“He should have let Cleo and me go inside,” I say. “We knew the house. We could have saved them.”
Alissa doesn’t say another word. Tears are streaming down her cheeks. Cleo’s always been way angrier than me. Particularly when Alissa appeared in that documentary. It was like Alissa was a flame near a gas leak. Cleo exploded.
“She’s acting like she’s the victim of what happened that night,” Cleo had screamed. “But her dad’s just sick. At least she still has a father! She doesn’t wake up sweating every night because she can hear her sister crying out for help, and there’s nothing she can do. She doesn’t have a scar on her neck that reminds her of what happened every day.”
I tried to calm my sister down, but she just got madder. Especially when I said I didn’t want to watch the documentary.
“They’re your family too, or have you forgotten them? Just like all those firefighters did?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s not how it seems.” Cleo’s eyes were spitting fire. “You’ve just traded them in for Julie!”
I knew it was her grief talking, but Cleo went too far. I left, and we didn’t speak for two weeks.
Cleo seemed to have calmed down after that, and we left the subject of Alissa alone. We did fun things together again. Cleo gave me my first driving lesson, and now and then I delivered a pizza for free. For a little while, it felt like we’d been before the accident.
But when I was over at Cleo’s one day, I saw a notebook on the windowsill. Cleo had gone to the bathroom, and I opened the book out of curiosity. There were all kinds of notes in it that didn’t seem to make sense at first.
Has two brothers and a sister. Sister the same age as Lia.
As I read Lia’s name, my breath stopped, and I read on frantically.
It has everything. It’s beautiful. No scars. Dad’s still a firefighter.
So Cleo was keeping notes about this Alissa. It was full of recent dates. She was still obsessed.
“What are you doing?” Cleo was suddenly back in the room. “That’s mine!”
I looked at my sister. “You’re following her.”
“So?” Cleo snatched the book from my hands.
“You have to stop this.”
“Why?” Cleo looked at me venomously. “Somebody has to do it.”
“Come live with us,” I begged her. “You know Julie won’t mind.”
Cleo laughed. “You think? She doesn’t even want you to come see me on your own. Does she know you’re here now?”
I felt myself blushing, because she was right. Julie didn’t know. She wanted to be around when I saw Cleo, because she knew how mad Cleo was about the past.
“You see.” Cleo crossed her arms. “Julie doesn’t understand us. She lost her brother that night, but we lost way more.”
I crossed my arms too. “I’m not getting involved.”
Cleo came to stand in front of me. “Again? Like you didn’t get involved that night?”
That hurt. If I’d come home earlier, I could have saved my sister, because Lia’s bedroom was next to mine. Maybe I’d have found the fire sooner, because I often had to go pee at night. The fire was started by a candle on a table, which Lia had lit. My little sister always wanted to have candles around, and Mom must have missed that one when they went to bed. The candle was too close to the curtains. They caught fire after everyone had gone to bed.
I look up at Alissa, who is still standing in front of me with the shard of glass. Maybe it should all end here for me. Perhaps it’s better that way.
I let my mom and dad and my sister burn. I drove Karla away. I let Cleo have her way….
Why didn’t I talk to Julie? She might have been able to stop Cleo.
But Cleo’s my sister. Other than Julie, she’s the only family I still have. I couldn’t betray her.
“Do you want to stab me?” I spit out the words. “Then do it!”
“Don’t come any closer.” Alissa holds out the piece of glass, trembling. “I’ll do it. I really will do it.”
I murdered my own father.
And my mother, and my sister.
Lia, who always wanted me to play the keyboard for her. I’d play until I had blisters on my fingers if only it would bring her back.
“Don’t move.” Alissa’s voice is shaking. She holds out the glass farther. “I’m warning you, Miles.”
“Just do it,” I beg her. “Please. It’s what I want. It’s what I deserve.”
“No!” Alissa’s voice is an octave higher than normal. “Don’t move!”
There’s a bang on the door. Mint and Sky are tired of waiting. They’ve come to rescue Alissa.
“You’re lucky to have friends like that,” I hear myself saying, and I reach out my arms to Alissa.
It happens so quickly that I don’t realize at first. But then I feel a sharp, stabbing pain.
“No!”
I swipe everything off the desk in one movement.
On the screen, I see Miles lying motionless on the floor.
I hear Lia’s voice inside my head again.
She begged for help that night.
Everyone abandoned her.
That firefighter promised to help her, but he didn’t think she was important enough.
After all, he had his own daughter at home.
He had It.
“No! Don’t move!” Alissa’s high-pitched voice comes through the door.
I don’t think about it for a second, but bash my shoulder into the door, which swings opens with a bang. As I fly into the room, I take in everything at once.
Miles is lying on the floor. Alissa is standing at his feet. She’s shaking so much that it’s as if I can see two of her. She’s holding her hands away from her, like they’re covered in something dirty.
