Ryan stood beside me, both of us still tucked behind the front door, which was now cracked open. The metal gates continued to open, slowly and mechanically. Faster, I thought. Please. The cold night air poured in, and I sucked in a breath. The floor filled up with smoke—yellow and pungent and disorienting, rising up around us like a thick mist.
I hurled the smoke bomb toward the opening gate, as far as I could. And while it was still flipping through the air, smoke trailing as it flipped end over end, I yelled, “Run!”
And then I couldn’t see Cole and Annika anymore, everything a fine haze in the dark, and I hoped the intruders had as hard a time picking them out as I did. The last I’d seen, the intruders were both outside the gate. Which meant Cole and Annika were closer. They could get here first.
My heart pounded against my ribs. Ryan’s hands pulled hard on my shoulders, and I lost my balance, tumbling back into him.
“Get away from the door!” Ryan yelled, even as the back of my head collided with his mouth. “Someone has a gun!” Both of us were on the floor, buried in smoke, and I scrambled back to my feet, straining to see.
And then Cole was cutting through the smoke, heading straight for us, confused, but listening. He barreled into the house, where the yellow smoke still lingered around us, and before he had time to say anything, I screamed, “Where’s Annika? The girl out there! Where is she?”
“Ran the other way,” he said. “What—”
There was a bang as Cole kicked the door closed, but I was already turning around, racing for the living room windows. I yanked curtains apart at the side of the house, following Annika’s shadow as it darted on top of the wall, racing toward the back of my house. “Dammit, Annika,” I mumbled.
She was on top of the wall again, sprinting toward the back. And someone out there had a gun. Shit.
“Get in the basement!” I yelled toward Ryan as I headed for the back door.
I pressed the button to open the gate out back too—they had already dug another way in, what did it matter?—and pushed open the back door, terrified that the smoke over my house wouldn’t be the call for help, but the thing that got my best friend killed.
She was a shadow on top of the wall, and I was a shadow hidden inside smoke and darker shadows.
“Annika!” I called her name as loudly as I dared. “Get off the wall!”
I took a step into the backyard, my foot crunching the grass and fallen leaves. I reached for her, even though she was across the yard and through a gate. “Annika,” I called again, louder. “Please.”
She caught sight of something, something not expected from the way she was backpedaling.
I watched her jump from the wall, and then her shadow disappeared, hidden by the tall weeds and the wall behind her. I took a few tentative steps farther from the wall of my house.
I kept in the shadows, breathing shallowly, listening for movement. Trying to remember where I’d last seen the others…
And then I saw her darting through the gate opening, practically swinging from it as her hand gripped the bar, trying to slam it closed behind her. “Run!” I yelled again. She peered over her shoulder as she approached, slowing down. We were surrounded by silence and the night. Her breathing, my breathing, a ribbon that had come uncoiled from her hair, dangling over her shoulder.
I grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the house. She was stumbling after me. There was a sour taste in the back of my throat, nearly choking me. Something left over from the smoke, maybe. “Faster,” I whispered, my lips turning cold.
She started moving faster, her breath coming in desperate pulls as we slipped inside the open back door.
I quickly closed the door and slid the lock, my hands shaking as I did. I leaned back against it, trying to steady my limbs, breathing in the lingering smoke. The house was silent, except for the walkie-talkie crackling with static on the kitchen counter. Annika’s hands went to her face, covering her mouth in delayed shock.
I pulled her hand down from her face, my fingers linking with hers, and walked through the smoke, ready to arm the system again. But a cold gust of air blew the smoke inward, swirling against the floor.
And in the clearing as the smoke parted, I saw—the front door was slightly ajar.
No. No. Did I close that door? Did we lock it? Did Ryan?
No, wait, Cole must’ve— I’d heard the sound. Did we lock it? I froze, and Annika froze beside me, like my fear transferred straight to her. Either Ryan and Cole had made a run for it—please, please, please—or—
A shadow passed in front of the window, on the inside, heading down the hall toward my mother’s room.
Someone else had gotten inside the house.
—
Annika sucked in a breath, and I gripped her hand tighter, willing her silent. We were closer to the basement door. We could make it, in the dark, if we ran. But not before they heard us.
The walkie-talkie was on the counter, and I took it, turning the volume down to silent. Fight or flight, Kelsey.
Flight.
I pressed my face into Annika’s hair, her coarse waves tickling my cheek, and whispered, “We’re going for the basement. Don’t stop.”
I inched down the hall toward the basement, and heard a creak as someone opened a door down the opposite hall. At least they were at the other side of the house. Now or never.
I twisted the knob, and in the silence, the gears echoed inside the handle.
The footsteps froze.
So did I.
We were listening for each other across the house.
Silence. Stillness. Shallow breaths. Annika’s fingers were cold and clammy, and I felt my heartbeat vibrating through my skin. I willed myself to move, but my feet wouldn’t obey. I didn’t know what to do. Basement or front door? Hide below, or risk it out in the vastness?
Make a decision, Kelsey.
But it was made for me. A second man entered the front door, directly in front of me—separated only by open space and smoke. His wide eyes stared at me, and I stared back. He was dressed all in black, a hood pulled over his head—taller, bigger, everything about him in shadow, except for his eyes and the down-turned shape of his mouth. “Kel—”
I yanked the handle and flung open the basement door, pulling Annika behind me, slamming it after us. We’d made it halfway down the steps when it reopened, and I yelled, “Go, go, go!” as both of us half tripped down the rest of the staircase.
There was a light in front of us—two people with a flashlight—and I caught Ryan’s eye as he was pushing Cole into the safe room. I barreled into Ryan, taking him with me, skidding on the ground, pushing the door shut behind us all. It latched just as another body collided into it from the other side. We all jumped, and Annika let out a yelp. She was already crying.
The flashlight rolled across the floor, casting its beam across the room. The security monitors up above were the only other source of light.
Ryan leaned against the door, but it wasn’t necessary. We were locked in. And they were locked out. Something harder slammed against the door—something metal, pounding against us. I huddled with Annika against the shelves along the far wall, like that would make a difference. If they were saying anything out there, it didn’t matter, we couldn’t hear—not through the steel and the brick and the wood.
“We’re safe,” I said, like my mother would do—starting with safety, working her way out from there. “They can’t get in,” I said. “They can’t. They can’t. We’re safe.”
Cole let out a grunt, and he pulled his hand away from his side. He stared at me, eyes too wide, face too gaunt.
“It’s okay,” I said.
But then his hand groped for the shelf behind him, and his body stumbled—a streak of blood where he’d grabbed for support.
I stood, my stomach in my throat. Grabbed his hand. Felt the warmth of the blood, and my gaze followed his, to his side.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
“Kelsey?” he said.
He spoke my name like it was laced with some deep, living history. Not like he hadn’t even thought it in the past three years. Not like it could be wiped clean with a shrug, as it had been.
Like our connection was still fresh, somehow.