Larkin’s gaze jumped from the laptop resting on her duvet-covered thighs to the pistol on her nightstand and back again. She could shoot the laptop and eliminate the sixty some-odd email proposals clogging her inbox. The bullet would travel through the screen and into her pretty wall, though. She looked at the wall for a long minute, judging the loss.

Her head pounded. Her vision blurred. The clock read 12:10 a.m.

She slammed the lid closed and shoved it to the other side of the bed. Her left fist connected with her pillow two too many times before she plopped her head onto it. The lamplight filled her room with a dim glow. If she turned over and clicked it off, she’d sleep better.

Sleep must have taken her quickly. She didn’t remember much after pummeling her pillow.

Her legs kicked at the covers. Her arms knotted in uncontrollable fits. A dream tormented her. Larkin ran and ran but found no way out. She didn’t know where she was. No wonder she couldn’t get out.

Larkin bolted upright as though she’d been electrocuted.

The covers hung off the corner of her bed, leaving her exposed in the brightly lit room. Her lids blinked and squinted. She tugged at the corner of the covers, but they refused to budge from her numb hand’s impotent pull. Lethargy pulled her to the side. She drew two deep breaths, searched for energy, found a tiny bit, and crawled to the edge of the bed. Her computer lay on top of the covers. She must have accidentally kicked it off.

She moaned and pushed from the bed. When she stood, the scent of charred wood slapped her face.

Surely, Douglas had damped the fire before he and the girls left. He’d said he’d do as much, and it wasn’t like him to shirk a duty. Even if he hadn’t, the logs would have burned themselves out by now. Right?

Niggling urgency forced Larkin to forget about the computer. She rounded the bed to check on the fire pit and stopped cold.

Smoke breathed through the crack under her door; a dragon come calling. Death assured.

“No. No. No. No.” Sweat slicked her palms. Fear rattled them. Numbness stabbed needles into her flesh.

Larkin stepped forward and wished like hell she’d listened in school when the fire marshal had come to speak to their class. That was more than twenty years ago, though. Had she listened, she still wouldn’t remember.

She looked at the sliding glass door that took up more than half the wall on the far side of the bedroom. The damn thing didn’t open. Sometime during her last visit, the latch had broken. She hadn’t remembered it breaking but found it inoperable while attempting to use it to access the back deck. It had been so inconsequential that she’d added it to the yearly maintenance list, completed at the end of every summer, and promptly forgotten about it. Only now, as her life was on the line, did she realize what a hazard it was not to have a window that opened in the bedroom.

Her feet quaked as though the ground she stood on shifted from side to side. Slowly, she moved forward. With every step closer to the smoke, the temperature rose until she feared opening the door as much as she feared not opening it.

“You can do this. You have to do this.”

Curling her toes against the heat, Larkin pulled her arm inside the sleeve of the robe she’d fallen asleep in and turned the knob. Heat registered cold on her fingertips for a split second before she released her hold.

The door flew open as though she’d tossed it wide.

Larkin snatched her hand to her chest. Flames licked the walls on either side of the hallway. Dark black smoke poured in like an overflowing witch’s caldron. It coated the ceiling before she blinked. It strangled her without hands.

Her knees buckled on instinct, pulling her to the floor. Heat slapped her face. She heaved in search of a clear breath. Lips to the floor, she found one.

She scrambled forward on hands and knees and lunged for the door. Black marred the exterior. With all the force she could muster, Larkin shoved the door toward its frame, clicking it in place.

Sweet relief washed over her. Then it died.

The windows in her bedroom and bathroom, while ornate and stunning, didn’t open.

Larkin clambered from the floor and sprinted to the bathroom. There had to be a way out. She would find it.

Marble hugged every surface in the room. Glass accentuated its beauty. Those two materials wouldn’t burn, but the smoke would kill her. She turned on the shower and the faucet, praying they would do something helpful.

She turned to the tub and screamed.

Orange coated through the frosted glass window, giving the room an ominous hue she hadn’t noticed before. The flames were so close. If she broke through the window, could she even make it out safely or would she invite doom as she had by opening the bedroom door?

Larkin stepped into the tub. Icy water froze her feet. She lifted her hand to the window and felt the overbearing heat before she touched the glass.

Her hand caught her cry. She stumbled out of the tub and ran for her phone on the nightstand. The black clouds of smoke gathered into a dense haze. A fit of heaving pulled her down to the floor once more. Through the fog of death, fire shown, stretching long, skinny fingers of flame at the top of the bedroom door. They flickered and lunged for her.

She crawled on her belly to the side of the bed and reached up blindly. Cold metal met her fingertips, stinging them. Larkin grabbed hold, despite the pain. Her gun. It wasn’t her phone, but it was more helpful. Glass was no match for a bullet.

Imperfections in the stained concrete floor scraped her knees and snagged her robe. Still, she crawled as quickly as she could. Every second that passed pressed the smoke closer and closer to her back.

Ten feet back from the window, Larkin took aim. Her finger hugged the trigger. Nothing happened. The trigger refused to move. Tears marbled her vision. She screamed, remembered her training. Her thumb smacked off the safety. This time, she didn’t bother aiming. She unloaded the magazine in a fit of fury and desperation.

Without ear protection, a high-pitched hum rang between her eyes and flattened to a fine point in both eardrums. She hacked a cough, kissed the floor again for a good breath, and then crawled forward.

Defeat in the form of a solid plate of glass crushed all hope.

Her bullets pierced the glass in a wide spray, but she couldn’t fit through the hole made by a round. If she had more bullets, she could carve out a rectangle, but too fucking bad they were in her closet at The Ashford.

Larkin pushed close to the window and pressed her nose as close as she dared to a low hole. Sweet fresh air filled her lungs. She dragged several breaths until the gears loosened in her brain. Desperation crept in from every angle. Its clouds were dark and heavy. Her usually agile mind ground and jerked.

A siren’s wail called in the distance. Or had it?

The fire popped and crackled outside the door. Wood groaned and snapped. Dishes crashed to the ground.

She grabbed the business end of her gun and reared back. The metal connected with the glass and cracked wildly in her ears. Again and again, she hit it, but the pane remained sturdy and upright. She’d managed to widen the tiny hole to small, but it wasn’t enough.

Maybe if she’d gone for the stool in her bathroom, but the black smoke now filling the room wouldn’t let her move. Her limbs weighed a hundred pounds apiece. She pressed closer to the glass, not caring if it cut her face. A cut wouldn’t matter to her corpse.

Her eyes watered so much. Tears free flowed. She blinked. Red swam in her vision. Fire. Flames. What a shitty way to go.

The red danced again. This time, though, she discerned a rhythm. It was fast and insistent. Overbearing even.

Larkin cupped her hands around her face and pressed it to the glass. She couldn’t see a fire truck, but she recognized the rhythmic whirl of light as it danced through her yard. Reinvigorated, she gripped the gun and slammed it into the glass time and again. Her strikes were sloppy. Her timing faltered. Her lungs burned.

She choked on noxious fumes, but she didn’t let up … until her arms gave out.