The Breach

The smell of gasoline was a chemical siren, screaming danger. Iris didn't think. She moved.

She scrambled out from under the table, her socks slipping on the hardwood floor. The liquid was pooling in the hallway, a dark slick spreading toward the kitchen threshold. Above her, the footsteps stopped.

A flicker of light. A match striking.

Iris didn't wait to see the flame. She threw herself at the back door, her fingers fumbling with the deadbolt. It was electronic, useless without the code.

She grabbed a heavy cast-iron skillet from the counter. She swung it with both hands, smashing it against the window pane in the door.

The glass shattered.

A *whoosh* sound from the hallway, followed by a roar.

The heat hit her back like a physical blow. The gasoline had ignited.

Iris cleared the jagged glass with the skillet and climbed through the hole, falling onto the wet porch. She rolled off the edge into the mud, coughing, her lungs burning.

She looked up.

Flames were already licking at the kitchen window, orange tongues dancing behind the glass. The old wood of the house, dry as tinder despite the rain, was catching fast.

She scrambled to her feet and ran. Not to the driveway. To the woods. To the cover of the trees.

She reached the tree line and turned back.

A figure was standing in the attic window, silhouetted against the growing inferno. Julian. He watched the fire for a moment, calm, satisfied. Then he turned and disappeared into the smoke.

He was going to let it burn. He was going to let the history, the evidence, and his niece turn to ash.

But he didn't know she was out.

Iris crouched in the bushes, her heart hammering against her ribs. She watched the fire spread, consuming the roof, the eaves. The slate tiles began to pop and slide, crashing to the ground.

She needed to leave. She needed to get to the police.

But then she remembered the basement.

The room.

The fire was moving up, into the attic. But the water from the storm had pooled below. The basement would be the last place to burn.

But the heat...

The heat would destroy the writing on the walls. The diary. The names.

*J. Vance. S. Vance. M. Gable. L. Sterling.*

If the house burned, the only proof of Elias’s imprisonment would be gone.

Iris looked at the garden shed. The tools.

She ran to it. The door was unlocked. She grabbed the sledgehammer she had seen earlier. It was heavy, the handle rough with splinters.

She ran back to the house. Not to the kitchen. To the bulkhead doors.

The padlock was still there, the one Marcus had locked.

She swung the sledgehammer. Once. Twice. The lock shattered.

She threw the doors open. Smoke billowed out, thick and acrid, but the fire hadn't reached the basement yet.

She descended the stairs, coughing. The air was hot, suffocating. The water on the floor was warm now.

She waded to the wine rack. She didn't bother with the latch. She swung the hammer.

*Crash.*

The wood splintered. Bottles shattered, red wine mixing with the floodwater like blood.

She swung again. The rack collapsed, revealing the steel door.

She hit the door. It rang like a gong, but it held.

She hit the brick wall next to it.

The first brick crumbled. Then the second. A dark mouth opened in the wall.