Chapter 2 - The Fire and the Glass
The heavy cast-iron poker felt cold against my clammy, sweat-slicked hands. Outside, the wind whipped through the trees of Cedar Falls, driving torrential rain against the windows. Inside, my labor contractions were coming every three minutes, a white-hot agony that seized my abdomen and squeezed the breath straight from my lungs.
I sank to my knees on the entry hall rug, clutching my belly with one arm while resting the heavy iron rod against my thigh. My heart hammered like a trapped bird. Owen had locked me in using the digital deadbolt on his phone app—a smart lock that could only be overridden from the outside or with a master code he had changed two weeks ago "for security reasons."
He had left me to deliver our child alone on a cold hardwood floor, all to save face at a birthday dinner with his overbearing mother, Gloria.
No, I thought, teeth grinding together as another wave of pain ripped through me. I am not dying in this hall.
I dragged myself up, stood before the heavy wooden front door, and looked at the decorative stained-glass panel beside the lock mechanism. It was reinforced glass, thick and patterned with frosted floral designs.
I raised the heavy iron poker over my shoulder. With every ounce of strength left in my body, I swung it forward.
The impact sounded like a gunshot.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass. I swung again. And again. On the third strike, the pane shattered, showering the foyer in hundreds of sharp, crystalline shards. Rain spilled into the house, cold and sharp against my face.
Ignoring the cuts biting into my hands, I reached through the broken frame, ignoring the jagged edges dragging across my forearm. My fingers found the manual deadbolt lever on the outside trim. I twisted it hard.
Click.
The door swung open.
I fell forward onto the porch, gasping for air. Rain soaked my dress instantly. I couldn't walk; the pressure in my lower back was overwhelming. I began to crawl across the wet concrete, down the steps, and toward the driveway.
Just down the street, headlights cut through the heavy downpour. A municipal utility truck, clearing fallen branches from the storm, was moving slowly down our road.
I raised one blood-stained hand and screamed into the storm. "Help me! Please, help me!"
The truck ground to a sudden halt. The driver’s side door slammed open, and a man in a high-visibility yellow jacket came running through the rain.
"Ma'am! Oh my God, ma'am, what happened?"
"My baby," I sobbed, clutching his jacket as he knelt beside me. "I’m in labor... my husband locked me inside... please..."
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The worker didn't ask questions. He lifted me gently into the cab of his truck, threw the vehicle into reverse, and tore down the flooded streets toward Cedar Valley Memorial Hospital, bypassing the knocked-out cell towers with his radio to alert dispatch.
As the truck sped into the night, I looked back at our darkened house. The front door swung wide in the storm, open and broken. The life I had known with Owen Crane was officially dead.
