PART 3
"The Safe Room"
My fingers went numb.
The receiver nearly slipped from my hand.
"What did you say?" I whispered.
The man chuckled.
"I said... Bryce says hello."
The line went dead.
I stood there, still holding the silent phone to my ear.
"Mommy?"
Penelope's voice pulled me back.
I forced myself to breathe.
One inhale.
One exhale.
Panic wasn't going to save us.
Thinking might.
I hung up the receiver.
"They know we're still inside."
Penelope looked toward the back window.
"Are they going to come in?"
I wanted to tell her no.
Instead, I told her the truth.
"I'm not going to let them take you."
A loud bang shook the front door.
Then another.
Whoever was outside had stopped pretending to be the gas company.
"They're trying the lock," Penelope whispered.
I nodded.
"Come with me."
I grabbed her hand and hurried upstairs.
The footsteps outside grew louder.
One of the men shouted,
"She's still here!"
Another voice answered,
"Check the back!"
My heart pounded so hard it hurt.
Halfway up the stairs, Penelope tugged my sleeve.
"Not my room."
"What?"
"Daddy said they would look there first."
I stopped.
"What did he say exactly?"
She squeezed my hand.
"He said..."
Her voice became almost too quiet to hear.
"...'She'll hide upstairs because that's what scared people do.'"
Bryce.
He hadn't just planned this.
He had planned me.
He knew exactly how I would think.
I turned around.
"No."
"We're not going upstairs."
We ran back down.
Another crash echoed through the house.
Wood splintered.
The front door wouldn't hold much longer.
I scanned the kitchen desperately.
Think.
Think.
Then I remembered something.
When we bought the house, the previous owner had shown us a reinforced storm shelter hidden behind the pantry.
Bryce had laughed at it.
"What a waste of space."
We'd never used it.
I yanked open the pantry door and shoved cans of soup off the bottom shelf.
Behind them was a narrow wooden panel.
"Please still be here..."
I pulled.
Nothing.
I pulled harder.
The panel swung open.
A narrow staircase disappeared into darkness.
Penelope looked up at me.
"You knew about this?"
"I almost forgot."
Another violent crash.
This time, glass shattered somewhere in the living room.
"They're inside," Penelope whispered.
I didn't answer.
I grabbed a flashlight from the emergency shelf and pushed the hidden door wider.
"Go."
She hurried down the steps.
I followed, closing the panel behind us.
Darkness swallowed everything.
The tiny concrete room smelled of dust and old wood.
I locked the heavy steel door from the inside.
For the first time in several minutes...
Silence.
Penelope climbed into my lap.
"Can they find us?"
"I don't know."
She buried her face against my shoulder.
"I don't want Daddy to find us."
The words broke something inside me.
I held her tighter.
"He won't."
Above us...
Footsteps thundered across the kitchen floor.
Cabinets slammed open.
Drawers crashed onto the tile.
One man yelled,
"They're gone!"
Another answered,
"They couldn't have gotten out."
A third voice spoke.
Calm.
Cold.
Professional.
"They're still in the house."
I felt Penelope trembling.
Then...
We heard footsteps stop directly above the pantry.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
The silence stretched so long that I could hear my own heartbeat.
Then came a slow scraping sound.
Like heavy furniture being dragged across the floor.
The flashlight flickered.
Penelope looked up at me.
"Mommy..."
"What is it?"
She swallowed hard.
"They're moving the pantry."
Before I could respond...
A metallic thud echoed through the ceiling.
Someone had found the hidden door.
Then a man's voice came through the steel hatch.
"Emily..."
It wasn't one of the men from outside.
It wasn't the fake gas worker.
It was Bryce.
"I know you're in there."
May you like
And then...
I heard the unmistakable sound of a key sliding into the lock from the other side.
