Save Me - Lisa Scottoline [4]
She dropped the stud, got a running start, and leapt over the fire. Flames licked at her clogs and ankles but she was too adrenalized to feel anything. She charged ahead, running through an oven. It lasted forever, but she got through, the fire behind her.
She raced through the smoke to the end of the hall. A conflagration raged to her left, the kitchen and the teachers’ lounge ablaze.
She reached the handicapped bathroom. Smoke was being sucked under its door. Melly would suffocate.
“Melly!” Rose tried the lever, hot to the touch. The door was locked, so Melly had to be inside.
“Melly!” Rose shrieked, frantic. She yanked on the lever. It didn’t open. Tears of fright poured down her cheeks. She coughed and coughed. Black smoke rolled along the floor, enveloping her.
Fire flared closer. She pulled on the lever with all her might. She felt hotter and hotter. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs choked with smoke.
“Melly!” Rose screamed, at the top of her lungs.
There was no reply.
Chapter Four
“Help!” Rose screamed. Nobody was in the corridor. The alarm bells rang continuously. Sirens sounded far away. She was on her own.
She threw herself against the bathroom door. It didn’t budge. She raked at the hinges to see if she could take the door off, but no. She told herself to stay in control. She couldn’t surrender to panic. She coughed and coughed. Tears blurred her vision.
She knelt down to look at the lever. It had a hole underneath. It locked from the inside, by pushing a button. She could unlock it if she could stick something in the hole. She tried her finger. The hole was too small. She needed something thin enough to fit through.
She looked wildly around. Smoke billowed everywhere. The blaze in the teachers’ lounge was spreading. She had to hurry. She got up, bolted to the library, and burst through the doors. Smoke filtered the air, less than in the hallway.
She ran to the librarian’s desk and tore open a drawer. It held pens, pencils, rulers, orange Tic-Tacs. She grabbed a pair of scissors. The blades were too big. She threw them aside. She whirled around, then saw a coat rack holding a red cardigan and a few wire hangers.
She ran to the rack, snatched off one of the hangers, and twisted it out of shape on the run. She bolted out of the library, horrified at the sight in the hallway. The fire was spreading to the handicapped bathroom. Fingers of flames stretched from the teachers’ lounge. Black smoke enclosed the door.
“Melly!” Rose shrieked, agonized. She ran to the bathroom and threw herself on her knees in front of the door. She couldn’t see the hole for the smoke and her tears.
She wrenched the hanger out of shape, slicing her palm with the pointy end. She bent the wire and tried to shove the end into the hole. Her hand shook too much. She tried again and again, her face next to the lever. She finally rammed it through. She felt a click.
She yanked on the lever. The door opened wide. Heat surged behind her, the flames sucked forward by new oxygen. Smoke filled the bathroom.
“Melly!” Rose screamed, but Melly sat slumped beside the toilet in the clouds of smoke, her head to the side, unmoving. Her arms hung down. Her feet flopped apart.
Rose rushed to her side and scooped her up. She couldn’t tell if Melly was breathing, but black soot covered her cheeks and ringed her nostrils and mouth. Her body was limp, her eyes closed. Rose knew CPR but had to get her out while she still could.
She gathered Melly up, staggered to her feet, and ran out of the smoky bathroom. She bolted to the library, burst through the doors, and tore through the stacks to the exit, which led her down one smoky hallway, then another. She’d never been in that part of the school. She followed the sound of teachers shouting. Melly remained silent, lifeless.
Rose barreled