It was closed.
My stomach lurched again, and that prickling sensation of every warning in my body going off at once peaked. I knew I’d left it open. I knew I had. But it was so damn dark in here, everything turned up to ultra-high contrast. It was either a pitch-black shadow or a bright-orange glow.
There was no in-between.
“I can't let you escape.”
Wilder dropped unceremoniously to the floor as I jumped, spinning around on reflex. I stumbled, tripping over something I couldn’t see, which, for all I knew, could have been Wilder himself.
“Who the hell are you?!” I cried out at the shadowy figure, unable to see anything useful.
I backed up along the floor, coughing even harder as I inched toward the front door in a desperate attempt to get it open again.
“It doesn’t fucking matter now. All that matters is that you burn for this.”
“For fucking what?!”
The fury churned alongside the panic, making me nauseated, and I struggled to breathe, my mind going foggy. I shook it hard, trying to clear everything out because Ihadto.
A low growl roared through the air as the man across from me surged forward, heading right at me. I groped blindly in the dark for something I knew we’d put by the front door.
Come on, come on—Ah!
My fingers closed around the thinner grip of the baseball bat I’d brought with me from my apartment. There was no way I was moving without it—mainly, I had brought it with me as a joke, to threaten Wider with when he got out of hand. Holding it tight, I swung hard, focused on driving the thing right into the head of whoever the hell was charging me.
“Ugh! Bitch!”
All right, my aim hadn’t been great in the shitty lighting with eyes burning from smoke, but I swung again just as another burst of sound ricocheted out from the kitchen. A huge burst of fire shot down the hallway, illuminating the man in front of me from behind.
He was tall and broad, and I thought I could see the vague outline of a mask protecting his face.Ugh, of course.
I swung the bat again, using the light to my advantage, but the asshole was fast, grabbing hold of the end as he growled at me.
“You’ll pay for that. You and all your fucking pack.”
Shaking my head, I tensed my muscles as the guy held on to the bat, raising it higher.
“No.” I yanked hard and quick, the wood of the bat slipping through the fabric of the sock I’d slipped over it several months ago; if it wasn’t so dark, the guy would see the delicate pink pattern with bows. It was actually one of my favorite socks, but I had lost the other one. “I won’t.”
I coughed, struggling to breathe in the smoke, but I refused to let that stop me.
The baseball bat slid free, and I circled with the momentum, coming around to the other side of the guy’s head in a wide arc. The bat cracked right into his skull, and he dropped like a bag of cement.
“Oh, shit.” I breathed hard, dropping the bat to the floor with a loud clatter. “It actually worked. Thank you—Wilder. Wilder!”
We still needed to get out of here, and we were really running out of time now, the constant glow of orange emanating from the kitchen proof of that. As I turned and threw open the door, that lovely air rushing in was both a blessing and a curse because I knew it would feed the fire.
So, I grabbed Wilder by the wrists again and tried to haul him out through the front door, but each step I took sapped energyfrom me. I collapsed to the floor next to him, my vision blurry through the tears and smoke.
Shit. I couldn’t do it. I was too tired, too weak. I looked at Wilder, shakily crawling over his chest, and gripped his shirt, shaking him. “Wake up. Wake up, damn you.”
But there was no use. My head dropped to his chest, and I stared out the front door, salvation only a few feet away.
“Please… I’m going to besopissed at you if you don’t wake up.”
My eyelids pulled down, darkness crowding in. I couldn’t do anything, yet… I was moving. As I looked around, I could piece together the image of some massive figure around me. My instincts screamed, and I batted at him.
“Hey, hey. I’m here to help. I promise.” We were out in the fresh air again, and I coughed, trembling as I was set down in the yard outside the house. “Wait here.”