Chapter 5 - Fire in the Archives
The basement erupted into chaos.
Shouts bounced off the concrete walls as the security guards stumbled blindly in the dark, their tactical flashlights sweeping wildly across the room like frantic searchlights.
“Now, Toby! Run!” I yelled, shoving the boy toward the back utility door.
Toby didn't hesitate. He scrambled past the metal filing cabinets, his small frame slipping easily through the shadows while the heavy boots of the security guards thudded heavily toward where we had been standing a second earlier.
I turned and grabbed a heavy metal desk lamp, swinging it backward with all my might. It connected with a solid, meaty thud against something—presumably a guard’s shoulder or chest—eliciting a sharp curse of pain.
“Over here! She’s by the blueprint racks!” one of the guards shouted, activating a high-intensity shoulder lamp that flooded the back corner with blinding illumination.
I sprinted toward the utility door, but before I could reach it, a heavy hand grabbed my arm, spinning me around with brutal force.
It wasn't a security guard. It was Conrad.
His face was illuminated by the flickering sparks of the broken light fixture above, his eyes wide, manic, and unreadable.
“Conrad, let me go!” I struggled against his grip, kicking out with my heel. “Your mother is going to lock us all away forever! Your son is getting away—let him go!”
“I can’t let you leave, Penelope,” Conrad whispered, his voice trembling violently. “If you walk out that door, my mother goes to prison. The family name is destroyed. Everything my grandfather built turns to ash.”
“It’s already ash, Conrad!” I screamed, staring directly into his eyes. “Your sister is dead because of your cowardice! Your son is bleeding because of your silence! Are you going to sacrifice him too just to keep your mother’s miserable empire standing?”
Conrad’s grip loosened. His fingers slowly slid down my arm as the weight of my words seemed to crack the final defensive wall around his conscience.
From the top of the stairs, Helen’s voice shrieked down into the dark: “Conrad! Stop standing there like an idiot and tackle her! Grab the boy!”
One of the security guards lunged past Conrad, reaching out to grab my hair. But before his fingers could close around me, a sudden, blinding flash of orange light illuminated the entire back corner of the basement.
A spark from the shattered electrical fixture had ignited a stack of old, dry paper blueprints piled near the utility racks.
Within seconds, the flames leaped upward, catching the dry wooden shelving units and roaring to life with terrifying speed.
“Fire!” the guard screamed, abandoning his pursuit of me as he frantically tried to beat back the rising wall of smoke and flames with his jacket.
“Conrad! Move!” I yelled, breaking free and diving toward the utility door.
I pushed against the heavy iron bar of the emergency exit. With a loud clack, the rusted latch gave way, and the door swung outward, letting in a rush of cold, sweet night air and the distant sound of flashing sirens.
Sirens?
I froze on the threshold, coughing from the thick black smoke rolling out of the basement.
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Standing out in the courtyard, framed by the red-and-blue revolving lights of three police cruisers and an ambulance, was David Vance—my grandfather’s former chief of security, whom I had secretly messaged using an encrypted satellite tracker hidden in my wedding bouquet before the ceremony even began.
And right beside him, wrapped in a warm wool blanket, stood Toby, pointing directly down at the open basement door.
