My husband said goodnight after p0isoning my son and me with a plate of chicken in green sauce, picked up his phone, and whispered, “It’s done… soon you’ll both be gone.”
And I, lying on the floor, didn’t even dare to breathe. The doorknob turned again, slower this time.
Then I heard it. Two sets of footsteps moving through the house. My son, Noah, pressed himself tighter against me on the bathroom floor, his forehead damp with sweat, his breathing shallow and uneven.
I still had 911 on the line, the phone clutched so tightly in my hand that my fingers had gone numb.
“They’re on their way,” the operator whispered calmly. “Do not open that door under any circumstances.”
