Part 2: Into the Burning East Wing
The ceiling groaned like a living thing dying above us.
I tightened my grip around the little boy. He weighed almost nothing, but in that moment he felt like the entire world. His small hands clung to my shirt, his face buried against my shoulder.
“Stay with me,” I kept saying, more to myself than to him. “Just a little longer.”
We moved back through the hallway, but the fire had changed while I was inside. Flames now crawled along the ceiling like rivers of orange hunger. The exit I came through was gone—collapsed, swallowed in smoke and falling wood.
I turned the other way.
“Please…” the boy whispered weakly. “I can’t breathe.”
“I know,” I said, pressing the damp cloth tighter around him. “I’ve got you.”
A sharp crack split the air. A beam dropped behind us, cutting off the hallway completely. Heat slammed into my back.
There was only one option left: a side window.
I kicked open the nearest door. The room inside was already filling with smoke, but I spotted it—a tall window half-hidden behind heavy curtains, flickering with firelight from outside.
I ran to it.
Below, chaos. Flames. Shouting. Tiny figures of firefighters finally arriving at the edge of the property, dragging hoses like lifelines.
But we were still trapped.
I used everything I had left, smashing the window with a metal lamp. Glass shattered outward into the night.
Cold air rushed in like mercy.
“Hold on to me,” I told the boy again.
I climbed onto the ledge, clutching him tight. The world tilted beneath us—two stories above burning ground.
Then I jumped.
The landing was brutal.
We hit the lawn hard, rolling into wet grass and smoke. Pain shot through my leg, but I didn’t let go until I heard it—
A gasp.
A cry.
Alive.
Hands pulled us away from the heat. Voices shouted. Someone took the boy from my arms.
And then I saw him.
Preston Blackwood dropped to his knees beside us, face streaked with ash and tears.
“Elliot…” he choked.
The boy reached for him.
“Daddy…”
Preston pulled him close like he was afraid the world would take him again.
For a moment, no one spoke. The billionaire wasn’t a billionaire. The mansion didn’t matter. The crowd didn’t matter.
Only that child breathing.
Then Preston turned to me.
His voice broke.
“You went in when no one else would.”
I tried to stand, but my legs gave out. “He was calling for help.”
Firefighters arrived fully now, finally overtaking the blaze. Someone wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
May you like
I expected that to be the end of it.
I was wrong.
