Page 183 of Mad Love

I let my eyes slide shut for a moment. If I stayed here with her, Beckett would know where we were. Eventually he’d find us. There was only one way out of that closet.

If I went down there, I could at least distract him until Royal showed up.

Hopefully.

“Cori, you’ve gotta stay here,” I murmured, “and I’ve gotta go down there. You’ll be safe here.”

“He’ll hurt you,” she mumbled, throwing herself at my chest.

I wrapped my arms around her. “He’ll try, but I can take him.”

Probably not, but a little false bravado might not be the worst thing right now.

Sucking in a deep breath, I tried to steady my nerves as I prepared to jump down into the open space.

Cori’s hands tightened around me. “Maddie. Listen.”

I paused and realized I couldn’t hear much of anything aside from my ragged heartbeat throbbing in my ears. It took several seconds, but then I heard it.

The faint wail of sirens.

Holy shit. Maybe Royal had called in the cavalry.

I waited for another beat as they grew louder, shrieking through the night and alerting everyone in the neighborhood that they were coming. Then I saw swirls of light bouncing around the ceiling as they came to the front of the house.

“Thank God,” I whispered, hugging Cori again.

“Maddie?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“What’s that smell?”

I froze and inhaled, and the acrid scent of smoke reached my nose.

Jerking back, I looked down at the dark closet but didn’t see anything.

“Stay here,” I ordered, jumping down without a second thought.

“Maddie!” Cori leaned over the edge as I hit the floor and rolled.

Planting my palms on the hardwood, I started to push myself up and realized the floor was hot.

And not in a rich-people-have-heated-floors kind of way.

“Motherfucker,” I swore, a new wave of panic cresting over me as I realized why Beckett hadn’t chased us up into the attic.

The asshole had set the house on fire.

CHAPTER 64

MADDIE

It was almost laughable how fast my biggest fear could go from Beckett finding and killing us to being burned alive. I had no idea how far the fire had spread, but it couldn’t be a coincidence.

How better to get away than have everyone focused on a giant, burning mansion?

“Cori, come on!” I called up, reaching for her.

---