actually said the words, she didn’t know. But that was her only hope. Tugging her shirt off, she held it in front of her face and, with all the strength she could muster, scurried toward the stairway.
Dark smoke so thick it was like a living entity swirled around her. Seconds became minutes. Then, finally, her knees touched wood. She had reached the stairway.
Her reserves fading fast, Savannah stayed as low as she could and ran instead of crawled up the stairway. If she could make it to the attic, she would crawl out onto the roof and shimmy down the trellis at the back of the house. She hadn’t done that in years but it was her only hope.
She made it to the second floor, refused to stop. She told herself that she wasn’t hurting; that her lungs weren’t aching and her eyes weren’t stinging.
She pictured Zach, his beautiful, handsome face. She thought about their future, what they had lost and what they might still have. She thought about Sammie and Bri … and Aunt Gibby. Thinking of her loved ones forced energy into her overtaxed body. Forcing her feet to move, she ran toward the staircase that led to the third floor. Seconds later, she practically fell onto the stairs and began to move up. A distant amusement hit her that she was actually sliding up the stairs. It didn’t matter how she got there … she just had to get there.
Finally in the third-floor hallway, she counted seven steps to her right. The attic door. Taking a running leap, she slammed into the door, turned the knob, and fell face-first into the room. A distant voice told her to shut the door. With little energy left, she managed to kick her foot out and slam the door shut.
Forcing herself to her feet, she looked around and almost cried. A tidal wave of blackness devoured the air with a voracious appetite eating up all oxygen and replacing it with poison. If the smoke had reached this far up, the house would be engulfed in fire within minutes. Swaying dizzily, she headed toward the other side of the room where the giant window led onto the roof. Whoever had blocked her exit downstairs … had they thought to block this one, too?
Lungs screaming for clean, fresh air, she tried to concentrate on taking shallow breaths as she felt for the window. Tears flooded her stinging eyes. Determinedly, Savannah refused to give up. Zach would know by now that something was wrong. She couldn’t die now … not when they’d just found each other again. She couldn’t.
In a small part of her brain, she realized that her thinking was befuddled and hazy. Panic could do that but so could air deprivation. Dear God, was this it? No, she refused to believe this would be the end of her life. The bastard had taken her parents, he would damn well not take her, too.
A sob built in her throat she refused to allow. She needed every bit of her breath to stay conscious. Thankfully the attic was small, only covering the back portion of the house. She could do this, she had to do this. At last, her hands touched resistance again. A wall. Was the window close by? Her hand moved over the rough surface of the wall, searching … searching. Sweet Lord, where was the window? On the verge of believing she needed to start over again, she touched glass. The window!
Taking a chance, knowing she only had a few precious seconds before unconsciousness claimed her, she reached for the windowsill. Teeth gritted for strength, she jerked it up. Stuck! No, not possible. She tugged and tugged. Not stuck. Locked. Stupid, stupid … Her hand listlessly lifted toward the lock and clicked it open. Then, with the last of her strength, she raised the window. Sweet, fresh air greeted her lungs.
Sobbing and shouting for Zach in her mind, Savannah crawled through the window, vaguely aware of the pain in her knees where the roof scraped her skin. Roaring in her head made her wonder, Was that the sound of fire roaring toward her? Was she about to be consumed?
Her last thought was the vision of a blue sky and the beauty of a peaceful summer’s day in Midnight.
“Chief Tanner, you need to get out of here. Now!”
Fear like he’d never known clawed at Zach’s heart. His shouts were going unanswered. She was here in the guesthouse, he knew she was.