Beside me, Noah let out a tiny, pathetic whimper. His small, seven-year-old body was burning up, a fever spiking rapidly from whatever toxin Daniel had laced into our dinner. His eyes, usually so bright and full of mischief, were glassy and unfocused, rolling toward the back of his head.
Stay with me, baby, please stay with me, I screamed in my mind, pulling him closer until his damp forehead rested against my collarbone.
On the floor beside my knee, the cell phone emitted a faint, almost imperceptible hiss. The 911 operator was still there, a disembodied lifeline to a world that felt miles away. I brought the receiver to my ear with a trembling, numb hand.
“Ma’am?” the operator’s voice was a microscopic thread of sound. “Officers are two minutes away. Sirens are off to avoid alerting the suspects. Hold on. Just hold on.”
Two minutes. It might as well have been two lifetimes.
“Daniel, please,” the woman’s voice whispered from the hallway. I could hear her pacing, the sharp click-clack of her stilettos stuttering on the hardwood. “The car is packed. We have the passports. If they… if they took the chicken, they’re already dead or dying. We don’t need to do this. We need to go before the neighbors notice anything!”
