He shook his head. “I’ll live too.” He got to his feet. “Now we really have to go.”
He took her hand and pulled her to the bedroom she had just exited.
“Come.”
He locked the bedroom door behind him. They rushed into a very large walk-in closet. Kyle opened one of the doors. Women’s dresses and gowns adorned the hangers inside, arranged neatly in plastic sheaths.
“My mother’s clothes,” Kyle explained. “My father still kept them in here after she died.”
He swiped them away, revealing the back of the closet. Kneeling, he searched for something at the bottom. He pressed it and the closet door slid away, revealing a dark passage.
“Wait,” Jessica said, “you need clothes.”
Outside, the main bedroom door rattled. There came a resounding thud. Someone was trying to break the door down.
“No time. Come on, Jessica.”
They both scrambled into the hole and the panel shut noiselessly behind them. The passage was very, very dark, but Kyle held her hand tightly and he seemed to know where he was going. Maybe he had enhanced night vision. She could only hold on to his hand and let him lead her in the darkness. She could hear the thud thud thudding of the music through the walls, getting louder.
“Stairs,” he whispered.
Her foot almost stumbled into what appeared to be thin air, but she quickly regained her balance. Kyle guided her down what seemed to be an interminable flight of stairs and she was thankful when she stepped on level ground again. The air was colder here and more humid, and she sensed that they were deeper in the ground. Perhaps basement level.
They went on this path for many minutes more. The music receded and all she could hear was the beating of her own heart. Then finally, Kyle scraped at something. A cover maybe. A clang, and a square of half-light appeared. The dancing foliage of trees was framed against a dark, moonlit sky.
Kyle helped her up and out. He was amazingly strong. All this while, she had been terrified that someone would be following them, especially with the mess they left behind. But no one was around. They were in a wooded area, and the trees were dark shadows shivering in the rather cold wind.
“Let’s go before they catch us,” Kyle said.
“Where are we going?”
He paused. “Beats me if I know.”
Their situation was so overwhelming and ludicrous than she couldn’t help laughing out of sheer tension. He had lost everything. So had she. And he did it all for her. They couldn’t go back to what they were. They had nothing. They were penniless and homeless and free to start again.
“I love you, Jessica,” Kyle said fervently, “and I promise I will never let anything bad happen to you.”
“I love you too, Kyle.”
They embraced, and together, they sped off into the night to forge a new life.