Jason reached out and touched the frame gently, his fingers trembling. “That was taken a few years after we got married,” I said quietly.
“She loved that garden. She spent hours out there every summer.” Jason did not say anything. He just stood there staring at the picture.
His eyes filled with tears, but he did not let them fall. He just kept looking at her, at the woman who had given him life, at the mother he had never known.
After a long moment, he turned to me. “Thank you,” he said softly, “for bringing me here, for showing me this. I do not know how to thank you.”
“You do not need to thank me,” I said. “You are family now.”
He looked at me, his expression uncertain. “Am I?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “You are.” He nodded slowly, but I could tell he did not quite believe it yet.
How could he? He had spent his whole life being told he was unwanted, unloved. And now, in the span of a few hours, everything had changed.
It would take time for him to accept it, to believe it. “I will teach you everything you need to know about running this place,” I said.
“How to work the land, how to take care of the animals. You will learn fast. I can tell.” Jason smiled faintly. “I hope so.”
We stood there for a moment, surrounded by photographs and memories. The house felt alive again, like it had been waiting for someone to come home.
But then Jason asked the question I had been dreading. “What about Kyle?” he said. “Your son. How is he going to feel about this? About me?”
I hesitated. I did not know what to say because the truth was I had no idea how Kyle was going to react. I knew he would be angry. I knew he would feel betrayed.
But I also hoped that deep down he would understand, that he would accept Jason as his brother. “I will talk to him,” I said. “He will understand.”
Jason looked at me, his eyes searching my face. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am sure.” But even as I said it, I knew I was lying to both of us.
Kyle arrived the next morning without warning. He walked into the kitchen and saw Jason sitting at our table.
The look on his face made my blood run cold. Jason and I had been having coffee. We were talking about the farm, about what needed to be done that day, about where he would sleep. Simple things. Quiet things.
And then the door opened. And Kyle walked in. He stopped in the doorway.
His eyes moved from me to Jason, then back to me. His expression was unreadable, cold, calculating.
“Who is this?” he asked. I stood up slowly. “Kyle, sit down. We need to talk.”
“I am not sitting down,” Kyle said flatly. “Who is he?”
Jason looked down at his coffee cup. He did not say anything. I could see his hands tighten around the mug.
I took a deep breath. There was no easy way to do this. No way to soften the blow. So I just said it.
“His name is Jason,” I said. “He is your mother’s son.”
Kyle stared at me for a moment. He did not move. He did not blink. He just stared. “What?” he said finally.
“Your mother had a son before we got married,” I said. “She was eighteen years old. Her family made her give him up. She put him in an orphanage, but she never stopped watching over him. She hired someone to keep track of him, to make sure he was safe. She kept records, photographs, everything.”
Kyle’s face turned red. “You are joking.”
“I am not joking,” I said. “I found her journal in the shed. She left it for me. She asked me to find him. To bring him home.”
Kyle looked at Jason again. His jaw was tight. His fists were clenched at his sides.
“So you just show up,” Kyle said to Jason, his voice sharp, “and suddenly you are my brother.”
Jason did not answer. He just sat there looking uncomfortable, like he wanted to disappear. Kyle turned back to me.
“And you, Dad, you are just going to give him half of everything, right? Half of the farm, half of the estate, half of what Mom left behind.”
“This is not about money, Kyle,” I said firmly.
“Not about money?” Kyle repeated, his voice rising. “This is a farm, Dad. This is our livelihood. And you are bringing in some stranger and handing it to him like it is nothing.”
“He is not a stranger,” I said. “He is your mother’s son. That makes him family.”
Kyle laughed bitterly. “Family? He is a stranger. Mom lied to you for thirty seven years. She kept this secret from you, from me, from everyone. And now you are rewarding her for it?”
“Wait. I am not rewarding anyone,” I said, my voice hardening. “I am doing what she asked me to do. Jason is her son. That makes him part of this family, and I am going to teach him how to run this farm.”
Kyle took a step forward. His eyes were burning with anger. “Over my dead body,” he said.
The words hung in the air like a threat. I felt my chest tighten. I had never heard Kyle speak to me like that before. Not with that much venom. That much hatred.
“Kyle,” I said quietly, “I know this is hard. I know it is a shock. But Jason did not ask for any of this. He did not know about your mother. He did not know about me. He spent his whole life thinking no one wanted him. And now he has a chance to have a family, to have a home. I am not going to take that away from him.”
