Chapter 14
The cold night air hit their faces as Eleanor unlatched the rusted iron hook of the gable window and pushed it outward. The wind whipped through the dusty attic, carrying the distant sound of sirens wailing somewhere miles away on the main highway—too far to help them now, but a sign that the city’s emergency frequencies were finally catching up to the chaos.
Leo squeezed through the narrow window frame first, moving with the practiced, silent agility of someone who had climbed every fire escape and roof ledge in the downtown district. He dropped softly onto the weathered asphalt shingles of the garage roof below, rolling slightly to absorb the impact before standing up and steadying his footing.
“Your turn, Julian,” Eleanor urged, guiding her son toward the opening.
Julian hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking down at the drop, but Leo’s hand reached up from below, steadying his ankle. “I got you, Jule. Just drop. Don't look down.”
Julian trusted him completely. He slid out feet first, dropping the short distance into Leo’s waiting arms. Together, the two boys scrambled down the steep pitch of the roof toward the sturdy wooden trellis draped with thick, overgrown ivy that ran down to the backyard lawn.
Eleanor followed them through the window, her beige suit jacket long gone, her white blouse tearing on a protruding nail as she squeezed through the narrow opening. She dropped onto the shingled roof, her knees jarring against the wood, and hurried after the boys just as a loud crash echoed from inside the attic access hatch behind her.
They had found the crawlspace.
“Move!” Eleanor hissed, sliding down the trellis with reckless abandon, ignoring the sharp scrape of wood and vines against her palms.
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They hit the grass of the backyard just as a flashlight beam cut through the darkness from the master bedroom window above, sweeping wildly across the lawn. The white circle of light illuminated the falling dust in the air, missing them by mere feet as they bolted across the manicured turf toward the neighbor’s property line.
Through the dense row of privacy hedges, they crashed into the safety of the adjacent yard, sprinting toward the brightly lit front porch of the neighboring home. Eleanor pounded on the oak door with both fists, screaming for help just as the front door of her own house burst open behind them and dark silhouettes spilled out onto the driveway.
