Page 78 of Memories with Fire

“Hail—” The sound of my name is cut off by an ear piercing shriek that makes my blood turn to ice.

My mom.

I scream behind the mouth covering, pulling and twisting against the tape at my ankles and hands, desperate to get one set of my limbs free. The scream from outside my bedroom turns into grunts and cries, thumps and bangs, and I struggle with every ounce of energy I have to get out of my constraints.

Then nothing. Only silence and the sound of my own movement penetrates my ears, and I stop to listen, eyes wide, head throbbing, waiting for something, anything, to tell me that my mom is okay.

When there’s nothing but more silence, fresh tears sting my eyes, a sob bubbling up my throat causing the tears to spill over onto my cheeks. No. No, no, no. She needs to be okay. I’m mad at her, I know, but she’s my mom. I need her to be okay. I can’t lose her.

Desperate to get to her, I wiggle towards the door, pushing myself with my feet, shuffling my shoulders back and forth, crying against the tape over my mouth. I get myself far enough to see out the door, but stop when I hear something from downstairs.

A groan. Something hitting the wall. Muffled, but there. Another groan. Then footsteps.

I try to steady my breathing, terrified that it’s Priscylla coming to finish the job, when I hear my mom, “Hailey? Baby? Where are you?”

She emerges from the top of the stairs then, and another sob, full of relief this time, comes up my throat, but I shove it back, needing to breathe. The sound draws her attention to the floor where I am, and she gasps.

“Hailey!”

Rushing towards me, she lands on her knees at the top of my head, grabbing the tape and ripping it off without thinking it through. I yelp in pain as it tears away hair and probably a good amount of skin—hopefully all dead stuff—but then I can fully breathe, and I greedily gulp in air.

“Where is she?” I wheeze.

At the same time, my mom asks, “Are you hurt?”

“Mom, where is she?”

“At the bottom of—we—we—she came at me down the stairs, I didn’t know she was—I didn’t?—”

Oh god. The baby. I need to get down there and check on them. “Get this tape off me.”

“Tape?” she says, sounding confused, and I roll myself to one side to show her my hands behind my back. A horrified noise escapes her. “Oh god, Hailey. What did she do to you? Are you hurt?”

“No,” I lie. She’s already on the verge of freaking out. If she knew what I suspect, she would teeter over the edge of panic, and I don’t know that I would get her back. I’m guessing the only thing propelling her forward right now is a wealth of chemicals her body is sending to keep her safe. Fight or flight. “I’m fine. You got here in time. How did you know?”

The question is meant as a distraction while she tries to get the tape off my wrists, something taking too long for my liking. But I’m at her mercy.

“I didn’t. I—well, I saw a car in the driveway for the first time in a week, and I just—” I can’t see her face, but I can hear the emotion building in her words, and know tears are on their way. “I needed to talk to you. The way you left that day?—”

“It’s okay, mom,” I tell her in a soothing voice, even though things are far from okay. “Just focus on the tape.”

“Yeah, mom,” Priscylla’s voice floats toward us. “Focus on the tape.”

We both freeze, looking at the top of the stairs where Priscylla is standing, holding a bottle in one hand, a lighter in the other. The cruel smile from earlier is back, and I have just enough time to scream at my mom to close the door when Priscylla lights the rag hanging from the bottle and throws it at us.

CHAPTER 26

HAILEY

The door slamsshut just as the bottle smashes against it. Glass shatters, followed by a loud whoosh as whatever was in the bottle goes up in flames against the door.

“Oh my god,” my mom breathes, her hand frozen in midair. “How do we get out?”

“Mom, you need to get this tape off,” I tell her as calmly, but urgently as possible. “Now.”

Our eyes meet for a moment, and I nod at her reassuringly. She nods back, and then she’s at my hands, working on freeing me. But even without seeing her, I can tell she’s starting to panic from the violent shake of her hands.

My mom, the one more terrified of risks than me. The one who taught me how to be scared of the world. The one now caught in the middle of finding her only daughter tied up and now cornered by a fire. The only one who can save us both.

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