Kyle shook his head slowly. “You are making a mistake, Dad.”
“Maybe I am,” I said. “But it is my mistake to make.”
Kyle looked at Jason one more time. His expression was cold, hard, unforgiving. “You do not belong here,” Kyle said to him.
Jason finally looked up. His eyes were tired, sad, but he did not argue. He just nodded slightly, like he had expected this all along.
Kyle turned and walked toward the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled it open. Then he stopped and looked back at me.
“You are choosing him over me,” he said quietly.
“I am not choosing anyone,” I said. “There is room for both of you.”
Kyle laughed again. A short, bitter sound. “No, Dad,” he said. “There is not.”
And then he walked out. The door slammed behind him so hard that the windows rattled.
The sound echoed through the house, through the silence, through everything. I stood there for a moment, staring at the door.
My heart was pounding. My hands were shaking. I felt like I had just lost something I could never get back.
Jason spoke quietly from behind me. “Maybe I should leave,” he said.
I turned to look at him. He was still sitting at the table, his shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast.
He looked like he was ready to walk away. To disappear. To go back to being alone.
“No,” I said firmly. “You are staying. This is your home now.”
Jason looked up at me. “He hates me.”
“No, he does not hate you,” I said. But even as I said it, I was not sure I believed it anymore.
Over the next two weeks, I threw myself into teaching Jason everything I knew about the farm. He learned fast, maybe too fast, and that only made Kyle angrier.
I saw it in the way Kyle would show up unannounced, standing at the edge of the property, watching us work. He never came close. He never said a word.
He just stood there, his arms crossed, his face hard and unreadable. And then, after a few minutes, he would get back in his car and drive away.
But I could feel his eyes on us. Cold. Calculating. Waiting.
I tried not to think about it. I had work to do, and Jason was eager to learn.
On the first day, I taught him how to drive the tractor. It was an old John Deere, the same one I had been using for twenty years.
The engine was loud and the gears were stiff, but Jason picked it up quickly. He had good hands. Steady. Confident.
The kind of hands that came from years of working with wood. “You are a natural,” I told him as we drove across the south field.
He smiled. It was a small smile, but it was genuine. “I have never done anything like this before,” he said. “But it feels right, you know.”
I nodded. I knew exactly what he meant.
Over the next few days, I taught him how to fix the equipment when it broke down. How to change the oil in the tractor. How to replace a belt on the hay baler. How to sharpen the blades on the mower.
Jason absorbed it all like a sponge. He asked questions. He took notes. He practiced until he got it right.
And every evening, after the work was done, we would sit on the front porch and talk. The porch had always been Helen’s favorite spot.
She used to sit out there every morning with her coffee, watching the sun rise over the fields. And now Jason and I were sitting in the same spot, watching the sunset.
One evening, Jason asked me the question I had been waiting for. “What was she like?” he said quietly. “Helen. My mother. What kind of person was she?”
I leaned back in my chair and thought about it for a moment. How do you describe someone you loved for thirty seven years in just a few words?
“She was kind,” I said finally. “She had the biggest heart of anyone I ever met. She loved this farm. She loved working in the garden. Every spring, she would plant tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers. She would spend hours out there pulling weeds and watering the plants. And every summer we would have more vegetables than we knew what to do with.”
Jason smiled. “She sounds wonderful.”
“She was,” I said. “But she was also stubborn. Once she made up her mind about something, there was no changing it. And she was private. She kept things to herself. Like that shed. I never understood why she wanted me to stay away from it, but I trusted her, so I stayed away.”
“Do you wish she had told you?” Jason asked. “About me?”
I thought about that for a long time. Did I wish she had told me? Yes. It would have saved us all a lot of pain.
But I also understood why she did not. She was scared. She was ashamed.
She thought I would judge her. She thought I would leave.
“I wish she had trusted me,” I said. “But I understand why she did not. And I do not blame her for it.”
Jason nodded slowly. “I wish I could have met her.”
“So do I,” I said. We sat in silence for a while, watching the sun disappear behind the trees.
The air was cool and quiet. The only sound was the distant hum of crickets in the grass. And for the first time in weeks, I felt at peace.
