near the floor. Smoke rises. Stay low.
I started crawling.
The floor was hot beneath my palms. Not burning yet, but warm enough to tell me the fire was spreading faster than it should.
Through the haze, I caught a glimpse of Knox through the front window. Just a flash. His face illuminated by firelight, twisted in horror, his mouth forming my name over and over.
Then the smoke swallowed everything.
I tried to call back to him. Tried to tell him to stay back, that I was coming.
But with each movement forward, the thick black smoke invaded my lungs and brain. It slowed my muscles. Clouded my vision. I couldn’t see through the smoke. Couldn’t see through my tears.
And then the heat hit me. So hot. The flames were licking their way inside much faster than should have been physically possible.
The front door shuddered. Once. Twice. Knox’s kicks landing like thunder against the wood.
If only I hadn’t locked that dead bolt.
Ten feet. That was all that separated me from him. Ten feet of smoke and fire and a body that was slowly shutting down.
I can do this. I can make it out.
