Silenced Read Free

free.
    Ivy treaded silently down the hall, along the edge, avoiding the creaks in the old floorboards. The faint baseboard lights glowed enough for her to navigate to the staircase.
    She stopped at the top of the landing. Something felt different.
    She heard a faint snore coming from Maddie’s room, closest to the top of the stairs. The ceiling fans rotated full-force in all the bedrooms, since this seventy-year-old house had never been remodeled with air conditioning. But it wasn’t something Ivy heard that had her heart racing. It was a scent. Familiar, but unexpected. Antiseptic? A cleanser? More like a hospital than cleaning day.
    Alcohol.
    Questions ran through her mind. Was she being paranoid? She tiptoed silently back down the hall and opened Kerry’s door. Her friend awoke immediately.
    “Ivy?”
    “Shh, something’s wrong. I think we should get out. But be quiet.” Ivy didn’t have to explain that there could be a threat, and Kerry didn’t ask questions. “I’m checking downstairs.”
    Ivy ran lightly down the stairs, the pungent antiseptic smell growing stronger.
    At the base of the stairs, she turned to check the alarm.
    A green light blinked at her. It was off. She glanced at the front door—it was locked—but the alarm was off.
    Ivy set the alarm herself every night. She’d never forgotten. Never.
    She listened for any sounds that didn’t belong—heavy steps, heavy breathing—but there was nothing.
    She tiptoed quickly down the hall to the office, took the gun from her top desk drawer, and went to search the rest of the house. Six pairs of feet pounded on the ceiling and she winced. If someone was inside, now he knew they were all awake.
    The front of the house was clear, but when she passed the basement door on her way to the kitchen, she stopped. She still smelled alcohol, but now she smelled smoke as well. She put her hand to the wooden door, then pulled it immediately away. Hot. Was the furnace on fire? They hadn’t used it in months. The water heater? Smoke pushed out of the cracks in the door and the floor vents had begun to belch the same black tendrils.
    For one brief moment she wondered if maybe she had forgotten the alarm after all, and maybe the fire wasn’t an attack, but an accident. She still needed to get everyone out, call the gas company or fire department.
    Her natural suspicion prompted her to look out the window before opening the back door. On the other side of the fence that separated their yard from their elderly neighbor’s, she saw a flicker of light. Just a brief flare, like a match igniting, then going out.
    She blinked. Then saw it again. Flare, then gone. Had she imagined a figure in the blackness? The streetlights didn’t shine into the backyard. She wanted to believe she’d seen nothing but an innocent light in the shadows.
    But she knew better.
    Alcohol burned.
    Ivy coughed as the smoke thickened. The fire crackled in the basement, reminding Ivy that this old house would burn fast. By the time she reached the staircase, Kerry and the girls were coming down.
    “Someone’s in the backyard,” Ivy told her. “Get everyone out the front, I’ll be right there.” She handed Kerry the gun and went back to her den.
    Kerry ordered the girls out the front, then grabbed Ivy’s arm and pulled her back.
    “Ivy, you don’t have time.”
    Ivy jerked her arm free. “I need my stuff!”
    “You’ll be no good to Sara if you’re dead!”
    But freedom was locked in the bottom of her desk. Identities and passports and money. A sudden, deep tremble under their feet told Ivy to bolt, but she closed her eyes, wishing it all away like she’d done when she was thirteen.
    “Ivy!” Kerry shook her again, but before she could make a decision, a small explosion almost knocked them down.
    She patted her pockets, but realized she was wearing shorts and her keys were upstairs. The key to her desk. She had no choice. She glanced behind her one last time.
    She had to let it