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He stared up at the fire, then his eyes drifted across the surrounding wreckage.
“Josh,” she said again, stepping toward him. “Where is she?”
He finally seemed to snap out of the daze a bit and looked at her. “She’s at Sylvia’s,” he muttered.
Saff was about to turn to go when Nadia gave him a questioning look.
“No, she’s not,” she said. “I went back there a few minutes ago to check for my mom. No one was in the house.”
Josh suddenly seemed to become alert once again.
“What?” he asked her, finally turning away from the house. “When did—“
“Where else would she be?” Saff asked, forcing her voice to stay even as anxiety swept through her veins.
He looked at her. “I don’t—I don’t know,” he said, his words pouring out in a frantic rush.
“Josh, where would she have gone?“ Saff asked, stepping toward him as her last ounce of self control evaporated.
“She—“ he looked at the ground, then suddenly snapped his head back up. “She asked me to go get you. She asked me to get you out of the cell.”
A sickening weight dropped into her stomach. Then, before her brain could think or process anything else, she turned and sprinted back to the storing house.
Chapter thirty-two
“Hello?” Maddie called as she took her first few steps into the house, easily navigating the now somewhat familiar layout of the storing house.
She waited a few moments for an answer that never came. Then she moved her way through and down into the hallway that she knew led to the stairs.
“Hello?” she called one last time as she ran her hand along the wall.
She paused. The smell of fire wafted through her nostrils. It was stronger than before—closer.
She waited for a moment.
The smell seemed to be growing more potent, and now she could hear something crackling.
If the fire was that close, she needed to get Saff out fast.
She continued down the hall at a much quicker pace, stopping immediately when her fingertips hit the groove of a door frame. They rushed down, finding the doorknob, and pulled it open.
“Saff!” she called out, taking one careful step down onto the stairs.
No response.
She took another step down, then paused. “Saff!”
Again, nothing.
Maybe someone had already been there to let her out when the fighting had started.
A loud crash came from the front of the house, and Maddie jerked her head up in surprise.
She waited, listening for the sounds of people, or anything else, but all she could hear was the crackling. Although, the crackling had now turned into a slightly louder array of snapping and a light whooshing in the background.
Saff couldn’t have been down there anymore. If she was, she would’ve answered.
Maddie stepped back up, past the door, and into the hallway.