Special Needs

Chapter 48: The Fire

"Ready?" I whispered.

Harry nodded nervously.

It was 12:18 AM. I assumed everyone was sleeping although I had no real idea about how anything happened in the main house since I was never allowed there.

Before waiting it out in his room, we had taken a few more steps to ensure that it would take as long as possible for anyone to get to the fire. Since there was an armed guard outside the TV room, we closed the double doors that led out of the room to the rest of the house and dragged the dresser from Harry's room in front of them. For the doors that led into the suite, the first set was guarded, but we closed the second set and pushed the kitchen table in front of them, stacking the chairs on it for good measure. We had debated for a while about whether to keep the kitchen window cracked open to allow maximum air flow to feed the fire. If we did that, the smell of smoke could potentially reach the guard standing outside faster. We decided that it would be enough to leave the window to my room open as we escaped.

We had also decided to pack my large suitcase with as many of our clothes as would fit, partly so we wouldn't have to go through the hassle of replacing everything if it burned, and partly to pass the time while we waited. I also made sure to pack the rest of the documents from the envelope that Clive had given me, even though Harry's birth certificate was missing in action. He had never seen his backpack after Theodore caught him the day I got shot, so it was clearly in Theodore's hands. Or possibly destroyed. I let Harry choose whatever he wanted to bring since I really couldn't have cared less about losing some of my clothes. I had moved around and gotten rid of things over the years but all of Harry's life was represented in this apartment.

Now, we moved silently to the kitchen to begin our task. Our movements were fast and efficient, thanks to our carefully organized plan. He poured out the bottle of nail polish remover, saturating all the paper and cardboard in the cabinets. Then he opened the rubbing alcohol bottle and did the same inside the cabinets on the other side of the stove. I had stashed a whole pound of paraffin wax in the oven earlier in the day, so I just set the cleaning cycle, which was typically about 800 degrees and would ignite the wax in no time. To make the best effort, I turned the stove top burners to high; the more heat the better.

Finally, we looked at each other and nodded. I took a lighter and lit every candle, and then opened the doors to every cabinet, and torched the paper inside. Then we hurried to my bedroom window, grabbed our bags and the baseball bat, just in case, and slipped out. Lastly, Harry yanked the large suitcase through the window and I slid the window closed to just a crack and then popped the screen back in place. We wanted to make sure to not leave any sign of our escape...until we could start screaming for help.

We rushed along the side of the house. As we passed the kitchen window, we both gasped in twisted delight. The whole corner of the kitchen was already engulfed in flames.

"It's working," I mouthed excitedly. Thank goodness it was a breezy night so the rustling of flying and dying leaves masked our exodus as we turned at the edge of the house and made our way along the fence that bordered the road. We crept silently until we were about twenty or thirty yards away from the house and the driveway, hidden from the yard lights and hopefully from approaching traffic. We huddled close to the ground behind a cluster of trees and waited while we watched the yellowish-red glow growing in the kitchen window. With every passing minute, my confidence grew that an emergency call would be made.