Читать книгу Safe In His Arms - Kay David - Страница 7

Houston, Texas

August 1982

HER EYES WERE OPEN but she couldn’t see.

Huddled in her bed, eight-year-old Anise lifted her fingers in front of her face and wiggled them. She actually could see them if she narrowed her eyes and wrinkled her nose but something wasn’t right.

Because she couldn’t breathe any better than she could see. The air in her tiny bedroom was hot and smoky. Sometimes at night her mom cut the AC off to save money but the heat Anise felt now wasn’t like that. This was really, really…hot.

The realization was slow in coming but when it came, it hit her hard.

She sat up and blinked, her chest aching, her arms and legs unwilling to move. Her teacher had talked about this once at school. What to do if you were trapped in a fire. They’d read a book about a little boy who climbed out his bedroom window. He’d run down the street and gotten help but Anise couldn’t do that. She was on the second floor.

“Mommy?” Her voice sounded fuzzy. She tried again, this time forcing the word out a little louder. “Mommy?”

Her mother didn’t come but the act of speaking freed Anise from the fear that was holding her down. She sprang from the tangle of sheets and leapt across the room, the wooden floor scorching her toes.

“Mommy? Mommy?” She was yelling by the time she got to the door, her feet doing a painful dance. Her fingers found the doorknob and she gripped it hard.

A blistering heat instantly fused her tender palms to the metal. She shrieked then jerked away to stare in horror at her hands; the skin was curling back like waxed paper freshly cut from a roll. She screamed even louder.

But nobody heard.

Panic took over. Her palms throbbing, her lungs burning, Anise darted through the darkness to the corner of her room and wrenched open her closet door using the tips of her fingers. The smoke had yet to reach the confines of the closet and she gulped the air as she dropped to her knees. Crawling to the back, she drew the clothes around her in a futile attempt to hide from the growing heat, her sobs wracking her body. She cradled her hands against her chest.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy…”

But it wasn’t her mommy who carried her out.

It was Sarah who saved her. Again and again and again.