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I was ripped out of sleep by fists pounding against my bedroom door hard enough to rattle the frame.

“Lakelyn! Lakelyn, get up!”

My eyes flew open to darkness. For one disoriented second, I couldn’t place the ceiling above me, the unfamiliar angle of the window, or the panic tearing through Willow’s voice from the other side of the door.

Then I smelled it.

Smoke.

Thick, chemical, and sharp enough to burn the back of my throat before I managed a full breath. There was something electrical underneath it too, the unmistakable stink of scorched wiring and melting plastic.

Every bit of sleep left my body at once.

“Lakelyn!” Willow screamed again, pounding harder.

I threw the covers back, stumbled across the room, and yanked the door open.

Gray-white smoke had already gathered along the ceiling and was rolling through the hallway in heavy waves. My eyes immediately watered.

“What happened?” I choked out.

“I don’t know! It’s coming from the laundry room!” Willow had her phone pressed to her ear and was trying to talk to me and the 911 dispatcher at the same time. “Yes, ma’am, 412 Elmwood! There’s smoke all through the hallway! Yes, we’re getting everybody out now.”

She pulled the phone away just long enough for panic to completely overtake her face.

“Oh my God. Granny!”

“Kaidence!” I blurted, suddenly remembering I had a son.

Willow and I took off in opposite directions. She rushed toward Granny’s room while I ran for Kaidence’s.

Before I reached the knob, his door opened.

He stood there in dinosaur pajama pants, hair smashed on one side, rubbing sleep from his eyes while smoke curled over his head.

“Mommy, why is everybody yelling?”

He coughed.

That sound scared me worse than the smoke.

“No time for questions, baby.”

I dropped down, scooped him up, and grabbed his shoes and jacket from the floor with my free hand. Kaidence twisted in my arms long enough to snatch his tablet off the nightstand and clamp it against his chest like we were evacuating a national treasure.

Under any other circumstances, I would have made him put it down. At that moment, I did not give a damn.

I carried him into my room, grabbed my purse, shoved my phone into the pockets of my jacket, pulled a heavy sweater over my head, slid my feet into slippers, and hurried toward Granny’s room.

Kaidence clung to me while smoke thickened around us. “Mommy, is the house broken?” he asked. “Are we having a drill?”

“Cover your mouth with your shirt and stay right beside me.”

“But is it a drill?”

“Baby, this is not the time to interview me.”

He finally pulled his shirt over his nose.