stubborn.”
We stumbled down three more steps. My shoulder scraped the wall. Mia nearly fell, and I caught her around the waist with a strength I did not have.
“Nora,” Adrian called from the hallway above us. “You don’t understand what this is. I am trying to fix what you ruined.”
What I ruined.
That was Adrian’s gift. No matter what he did, the blame arrived wearing my name.
I dragged Mia down the final steps and shoved open the laundry room door.
The basement laundry room smelled like detergent, damp concrete, and the cedar blocks I used to keep moths from the winter coats. In the far wall was the old laundry chute, a square metal door with chipped white paint.
Adrian had wanted to seal it years earlier.
“It’s ugly,” he had said.
Mia had begged me to keep it. When she was little, she sent stuffed animals down the chute and raced downstairs to rescue them from the laundry basket.
Back then, the sound of her laughter had filled the house.
Now the chute was the only reason we might survive.
I lifted the little metal door.
A draft touched my face.
“You first,” I told Mia.
She shook her head.
“Mia. Feet first. Arms tight. When you land, move away so I don’t fall on you.”
Footsteps crossed the floor above us.
Slow. Careful.
Adrian was enjoying this.
“I know about the trash,” he said from the kitchen. “You always had to dig, didn’t you? Always had to make everything harder.”
I helped Mia into the chute.
She trembled so violently the metal rattled.
I grabbed the edge with both hands and held it steady.
“Look at me,” I whispered.
She did.
“No matter what you hear, keep moving.”
“Mom—”
“I am right behind you.”
She slid down into darkness.
A muffled thump sounded below.
Then three tiny taps.
Alive.
The laundry room door handle turned.
I threw myself into the chute.
The door opened just as my hips dropped through.
Adrian stood framed in the doorway, his white shirt still spotless. In one hand, he held my missing phone charger. In the other, a syringe.
For one second, his face changed.
Not anger.
Surprise.
Then the smooth mask returned.
“I wondered how long you’d pretend,” he said.
I let go.
Metal tore at my shoulder. Pain flashed bright and hot. I bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood, but I did not scream.
I landed beside Mia in the lower storage space beneath the laundry room.
She grabbed me under the arms and tried to pull me upright.
Above us, Adrian slammed the chute door.
A lock clicked.
I had not known there was a lock.
Mia and I were trapped in the narrow storage crawlspace, surrounded by paint cans, old boxes, and the broken rocking horse Adrian had promised to repair when Mia was seven. A thin rectangle of moonlight outlined the exterior crawlspace door.
I crawled toward it.
Locked.
Mia made a small broken sound.
My phone vibrated in my waistband.
“Behind the paint cans. Rusted key. He doesn’t know I kept it.”
I turned slowly.
Behind three cans of old blue paint, taped flat against the concrete wall, was a small brass key.
My fingers shook as I peeled it loose.
