House of Blues

said Reed again. "I really
think we're on fire."
    One thing at a time, dammit.
    When she had freed her hand, she took no more than a
few seconds to rub it. Fumbling, still numb, she found her extra cuff
key and freed Reed.
    For which she received only abuse. "You knew
that was in there all the time! Why didn't you tell me to get that
first? I could have gotten you loose a lot quicker with my hands
free."
    "Yes. But would you have?"
    All she knew about these people was what they'd told
her—first Dennis, then Reed. She was not about to make herself,
immobile in a burning building, vulnerable to yet another stranger.
    She let Reed chew on that a few minutes while she
pulled futilely at the locked door, her throat starting to burn from
the smoke. Since it opened from the inside, she couldn't kick it in.
Reed was starting to lose it. She was standing in the middle of the
room, wringing her freed hands. "Sally," she said. "Please
be safe. Please God, let her be safe."
    Her eyes were wild.
    And Skip felt something more than smoke clutch at her
throat. If she did get the door open, she might find an inferno
behind it—flames that would race through this room, killing her and
Reed in minutes. The door might be the only reason she and Reed had
survived this long—she'd once heard a fireman call hollow doors
"twenty-minute doors"; solid ones would last about an hour,
and from what she knew about this place, with its soundproofing, this
was probably a solid one.
    She battled the thing in her throat. I couldn't lose
it. This is no fucking time to lose it.
    She pulled the heavy gold curtains.
    Light flooded the room. The window was huge, a single
pane of glass set into the wall, not meant to be opened. Since the
house appeared to be soundproofed, it was probably freakishly thick.
They were on the second floor. There was grass below, but they were
too high up to jump. The smoke showed up much better in the light.
There was a thickening cloud in the room.
    Skip realized there was an advantage to the unbroken
expanse of glass with no tiny panes, no sliding mechanism.
    Reed said, "Oh, God. Sally. What are we going to
do?"
    Skip picked up a chair. "Stand back." She
swung the chair at the window, but nothing happened.
    What was heavier?
    She wished she had her gun.
    The television might work, she realized. She tried to
pick it up, didn't succeed.
    "Reed, help me throw this at the window."
    Reed was beyond arguing. She picked up an end. It
sagged, but that wouldn't matter much.
    "Now let's go. Heave."
    Reed coughed from the smoke, and dropped her end.
    That caused Skip to drop hers. It landed on her foot.
    "Owwww. Goddamn, motherfucker."
      The outburst calmed Reed, somehow brought her
to her senses.
    "Come on. Let's try it again."
    Sweat popped out on Skip's forehead, from the pain.
But she managed to hoist the machine once again, and Reed got her end
in the air.
    The television crashed through, sending glass
splinters back into the room. One caught Reed on the arm. Blood ran.
    Skip picked up the chair again and bashed out the
rest of the window, but the glass was very thick. It was maddeningly
slow work.
    Reed tried to tear a sheet, to tie up her wound.
"What are we going to do?" she said. "It's too high to
jump."
    The smoke was getting worse. Skip was starting to
cough. She wished she had some water, to wet down a sheet or
something.
    "Come on. Help me pick up this mattress."
The one on the bed that was still standing.
    Once again she thought she felt the room getting
hotter, but there was no way to tell. The air from outside was hotter
than inside, and anyway, the fire could have caused the AC to go off
long ago.
    As they worked the mattress off the bed and onto the
window-sill, Skip wondered why the firemen weren't there, why there
were no sirens in the distance.
    Maybe it's just a small fire.
    But she knew better.
    They let the mattress go, and it landed well, spread
out under the window, one end on top of the television set, but that
was the breaks. It was as good a cushion as they were going to get.
    " Let's go," said Skip. "You first."
    "Let's push the other mattress out." For a
double cushion. Skip had thought of it, but discarded the idea as
frivolous. They were going to die of smoke inhalation if they stayed
much longer, and so were Evie and Sally.
    There was something else as well.
    If Reed wanted to, she could remove both mattresses
after she jumped, effectively trapping Skip in the burning house.
    She said, "No.