JAMES 1:15
COLLEEN
“Help.” My voice is hoarse. Fading fast. Someone help me.
But no one’s coming. No one knows I’m down here. My head pounds. My vision blurs. A stream of blood leaks from my nose, tickling my lips before dripping onto the wine-cellar floor. Pain splinters through my legs, which are crumpled beneath me. Out of instinct and sheer terror, I haul myself across the tile, first one arm and then the other. I shift my weight from side to side, careful not to smash my pregnant belly.
A cracking sound draws my attention to the stairs.
At the top, the dark silhouette of a man blocks the doorway, obstructing the glow that’d spilled into the cellar moments before.
He’s not finished with me.
I have to get out of here. He’s insane. Not in his right mind. He staggers down the stairs, crying out my name. Behind him, a flash of orange illuminates the kitchen. Smoke billows, dark and thick, clinging to the ceiling as it rolls toward the living room. Something has gone terribly wrong.
Ravenwood is burning.
“Please, for the love of God,” I pray. My stomach throbs from where I landed during the final tumble. “Take me if you have to, if it’s my time, but—oh, please, God, don’t—please don’t take our baby.”
I don’t know what I would do if we lost our baby now. We are so close to having everything, to being blissfully happy with our little family.
“Please…” I can’t move another inch, and I don’t have the energy to fight back. “Please, you don’t have to do this….”
He descends further.
Breathless, heart racing, I roll onto my back. I can’t escape him. There’s nothing more I can do. My vision swims. The acrid scent of smoke burns my nostrils, and I realize if he doesn’t kill me, the fire will. Darkness closes in.
Oh, please, God, no…
I’m going to die. And it will have all been for nothing.
COLLEEN
“Home sweet home,” Michael says, turning in to his driveway at the corner of Beach and Cypress Street. “Impressed?”
I can’t breathe, let alone gather my thoughts. I haven’t even set foot on his property and I’m already stunned into silence by a throttling mixture of shock and fear.
Stacked boulders guard the entrance like a barricade, and towering eucalyptuses line the narrow, winding drive, shrouding his home. Overhead, tree branches arch like the ceiling of some magnificent cathedral, twisting and tangling, allowing only slivers of morning light to pierce the fog. When we finally emerge from that tunnel of shade, Michael makes a wide, sweeping turn around the circular driveway, passing a six-bay garage before coming to a stop in front of a flight of dark limestone stairs.
He shoves his Maserati into park and races around the front of the car to open my door. Cradling my belly, I step out of the car and brace myself. A thick blanket of mist covers everything in a gray haze. Blasts of frigid air hurtle over the garage and whip through the drive, and I reach up to push the hair out of my eyes. Even the weather has conspired against me. I’m wearing capris and a sweater too thin to stave off the cold; I wasn’t prepared for any part of today. He closes the car door behind me with a thud, momentarily drowning out the banging of my heart. The sound echoes off the stone facing of his house and garage and the archway of watchful trees.
“No reason to be nervous,” Michael says, patting my hand. “You’re going to love it here.”
“I’m sure I will,” I say, hesitant. “It’s a lot to take in, that’s all.”
Deep down, I know it’s more than that. I don’t belong here. Not in a home as magnificent as this. Michael and I come from such starkly different backgrounds; the chasm has never felt more profound than it does now, as I stare up at the towering walls of his home. It feels as if I’ve walked into a designer shoe store, knowing I can’t afford a single pair of heels on the shelf. Pretending to be something I’m not, I’ve tried on my favorite pair and fallen in love, damn the consequences. I’m trying hard to fit into this lifestyle that’s so foreign, but I’m already faltering, before I’ve taken a single step.
On the drive here, Michael said his home was a sanctuary, the only place in the world where he felt he could let his guard down. He told me the house was south of San Francisco, a short drive along the coast, in a private neighborhood off the beaten path. He’d left out the fact that it’s prime real estate on a huge corner lot, across the street from a Monterey cypress grove with a stunning view of the sea. He’d forgotten to mention how it was built to look like a gothic castle, with black arched doors and wrought iron accents. How the circular driveway was painted a silvery shade of gray, with a starburst pattern in the center made of some kind of crushed shell. Couldn’t he have explained how the fenced-in yard stretched around back, consuming the block? Or how the house was so close to the sea, I could taste the salty sea air on my tongue?
But until an hour ago, when we were sitting in the car, his hand on my knee, Michael hadn’t said much about his home at all. For all he’d revealed, it could’ve been an apartment in Oakland or a three-bedroom, two-bath house in Pleasanton. He never, not once, let on to the fact that he lived in a mansion plucked from Luxury Living magazine.
Michael hadn’t ever let me visit his home, let alone move in. I would’ve thought, after five months of dating and frequenting my tiny apartment in the city, he would’ve wanted to invite me over if for no other reason than to show off this place. A few times I’d asked why it seemed as if he was hiding his home from me. He assured me he wasn’t concealing anything; he simply needed more time to open up. How could I be mad? He was an intensely private person, and that was one of the reasons I loved him so much. He was quiet and strong, confident without being confrontational. I liked to believe that he wanted to keep his home private because that was just the way he was, that it had nothing to do with me personally.
Now I try not to think about the obvious truth: he didn’t want to bring me here, into his world, because he knew I wouldn’t fit in. He’d be right in his assessment, and that hurts above all.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing my hand and leading me up the limestone steps. “Grand tour starts this way.”
I would laugh, but I fear he’ll hear the tremble in my voice, betraying my anxiety. The stone-covered walls are impossibly tall, with details that can’t be taken in all at once. The carvings and decorations must’ve taken years to design. High above, on the eastern side of the house, pointed-arch windows are closed tight with thick swags of dark fabric. A curtain moves suddenly as if touched by a draft, and balloons inward.