coming from inside the house!” The knob wouldn’t turn in her hand, though.
Lizzie was at the window, looking out. “From outside, too! There are soldiers!” Her entire body jerked backward when the glass shattered, and she hit the floor.
“Lizzie!” Jewel ran to her, sliding across the floor on her knees when she got close. “Lizzie, my God.” There was blood on the front of her nightgown.
Lizzie sat up, pushing Jewel’s hands away from her belly. “It’s okay. Just a little cut. The glass.”
Jewel shook her head, terrified her friend had been hit by a bullet. “Are you sure? Let me see.”
“I’m fine, Jewel.” Lizzie pressed her palm to the bloody spot on her nightgown. Jewel tried to shift it aside to see the damage, but Lizzie pushed her away. “We have to get the baby out of here!”
“I know, I know.” Jewel helped her friend to her feet, watching her face, worried.
Lizzie went to the locked door. The gunshots were ringing out faster, louder, than before. Then something even louder than a gunshot shook the entire house, and Jewel thought she smelled smoke. Lizzie gave up twisting the knob, stood back, and kicked the door. It was an old door, and the wood began to split under the pressure of her foot. She kicked again, and then Jewel was beside her with a small metal chair in her hands. Using the chair as a battering ram, she slammed it against the door. The two took turns attacking the door, until it finally gave way under the assault. The smoke smell was stronger now, as they raced down the stairs to the second floor nursery.
But Sunny’s crib was empty. “Oh, God. Oh, God, where is she?” Lizzie moaned.
“Mordecai must have her!”
Jewel gripped her friend’s arm and tugged her out of the nursery. They ran together down to the ground floor. Fire and smoke were everywhere. The front door was open, but instead of running out of the house, people were running into it, bullets chasing them down. Some lay on the floor, dead or dying. Others stood at the windows, firing shots at the army of men outside. The front of the house was completely engulfed in flames.
“He couldn’t have got out that way!” Jewel cried.
“The basement. He must have taken her to the tunnel.”
As they ran for the basement, Jewel tripped over someone, turned to look, and saw Sirona, cowering in a corner, sobbing. Tessa was nearby, sitting on the floor looking shocky, her face blank, her body rocking.
“Come on, come with us,” Jewel said, bending to grip Tessa’s upper arm, jerking her to her feet. Sirona followed wordlessly. Lizzie was several steps ahead of them by then. The fire was spreading—chasing them it seemed. “Hurry!”
They made it to the basement stairs, then down them. It was dark, but Jewel saw Lizzie come to a sudden stop ahead of them and heard her as she shouted, “How could you? How could you try to save yourself and leave the rest of us to die?”
Jewel raced closer, shocked into stillness when she saw Mordecai there, cradling little Sunny in his arms.
“Go back to your room!” he shouted. “You have no idea what’s happening here!”
“I know exactly what’s happening.” Lizzie’s voice was weaker than before. The red stain on the front of her nightgown was larger now, spreading. There was an explosion from somewhere close. It was deafening, and it shook them physically. A loud roar followed, and Jewel felt the heat.
“Give me my daughter,” Lizzie said.
Mordecai lifted one hand, and Jewel stiffened when she saw the gun he held. “Go back or die right here.”
Jewel ran at him. He was so focused on Lizzie that he didn’t see her fast enough to fire, and she hit him with every ounce of strength she possessed, knocking him right off his feet and wrestling the baby from his arms as she fell on top of him. The gun skittered across the concrete floor. Jewel tore herself and little Sunny from Mordecai’s arms, and then it seemed like the end of the world as the beams and boards above them came crashing down like some fiery avalanche.
She was knocked to her knees, and when she managed to get up again, holding the screaming baby close, choking on the smoke and heat, she saw Lizzie on her knees. Sirona and Tessa hovered two feet away, looking terrified in the dancing light of the flaming beams that littered the floor now. And beneath one of those beams, Mordecai lay, trapped.
He held out a hand toward Lizzie. “Help me. Help me, and I’ll get you out of here.”
Lizzie got slowly to her feet and edged closer to him. She stepped carefully over and around the burning beams that crisscrossed his torso. Then she knelt beside Mordecai. “I loved you,” she told him.
“You still do, you know you do. It’ll be like I promised, Lizzie. You and me and Sunny, the plantation house in Virginia. A real family.”
“Just like you promised,” she whispered. Then she reached out…and snatched the chain with the key dangling at its end from around his neck. She looked past him then, at the other girls. “Come on.”
The flames blazed higher. Soon they would all be trapped. They hurried forward, and the four women ran as Mordecai cried out to them to save him. Then the rest of the ceiling came crashing down, and he was silent, buried under flaming debris.
“Hurry!” They made it to the secret door that was hidden behind a set of false shelving, and Lizzie took the baby from Jewel’s arms and handed her the key. Then she leaned back against the wall, as if she could barely stand on her own.
“Lizzie?”
“Just get the door.”
Jewel nodded, hurrying to fit the key to the lock, taking off the padlock, opening the door onto a pitch-dark tunnel. The air that wafted from it smelled of earth and cool dampness but, blessedly, not of smoke. “It’s open. Come on.”
She turned back to Lizzie, who had slumped to a sitting position on the floor. Lizzie leaned close to her baby, kissed her cheek. Then she lifted her gaze to Jewel’s again. “Take her,” she said, her voice so hoarse and weak that Jewel could barely hear her over the fire.
Jewel dropped the key, taking the baby from Lizzie’s arms, tucking her into one of her own and reaching down with her other hand to help Lizzie. Lizzie only shook her head from side to side and let her upper body fall backward to the floor.
“Lizzie!” Jewel leaned over her.
“Take her. Take her, Jewel. She’s yours now.”
“Get up, Lizzie. Come on, I’ll help you.”
“Take the money. There’s so much of it, there in the tunnel. Duffel bags full of it. Take it and make a good life for my Sunny.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
Lizzie smiled gently. “No. I’m leaving you.” She pressed her hand to her belly again. “It wasn’t glass, honey. It wasn’t glass at all.” Her eyes fell closed.
Jewel shook her, but there was no response.
Someone tugged Jewel away. Sirona.