But that peace did not last long. A few days later, I was in the barn with Jason, showing him how to feed the cattle.
We were pouring grain into the troughs when I looked up and saw Kyle standing at the barn entrance. He did not say anything. He just stood there watching us.
“Kyle,” I said, straightening up. “Do you need something?”
He did not answer. He just stared at Jason for a long moment and then, without a word, he turned and walked away.
Jason looked at me, his face pale. “He hates me,” he said quietly.
“He does not hate you,” I said. But even as I said it, I was not sure I believed it anymore.
Over the next week, Kyle showed up three more times. Each time, he would stand at a distance and watch. And each time, he would leave without saying a word.
It was like he was studying us. Waiting for something. Planning something. And that was when I realized something that should have been obvious from the start.
I was starting to love Jason like he was my own son. He was hardworking. Honest. Kind.
He reminded me of Helen in so many ways, the way he smiled, the way he tilted his head when he was thinking, the way he cared about things, about people, about doing the right thing.
And I realized that, in some strange way, Helen had given me a second chance. A second son. A second opportunity to be a father.
“Thank you, Helen,” I whispered to myself one night as I stood in the kitchen looking out at the dark fields. “You gave me another son.”
But that night, I could not sleep. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the house creak and settle around me.
And I could not shake the feeling that something bad was coming. Something I could not stop. Something I should have seen.
I thought about the way Kyle had been watching us. The cold look in his eyes. The silence. The distance.
And I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I had ignored the signs.
I had told myself Kyle would come around, that he would accept Jason, that everything would be fine. But it was not going to be fine.
That night, I could not shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. I just did not know how terrible it would be.
Another week passed. Then the rumors began. Whispers at the feed store. Side glances at church.
I did not understand what was happening until I finally heard what Kyle had been saying about Jason. At first, it was subtle.
Too subtle to recognize right away. I drove into town one morning to pick up supplies at the hardware store.
Bob Freeman stood behind the counter as he always did. We had known each other for years. Normally, he greeted me with a smile and a few questions about the farm.
That morning, he looked at me differently. Not hostile. Just cautious.
“Morning, Walter,” he said, scanning the items I placed on the counter.
“Morning, Bob.” That was it. No small talk. No farm talk.
He rang me up, took my money, and handed me the bag without another word. I left the store with an uneasy feeling in my chest.
A few minutes later, I ran into George Johnson outside the post office. George had been my neighbor for two decades.
He stopped me, shifting his weight nervously. “Hey, Walter, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” He hesitated. “I heard some things about that guy working for you.”
“Jason.” My stomach tightened. “What things?”
“People are saying he has a rough history. Debt. Bankruptcy. Maybe legal trouble. Is that true?”
I stared at him. “Where did you hear that?”
He shrugged. “You know how towns are. I figured you should know.”
I drove home in silence, my thoughts racing. Someone was poisoning the town against Jason. And I already knew who it was.
Back at the farm, I found Jason in the barn repairing a fence post. I walked over and asked him directly.
“Jason, did you ever have financial trouble? Bankruptcy?”
He looked startled, then ashamed. “Yes. About ten years ago. I lost my job. Could not keep up with the bills. I filed for bankruptcy, but I paid everything back. Worked three jobs. It took years.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“I did not want you to think less of me.”
I nodded. “Someone has been spreading rumors, saying you are a con artist, that you are here to take advantage of me.”
His eyes widened. “That is not true.”
“I know. But someone wants people to believe it is.” We both knew who.
A few days later, things escalated. Jason came to me early one morning. “The plow will not start. I tried everything.”
I went to the equipment shed. The plow was old, but dependable. I opened the engine panel. And froze.
The wires were cut. Clean. Precise. My chest tightened.
“Jason,” I said sharply, “did you do this?”
He looked horrified. “No. I swear I did not.”
“Then how did this happen?”
“I do not know,” he said, his voice shaking. I should have believed him. But I was angry. And I took it out on him.
“You need to be more careful,” I said coldly. “Mistakes like this cost money.”
He stared at me, wounded. “I did not break it.”
“Then who did?” He turned away without answering.
That night, I could not sleep. The cuts were too clean. Too deliberate.
Then I remembered the cameras. I went to my office and pulled up the footage. Kyle.
He walked into the shed late at night, opened the panel, cut the wires. I watched it three times. My son was framing Jason.