But then I see Miles’s stomach. In the place where I’ve had stabbing pains for the past week, there’s a piece of glass sticking out. His gray T-shirt is red with blood.
“Alissa…”
She doesn’t react. When I grab hold of her, she looks up with a wild expression. Her blue eyes look pleadingly at me, as if I’m the only one who can help her. That’s what Sky looked like earlier this evening too, but I don’t know if there’s anything I can do for her.
“Take her with you,” I say to Sky, who’s staring wide-eyed at Miles.
I push them into the hallway, toward the living room. When they’re gone, I look at Miles, who is still lying there without moving.
What happened here?
Alissa clearly stabbed him, but was it self-defense?
Is he dead?
I have to make sure he can never come anywhere near us again. Never again.
I roll the desk chair into the hallway and am about to close the door, but I can’t do it. I can’t leave Miles behind like that, can I? That would make me even worse than Cleo, and I don’t want that.
I step back into the room. Maybe I should pull the glass out of his stomach. Or will that make it bleed even more?
As I go closer, I see Miles’s eyelids trembling.
So he’s still alive. I don’t know whether to be relieved or not.
Then a strange rattling sound comes from his mouth, and he opens his eyes. He looks at me, dazed. A crooked grin appears on his face, as if only the right half of his body is still working.
“Hey…,” I hear him say quietly.
Miles tries to get up, but winces.
“You have to stay lying down,” I say, “or your organs will be even more damaged.”
“Does that matter?” Miles makes that strange sound again, and his eyes roll back.
Shocked, I lean forward, but then I hear his shallow breathing. He’s fainted, but he’s still alive.
I look at the piece of glass sticking out of his stomach. What organs might it have hit? His intestines?
I think about the anatomical model we put together at the beginning of the evening. I managed to get everything in the right place in one go, but now
I can’t remember which organ went where.
I take a deep breath and stand up. I can’t help Miles. Like the rest of us, he’ll have to wait for Cleo to open the door.
I push the desk chair under the door handle and check that it’s sturdy enough. Even though Miles doesn’t have the strength to stand up, let alone to smash down a door.
In the living room, I go sit with my friends. Alissa is sitting in the middle, between Sky and me. I exchange a quick glance with Sky. His face is ashen.
“Cleo is Miles’s sister,” I hear him say.
I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know exactly who that boy with the glass in his stomach is. I just want it all to stop.
I take hold of Alissa’s wounded, trembling hands—and that’s when I notice that mine are shaking too.
We don’t talk. What is there to say?
All we can do is wait and hope for a miracle.
He is dead.
It murdered my little brother.
I throw open the door to the corridor.
She’s going away.
That disturbed witch is really going away.
I try to move my hands, but that just makes the ropes cut even more deeply into my skin.
There’s a telephone on the floor, an old-fashioned one with a cord, almost within reach. The receiver is next to it. I can hear the dial tone.
I need to hurry. She could be back at any minute.
I twist my hands this way and that. The ropes hurt so much. It feels like I’m tearing my skin open until it bleeds.
But slowly they loosen. I could cry with relief, even though my eyes feel so dry and raw from all the crying I’ve already done.
On one of the screens, I see Sky. The boy who broke my heart twice tonight. First, because he never really loved me, and second because I can see him suffering.
Did that woman mess him up like that?
I’m free.
I look in surprise at my hands, as if they belong to someone else.
I have to hurry.
With shaking fingers, I pick up the phone and call the emergency number. A woman answers.
“Where are you calling from and what help do you require?”
I tell them the name of the town and ask for the police and the ambulance.
“Someone’s been hurt,” I say. “Really badly, and I…”
There’s a click. The woman’s putting me through.
“Wait!” I call, but there’s another voice. This time it’s a man.
“Where exactly are you?”
“In an Escape Room. But I can’t remember the name of the street. Please. You have to come.”
“Do you remember anything else? There are three Escape Rooms in town.”
Three? I think frantically. I came here on my bike. I leaned it against one of the buildings. They were old houses. The street had a bird’s name, a…
“Gull!” I almost scream it. “Gull Street!”
“That’s great. So now we know where you are. What happened?”
“A member of the staff has gone crazy. Someone got stabbed….”
“How many people have been injured?”
“I don’t know. Please. You have to hurry.”
“How old are the victims?”
“No idea. Between fifteen and eighteen. Something like that?” I start crying again. “I’m so scared.”
“Help’s on the way.”
I look at the screens. That boy, Miles, he’s still lying on his back, absolutely still. He hasn’t moved since he spoke to Mint. Alissa’s sitting there as if she’s stunned. Sky is hugging his injured hand, and Mint’s lips are moving but she’s not making any sound. It’s like watching a movie, but I know the actors.
Suddenly I see movement on another screen, one that nothing’s happened on all night. It’s the camera at the entrance to the Escape Room.
Cleo is opening the door. I can hardly believe it, but the black-and-white pictures don’t lie. Is she letting everyone go? That means this nightmare is finally over.
