Page 9 of Yuletide Hero

“Brian,” she whimpered, it was all she could get out. Smoke was slowly starting to infiltrate the upstairs, and as much as she tried to keep it together, she could feel herself starting to unravel.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, reading the fear in her voice.

Tears pricked her eyes, but she fought them back. Just a couple of hours ago she and Sophie had been talking about her past. She had survived more in her twenty-four years than most people would in an entire lifetime, and she wanted to believe she could survive this too, but she wasn't sure.

“Hayley? What’s going on?”

“Jay Turner is here,” she murmured. It was silly, she knew he couldn’t hear her, he was outside in her front yard, but still she felt the need to be quiet.

“What do you mean? Where? At your house?”

“In my yard.”

“Call the cops,” he said, sounding more panicked than she felt.

“I did. He’s—” she broke off as her bedroom window shattered when another rock came through it.

“What was that?” Brian asked, having obviously heard the breaking glass.

“He’s throwing rocks wrapped in material that he set on fire into my house,” she said, backing away from the burning rock that had landed on her bed and set it on fire.

“There’s nowhere to hide, Hayley,” Jay shouted from outside.

“Get out of there. Now,” Brian ordered in her ear.

“There’s nowhere to go,” she said. “The downstairs is already alight. I came upstairs to wait for the fire department, but now it’s burning too. Even if I get outside, he’s out there.”

Brian muttered what sounded like a curse. “The garage,” he said.

“What about it?”

“If you go out the spare bedroom window you can get onto the garage roof. Is Jay Turner in your front yard or back yard?”

“Front.”

“Jump off the garage down into the back yard. If you can distract him somehow, make him think you’re still in the house then he won't even notice. He should run as soon as he hears sirens. He’s already in a lot of trouble, he’s not going to want to get caught setting fire to your house.”

“How do I distract him?” she asked. Her mom was the cop, not her, she didn't know what to do in a situation like this.

“Do you still have the mannequin?”

“Yes.”

“Put it in the window in the bathroom, he’ll think you're in there, then get out the spare bedroom window as quickly as you can.”

“Okay,” she agreed. There was so much she wanted to say, but she felt overwhelmed. She’d had a crush on Brian Xander since she was nine years old. So many times she had wanted to tell him how she felt but had been afraid because she knew he thought of her as just a kid, then as they’d gotten older just a friend.

Just as she was about to say something she heard the sound of another window being broken.

It had to be the other bedroom window.

The one in the room she wanted to escape through.

She didn't have any time left.

“Goodbye, Brian,” she said, and hung up before he could say anything else. Then she shoved her phone into her pocket, grabbed the mannequin from the hallway closet and carried it into the bedroom.

The smoke was getting thicker, and she was sure it was affecting her breathing, but adrenalin was flooding through her system, and she was too busy trying to survive to worry about it.

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