The next morning, I drove to Kyle’s law office. My hands shook as I entered. He looked up, surprised. “Dad?”
“I saw you on the cameras.”
“What cameras?”
“The equipment shed. You cut the wires.” He leaned back and smiled. “You do not have proof.”
“I have video.”
“Is it clear? Can you prove it is me, or that the footage was not altered?” He shrugged.
“Even if you could, who would believe you? I am your son. And I am a lawyer,” he said.
“What you are doing is wrong.”
“What is wrong,” Kyle said, “is you bringing a stranger into my inheritance.”
I realized then that I had already lost him. He smiled coldly. “You do not have proof. And even if you did, it would not matter.”
He was right. And I did not yet know how far he would go.
I should have seen it coming. Jason had been doing so well, learning so fast. Kyle could not stand it.
A week after our confrontation, he made his next move. It was early morning. The sun had just started to rise over the fields.
“Jason and I were standing outside the grain silo, looking up at the roof. I noticed a leak yesterday,” Jason said, pointing to a dark stain on the ceiling inside. “Water is getting in. If we do not fix it soon, the grain will get wet and spoil.”
I nodded. “All right. You go up and check the roof. I will get the tools ready.”
Jason looked up at the old wooden ladder leaning against the side of the silo. It was tall, maybe twenty feet. It had been there for years.
“Be careful,” I said. “That ladder is old.”
“I will,” Jason said. He started climbing.
I watched him for a moment, then turned and walked back toward the house to make breakfast. I figured he would be up there for a while, checking the shingles, figuring out what needed to be fixed.
I was in the kitchen, pouring coffee, when I heard it. A loud crash. The sound of something heavy hitting the ground.
My blood went cold. I dropped the coffee pot and ran outside.
Jason was lying on the ground near the base of the silo. The ladder was on the ground beside him. One of the rungs snapped in half.
He was not moving. “Jason!” I shouted, running over to him.
He groaned. His eyes were open, but he was not looking at me. He was staring up at the sky, his face twisted in pain.
“Do not move,” I said, kneeling beside him. “Just stay still. I am calling for help.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped it.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“My son fell from a ladder,” I said, my voice breaking. “He is hurt. He is not moving right. We are at Holloway Farm, Route twelve.”
“Paramedics are on the way,” the operator said. “Stay with him. Do not move him.”
I set the phone down and looked at Jason. His breathing was shallow. His face was pale.
He tried to sit up, but I put my hand on his shoulder. “Stay down,” I said. “Help is coming.”
“It hurts,” he whispered. “My chest. I cannot breathe right.”
“I know,” I said. “Just hold on. They are almost here.”
It felt like hours before the ambulance arrived, but it was probably only ten minutes. The paramedics loaded Jason onto a stretcher and drove him to the hospital.
I followed behind in my truck, my heart pounding the entire way. At the hospital, Dr. Wright came out to talk to me after they finished examining Jason.
“He is going to be okay,” Dr. Wright said. “But he has three broken ribs and a mild concussion. He is lucky he did not have any internal injuries. We are going to keep him here for at least two weeks to monitor him.”
I nodded, relief flooding through me. “Can I see him in a little while?”
Dr. Wright said he is resting now. “We gave him something for the pain.”
I sat in the waiting room for an hour, staring at the white walls, trying to process what had just happened. Jason had fallen. He was hurt.
And it was my fault. I should have checked that ladder. I should have made sure it was safe.
But something did not feel right. When I got back to the farm that afternoon, I went straight to the silo.
The broken ladder was still lying on the ground where it had fallen. I picked up the piece with the broken rung and examined it closely.
The wood was not rotten. It was not worn. It had been cut.
Sawed almost all the way through, just enough so that it would hold Jason’s weight for a few steps, but not enough to support him once he reached the top. My stomach turned.
I walked over to the security camera mounted on the barn, the one that faced the silo. I pulled out my phone and accessed the footage.
And there he was. Kyle.
The timestamp said 11:30 the night before. Kyle had walked onto the property carrying a small handsaw.
He climbed up the ladder, stopped at the eighth rung from the top, and carefully sawed through it. Not all the way. Just enough to weaken it.
Then he climbed back down and left. I felt sick. I called Detective Evans.
He arrived an hour later. I showed him the ladder. I showed him the video.
