SHATTERED GLASS

I stared at David, the man who had scheduled my shifts for three years, the man who had yelled at me to stay away from the white linens just two hours ago.

"David, look at what you're doing," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "She has you pouring gasoline in a greenhouse with an eight-year-old child inside. You are an accessory to kidnapping. Do you think a woman like Victoria will leave a loose end like you walking around?"

David hesitated, his eyes darting between me and Victoria.

"Shut up and pour it!" Victoria shrieked. "Just on the floorboards! We just need to destroy the ledger and scare them! The smoke will trigger the alarms, the police will come, and I'll say the caterer went crazy because she got fired!"

David tipped the can. The pungent, sharp smell of gasoline filled the humid air, splashing over the exotic plants and the wooden planks.

"Give me the book, Amara," Victoria demanded, holding out her hand.

I looked down at Lily. She was trembling violently, but she held the book tight against her chest.

"No," Lily whispered.

"Amara, don't be stupid," David pleaded, backing away toward the door. "Just give it to her. I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Then don't strike a match, David," I said.

But Victoria had already pulled a silver lighter from her clutch. She flicked it open. The small flame illuminated her desperate, manic eyes.

"The book," she said.

I calculated the distance. She was ten feet away. The door was behind her. David was already slipping out, pulling the heavy iron door shut behind him. We were locked in.

"Lily," I whispered, barely moving my lips. "When I say go, run to the back wall. Behind the ferns."

"Okay," she squeaked.

I looked Victoria dead in the eye. "My mother gave up her career to save this family. You think I'm going to let you destroy it for a payout?"

I grabbed a heavy terracotta pot from the table beside me and hurled it directly at Victoria's feet.

It shattered loudly. Victoria shrieked and jumped back, dropping the lighter.

"Go!" I yelled to Lily.

The lighter hit the gasoline-soaked floorboards.

In a heartbeat, a wall of blue and orange fire erupted between me and Victoria. The heat was instantaneous, searing the oxygen from the room. The dry wooden trellises caught immediately, flames climbing toward the glass ceiling like hungry ivy.

Victoria screamed, retreating toward the iron door. She yanked on the handle, but David had jammed it from the outside. He had locked us all in. He was silencing her, too.

"Let me out!" Victoria shrieked, pounding on the glass.

I ignored her. I turned and ran through the smoke toward the back of the greenhouse, where Lily was crouched behind a row of large ferns, coughing.

"I have you," I coughed, pulling her into my arms. I stripped off my catering jacket and wrapped it around her head to filter the smoke.

The fire was spreading fast. The ancient glass of the greenhouse was thick, reinforced with wire mesh. It wouldn't shatter easily.

I looked around desperately. The back wall had a large ventilation window, but it was crank-operated, and the metal crank had rusted shut decades ago.

"Hold onto my waist, Lily. Don't let go," I ordered.

I grabbed a heavy iron gardening spade from a nearby rack. I swung it at the reinforced glass of the window.

Clang. The spade bounced off, vibrating up my arms with bone-jarring force.

The smoke was getting thicker. It burned my eyes and throat, a terrifying echo of the hospital fire my mother had endured sixty-six years ago. I felt Ruth’s presence then, a steady hand on my shoulder. Never beg somebody to see your worth, baby. Show them.

I gripped the spade with both hands, ignoring the slick sweat on my palms. I aimed for the corner of the pane, where the frame was weakest.

I swung with everything I had. The hands that had scrubbed floors, kneaded dough, and held dying loved ones found a strength I didn't know I possessed.

CRASH.

The glass spider-webbed.

I swung again. And again.

The window gave way, shards raining down. But jagged edges remained in the frame. I didn't care. I used my bare hands—the unpolished, burned hands Victoria had mocked—to physically rip the remaining shards of heavy glass out of the frame.

The glass sliced into my palms. Blood ran down my wrists, hot and sticky, but I felt no pain. Only the overwhelming need to get this child to safety.

"Climb through, Lily!" I yelled, lifting her up toward the fresh night air.

"I can't without you!" she cried.

"I'm right behind you. Go!" I pushed her through the opening. She tumbled safely onto the soft grass outside.

I prepared to pull myself up, but a hand clamped around my ankle.

It was Victoria. She was on the floor, coughing violently, her dress singed.

"Help me," she gasped, her arrogance entirely burned away by terror.