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I stepped out, shut the door quietly, and then locked it, pocketing the key. Wolfgang had enclosed the fire in the tea-party room, but it wouldn’t stay caged for long. Black smoke already seeped out the seams around the wood panel and eddied near the ceiling.
To mask which room I was in, I closed the bathroom door, too, and tried the key in the lock. It worked. I crept forward, hesitating at the top of the stairs, listening, staring down at the front door. I tested my foot on the first step down, but Wolfgang’s approaching footfalls locked my knees.Fuck!
Heat radiated out from under the tea party room’s door, stinging my bare feet as I tiptoed past. I slipped inside the doorway of the third bedroom—Wolfgang’s room.
His footfalls crested the stairs. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” he taunted. He’d unlock the door and find his mother’s room empty. Then it would be a game of hide-and-seek.
A loud groan echoed from the violet-walled room, then aboomandcrashin the hall. A deep roar followed, twice as loud as before. Heat rolled in through the open door, baking my ankles.
I wanted to peek out, see what was happening, but I wasn’t sure where Wolfgang was.
The fire snarled louder, angrier, closer. The door apparently was no longer a barrier. Flames now blocked me from the staircase.
With a fresh coat of sweat lacquering my skin, I shut the door and turned the key in the lock, sealing my own tomb.
I flicked on the overhead light, not sure if it would even work, anymore, and lucked out. Across the room were two windows. If memory served me right, one faced the side yard, the other the street. I tried the street window first, expecting to find boards. Sure enough, Wolfgang had made sure I couldn’t jump out. I tugged at the two-by-fours, my eyes blurring, and cursed under my breath.
At the second window, he hadn’t been as meticulous and left wider gaps between the boards. I braced my foot against the wall and yanked, crying out when one of the boards near the bottom creaked and gave a little. A bent nail only half-buried in the sill was its Achilles’ heel.
Scanning the room, I zeroed in on the skinny torso of a brass lamp on the dresser next to the door. The cord, plugged in behind the dresser, came free on the second jerk.
Back at the window, lamp in hand sans the shade, I popped the board free of the sill, letting it swing to the floor. The window pane was no challenge for the brass base of the lamp. The shattering glass made my heart flutter with hope.
I kneeled next to the six-inch tall strip of freedom, inhaling sweet, fresh, Black Hills air, and listened for the sound of fire engines over the jackhammer in my ears. However, the sizzles and hisses from across the hall drowned out anything else, and the gap was too narrow to slip my head through.
Back on my feet, I leveraged the lamp behind another board.
A loud screech came from the other side of the door.
I whipped around.
The wood panel seemed to shudder, the door knob turning, and then there was a click and the door popped open.
I grabbed the lamp and held it out in front of me like a light saber.
The door swung wide and Wolfgang stepped into the room, a crowbar in his hand, his hair and shirt smoking. His toothy smile scared the breath out of my lungs.
“Hello, darling.” He closed the door and leaned against it. “I’ve been looking for you.”
A mewling whine crawled out of my throat. I tightened my grip on the lamp.
“That was very clever of you, locking all the doors, hiding in my bedroom.”
He laid his crowbar on top of the dresser and grabbed the four-drawer cabinet by the edges. The feet scraped over the wood floor as he pulled it in front of the door, blocking me in.
I backed around the bed, putting it between us.
“But I’m tired of playing games now.”
He picked up the crowbar and walked toward me as his smile slid from his face. His nostrils flaring, he rounded the end of the bed. I dove across the pillows and rolled over the duvet. My feet touched the floor on the other side at the same time he caught me by the hair. With one hard tug, he hauled me back onto the bed. He raised the crowbar over my face; I screamed and wrenched my body to the side as it came down. It thumped onto the duvet, just missing my ear.
His grip still tearing my hair, he raised the crowbar again. Then I remembered the lamp in my hand. I swung up as he brought the bar down. Brass clanked against steel, knocking the crowbar sideways, burying the hooked end into the bed again.
Before he could take another shot at my skull, I turned and smashed the lamp down on his crowbar wrist.
He howled and let go of my hair, clutching his wrist.
I spun away, falling off the other side of the bed onto the floor, dragging the duvet with me—my zipper caught. I tore free of the duvet’s hold and scrambled to my feet.