He watched it twice, his expression grim. “Mr. Holloway,” he said finally, “I believe you. This is clearly sabotage. But the video quality is not great. And a good lawyer could argue that the person in the video is not clearly identifiable.”
“Kyle is a good lawyer,” I said bitterly.
“Exactly,” Evans said. “Without clearer evidence, we cannot arrest him. But I will file a report, and if anything else happens, we will have this on record.”
“Anything else?” I repeated. “Jason is in the hospital with broken ribs and a concussion. What more does Kyle have to do before you can stop him?”
Evans looked at me with tired eyes. “I am sorry, Mr. Holloway. I really am. But my hands are tied. The law requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and right now we do not have that.”
I stood there staring at him, feeling completely helpless. Jason was lying in a hospital bed, and Kyle was out there free, unpunished, planning his next move.
Detective Evans looked at me with tired eyes. “Mr. Holloway, I believe you, but without clearer evidence, we cannot arrest him.”
Jason was in the hospital. Kyle was free. And I knew then that I had to protect Jason myself.
But I did not know that Kyle’s next move would nearly cost me my life, too. The hospital became my second home for the next two weeks.
Every day, I sat beside Jason’s bed. Every night, I went home alone, wondering how I was going to keep him safe.
Jason was healing slowly. The doctors said he was doing well, considering the fall, but I could see the pain in his face every time he moved, every time he took a deep breath, every time he tried to sit up.
Nurse Adams was kind to him. She checked on him every few hours, made sure he was comfortable, brought him extra pillows when he needed them. She reminded me of Helen. Gentle. Patient.
The kind of person who made you feel like everything was going to be okay, even when it was not. One afternoon, I was sitting in the chair beside Jason’s bed when he said something that caught me off guard.
“Walter,” he said quietly, “maybe I should leave after I get out of here. Maybe it would be better if I just went back to Oak Ridge.”
I looked up at him. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I am causing too much trouble,” he said. “Kyle is doing all of this because of me. The rumors, the sabotage, the ladder. If I were not here, none of this would be happening.”
“Kyle is the one causing trouble,” I said firmly. “Not you.”
“But he is your son,” Jason said. “Your real son. And I am just—”
“You are Helen’s son,” I interrupted. “And that makes you my son, too. You are not going anywhere.”
Jason looked at me for a long moment. His eyes were red. He looked tired, worn down, like he had been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for too long.
“I do not want to come between you and your family,” he said.
“You are not coming between us,” I said. “Kyle is doing that himself. And I am not going to let him win.”
Jason nodded slowly. But I could tell he did not quite believe me.
Over the next few days, I tried to take his mind off everything. I told him stories about Helen that I had never told anyone before.
Stories about the early days of our marriage, about the time she tried to learn how to ride a horse and fell off three times in one afternoon, about the way she used to sing old country songs in the kitchen while she cooked dinner, even though she could not carry a tune to save her life.
Jason listened to every word. Sometimes he smiled. Sometimes his eyes filled with tears. And I realized that in some small way, I was giving him the mother he had never had.
The memories. The stories. The proof that she had been real, that she had been loved. One evening, Jason asked me a question I had been dreading.
“What if Kyle tries again?” he said. I did not hesitate. “Then I will be ready.”
“How?”
“I have been installing more cameras,” I said. “Better locks. Motion sensor lights. I am not going to let him hurt you again.”
Jason was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I am not afraid for me. I am afraid for you.”
I looked at him, surprised. “For me?”
“Yes,” he said. “Kyle is not just angry at me. He is angry at you too, for choosing me, for bringing me into the family. What if he does something to you?”
“No, he would not,” I said. But even as I said it, I was not sure I believed it.
Two weeks passed slowly. And finally, Dr. Wright said Jason was ready to go home.
I drove him back to the farm in my truck. He moved carefully, wincing every time we hit a bump in the road.
But he did not complain. He just stared out the window at the fields, the barn, the house. “Home,” he said softly.
“Yes,” I said. “Home.”
When we pulled into the driveway, Jason looked around and noticed the changes. The new cameras mounted on the barn and the house. The motion sensor lights above the doors. The new locks on every entrance.
“You know, you were serious,” he said.
“I told you I was on your side.” That night, after Jason went to bed, I walked through the house one more time.