But then Cleo throws a bottle into the room. There’s something wrapped around it. A cloth? The whole screen suddenly flashes bright white, as if I’m looking into the sun.
“No…,” I groan.
“What did you say?” asks the man on the other end of the line.
The normal picture returns. I see flames flickering around the desk and the anatomical model with the organs.
“Fire…” I gasp for breath. “She’s set the place on fire!”
“Can you get to safety, miss?”
I drop the receiver and start running.
There’s the sound of breaking glass, a muffled explosion. I smell burning.
“Fire,” I whisper.
“Come on.” Mint leads Alissa and me to the far corner of the kitchen. She turns the tap. No water comes out. Everything here is fake.
“Here.” I take three dish towels off a shelf. “Hold these over your mouth and nose. It’ll help against the smoke. Stay with Alissa. I’m going to go take a look.”
As I walk to the doctor’s office, I can see six doors instead of three, and I have to lean against the wall so that I don’t collapse.
The heat coming from the doctor’s office is overwhelming. When I see the flames, I know there’s no way out. We can’t even reach the door.
How can such a big fire develop so quickly?
Cleo wants to murder us.
Was that her plan all along?
Did she just want to play with us a bit before burning us alive?
I see the desk chair up against the door of the boy’s room. Mint has locked Miles up. Quiet Mint, who didn’t dare to talk to Miles last week in the park. Mint, the mousiest girl in school. The same Mint who left Miles in there to bleed out.
The flames are licking at the walls of the hallway. They’ll soon reach the boy’s room. Does Miles really deserve to die this way? Alone and with a shard of glass in his stomach?
I know that Cleo’s his sister, and that it’s partly because of him that we’re in here, but I feel sorry for him. I hate it, but somewhere inside me, there’s still a remnant of love. Maybe it will never go away.
I take the chair away from the door and pull it open. Miles is still lying on the floor. His face is gray. A pool of blood has spread over the wooden floor.
It’s just like I’m watching a movie, as if this isn’t real. I curse. Miles and I are both bleeding to death, but it’ll happen sooner to him. Alissa pushed the piece of glass deep into his stomach.
I hurry to Miles and tap his cheek. He doesn’t react, but when I put my fingers on his throat, I feel a faint pulse.
I put Miles’s arm around my shoulders and struggle to lift him to his feet.
Miles groans, but his eyes remain shut. I see more blood gushing from the wound.
How am I going to do this? This would be difficult if I were in peak condition, but with just one good hand it’s almost impossible.
The whole room is spinning.
My hand feels as if it’s already on fire.
I stagger along the hallway, with the flames at my heels. With Miles like a heavy rag doll by my side, I stumble back to the living room. As soon as Mint sees him, she explodes at me.
“What are you doing?!”
Alissa moves closer to the wall, as if she wants to disappear into it. I lay Miles on the kitchen floor. He groans again when his head hits the tiles.
“We can’t just leave him there to die.”
I don’t want to become an animal in here. I want to remain Sky until the final second.
Someone starts crying.
Is it me?
We’re holding each other’s hands.
All I can do is look at Miles. It’s like he’s laid out for his funeral, so peaceful and quiet.
How will I look soon?
Will Mom and Dad ever go to church again at Christmas? Or will they stop because I should be sitting between them?
I see our house in front of me, my room
. The bulletin board with the photos of Sky, Alissa, and me. I’m always standing kind of hidden behind my friends, with Alissa looking radiant at the front.
I rub the short spikes on my scalp. Will my mom and dad recognize me like this? Or will I soon be burned so badly that they won’t be able to tell the four of us apart? A sob escapes my throat.
The smoke curls under the door.
Caitlin’s gone.
In the place where I tied her up, there’s just the rope now.
“Hello?”
I look around, but no one’s there.
Where did that voice come from?
Then I see the receiver lying next to the phone.
“Are you still there?”
I put the receiver to my ear.
“Who is this?” I ask.
“Emergency services.”
I flinch.
There’s a loud bang.
On the screens, I see people coming into the building.
They’re coming for me.
“Hang in there, guys!”
I open my eyes. The room is full of smoke. My eyes are stinging.
Is it the intercom? Who’s speaking this time? Lia? Miles? Their mom or dad?
Is this a new game?
But I can’t take any more.
Cleo has to stop.
“We’re nearly there, Alissa!”
I know that voice.
It’s Dad.
Am I dead?
But then what’s Dad doing here?
There’s a bang, loud voices, a strange hiss.
Even more smoke.
“Alissa!”
“Dad?” I croak, taking the dish towel from my mouth.
“They’re alive!” someone shouts. They’re cheering. Why would they be happy? There’s no reason at all to be happy. I murdered someone.
“I…” I have to tell them. Everyone needs to know what I’ve done. “Miles. I…”
Then I’m picked up, and I feel a hard edge against my cheek. It takes me a moment to realize what it is: Dad’s fire helmet.
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