Chapter 3

I don't know how much longer we were in there. Time ceased to have meaning. There was only the smoke, the darkness, and Caleb's fading breaths. My survival instinct, a primal thing I didn't know I possessed, finally took over.

The small, high window. It was thick glass, barred on the outside, but it was the only way. I used a heavy wine rack, slamming it against the glass again and again. My muscles screamed, my hands bled, but I didn't stop. The glass finally shattered.

I squeezed through the narrow opening, cutting my arms and back on the shards, and dropped to the ground outside. The fresh, cold air was a shock to my system. I gasped, coughed, and then scrambled back to the opening.

"Caleb! Buddy, I'm here!"

I reached in, my arms straining, and carefully pulled his small, limp body through the broken window. He was barely conscious, his skin a terrifying shade of blue.

I ran. I don't know where, just away from that house, that tomb. I carried my son, stumbling through the manicured lawns of the Chadwick estate until I reached the main road. A car screeched to a halt. A woman's scream. Then, blackness.

I woke up to the sterile smell of a hospital and the rhythmic beeping of machines. A nurse was checking my vitals.

"My son," I croaked, my throat raw. "Caleb. Is he okay?"

"He's in the pediatric ICU," she said gently. "He's a very sick little boy. Smoke inhalation, severe hypoxia. We're doing everything we can."

Relief and terror warred within me. He was alive. That's all that mattered.

A few hours later, the door to my room burst open. It was Jennifer. She wasn't looking at me. Her face was a mask of panic.

"Where's Molly?" she demanded.

I stared at her, confused. "Molly? What are you talking about? Caleb almost died."

"There was a fender bender," she said dismissively, waving her hand as if swatting a fly. "Ryan's car. Molly is here. They said she needs a blood transfusion, just a precaution."

She showed no concern for me. No questions about the cellar, the smoke. She looked at my bandaged arms and the oxygen mask beside my bed with complete indifference.

A doctor came in, looking grave. "Mr. Wright, your son's condition is critical. We need to-"

Jennifer cut him off. "Doctor, my niece, Molly Duncan, needs blood. She's O-negative. I know Caleb is O-negative. You need to take his blood for her."

The doctor looked aghast. "Mrs. Wright, your son is in no condition to donate blood. He's severely anemic from the oxygen deprivation. It could kill him."

"Don't be so dramatic," Jennifer snapped. "It will build his character. He's just being fussy for attention. Molly needs it. Take the blood."

She looked at the doctor with cold, hard eyes, the eyes of a woman used to getting her way. The doctor, intimidated by the Chadwick name, hesitated.

"It's my decision," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "He's my son. Do it."