I checked every lock, every window, every door. I made sure the cameras were working. I made sure the lights were on.
And then I went to bed. But I did not sleep.
I just lay there staring at the ceiling, listening for sounds, waiting for something to go wrong. But nothing happened.
The house was quiet. Peaceful. Safe. For now. But I was wrong.
Kyle’s next plan was not aimed at just Jason. It was aimed at both of us. I could not sleep that night.
Something felt wrong. At two in the morning, I got out of bed and went downstairs. That was when I smelled the smoke.
A few days had passed since Jason came home from the hospital. He was still recovering, still moving slowly, still in pain.
But he was home. And I thought we were safe. I was wrong.
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. My mind would not stop racing.
I kept thinking about Kyle. About the ladder. About what Detective Evans had said, about how Kyle was still out there, free, unpunished.
I tried to close my eyes. I tried to tell myself that everything was fine, that the cameras would catch him if he tried anything, that the new locks would keep us safe.
But I could not shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. At 2:00 in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep.
I got out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of water and stood by the sink, looking out the window at the dark fields.
And that was when I smelled it. Smoke. Faint at first, but unmistakable.
I set the glass down and walked to the window. And then I saw it.
A glow, orange and flickering, coming from the barn. Fire. The barn was on fire.
And Jason was in there. I had converted the loft above the barn into a small living space for Jason.
It was quiet, private, a place where he could rest without feeling like he was in the way. He had gone to bed a few hours earlier, exhausted from the day’s work.
“Jason,” I shouted, even though I knew he could not hear me from inside the house. I ran.
I did not even think. I just ran. Out the back door. Across the yard. Toward the barn.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I ran and dialed 911.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Fire,” I shouted. “My barn is on fire. Someone is inside. We are at Holloway Farm, Route twelve.”
“Fire department is on the way,” the operator said. “Stay outside. Do not go in.”
But I could not stay outside. Jason was in there.
When I reached the barn, I grabbed the door handle and pulled. It did not move. I pulled harder. Still nothing.
The door was stuck. No. Not stuck. Blocked. Something had been wedged against it from the outside.
I could see smoke seeping through the cracks around the door. I could hear the roar of the flames inside.
“Jason!” I screamed. “Jason, can you hear me?”
No answer. I ran around to the side of the barn. There was a window, small, high off the ground, but it was my only option.
I grabbed a metal rod from the ground and swung it at the window. The glass shattered. I knocked away the remaining shards and pulled myself up.
The opening was narrow, but I squeezed through and dropped down into the barn. The heat hit me like a wall.
The smoke was thick. Black. Suffocating. I could barely see two feet in front of me.
The flames were climbing up the walls, spreading across the hay bales stacked along the sides. “Jason!” I shouted, coughing. “Where are you?”
I heard a sound above me. Coughing. Weak. Desperate. The loft.
I stumbled through the smoke toward the ladder that led up to the loft. My eyes were burning. My lungs were screaming.
But I kept moving. I climbed the ladder. Each step felt heavier than the last. The smoke was worse up here. Thicker. Hotter.
And then I saw him. Jason was on his knees near the back wall, coughing violently.
His face was covered in soot. His eyes were red and watering. He looked at me, his expression a mix of fear and relief.
“Walter,” he gasped. “I could not… I could not get out. The door…”
“I know,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Come on. We have to go now.”
I helped him to his feet. He was shaking, weak. I could feel how hard it was for him to move.
His ribs were still healing. Every breath was painful. We made it to the ladder.
I went down first, then reached up to help Jason. He climbed down slowly, carefully, but halfway down, he started coughing so hard he almost lost his grip.
“Hold on!” I shouted. “Just a little further!”
We reached the ground floor. The flames were everywhere now. The entire back wall was engulfed.
The smoke was so thick, I could barely see my own hands. I led Jason toward the main door, but when we got there, it was still blocked.
I pushed with everything I had. It would not budge. “The window,” Jason shouted, pointing back the way I had come.
We turned and stumbled through the smoke toward the broken window. But the flames had spread.
They were blocking the path. We were surrounded. “We are trapped,” Jason said, his voice breaking.
I looked around desperately. There had to be another way out. There had to be. But there was not.
The smoke was getting thicker. Jason was coughing so hard he could barely stand. I held on to him, trying to keep him upright, trying to think of something. Anything.