Savior (The Keepers of Hell Book 1) by DANIELLE JAMES Page A

anyone.
         After that, the teacher didn’t call social services, but did what she could to make their lives a little easier.
         In her dream, Elizabeth was setting her escape plan into motion. No one would be home for a few hours and she knew she had to time it right. The bundle of old newspapers was set strategically close to the rusted old outlet. She plugged the lamp with the battered cord into it and turned it on. Of course, nothing happened. But then again, Elizabeth had a plan. She reached into her pocket for the matchbook she had stolen from her foster mother’s table. It had only one match in it. She struck it and then lit the paper book on fire and dropped it on the pile of old papers.
         They caught very quickly. It didn’t take long for the fire to spark the lamp, which in turn began a fire in the wiring system. Elizabeth watched it go. If there was no house to live in, social services would have to find her and Eric another family to live with.
         When the room was filled with smoke, Elizabeth rushed down the stairs and into her room. She opened the window so that there would be ample oxygen to feed the fire. When the smoke detectors started blaring, she headed out the front door. She could have stopped by the phone in the kitchen to call 911, but she was a child. No one would expect her to think that kind of thing through.
         Just as she was opening the front door, she heard it. Her foster brother was screaming. He wasn’t supposed to be there! Elizabeth raced back up the steps to her brother’s door. The knob was hot but she forced it open. A wave of heat crashed into her face and stole her breath. She took a deep breath and held it as she forced her feet to move. She ran into the room, but couldn’t see anything. She looked for Eric, but all she could see were orange flames and black smoke.
         Finally, as the last of her breath left her, she heard him whimper. He had crawled under the bed, which was blazing. Elizabeth reached into the flames and grabbed her brother’s ankle. She yanked him out from under the bed and dragged him out of the room. When they were both in the hallway, Elizabeth was gasping for air, but Eric wasn’t breathing at all.
         The fire had begun to consume the second floor and she could hear sirens blaring in the distance. She knew there was no time to loose. She picked up her nine year old brother and started walking. She missed the first step on the staircase and they both rolled and tumbled down the stairs. At the bottom, Elizabeth grabbed her brother and dragged him outside.
         She laid him on the grass and immediately began to breathe into his mouth. She didn’t know what she was doing, but she was going to try. She had to.
         Then someone else was there. Voices were shouting to one another and Elizabeth knew the fire department had arrived. She was pushed out of the way while paramedics began CPR on Eric.  Elizabeth stood back and watched as the house burned. And then she looked at Eric. She had done this to him. She did. She didn’t know why he was at home, but it didn’t matter. She should have checked. She should have been able to save him.
         Even as the EMT’s worked on him, Elizabeth knew in her heart that he was dead. He was gone and it was her fault. She had killed the only brother she ever had.
    ***
         Elizabeth yanked her eyes open and sat straight up in bed. She panted for breath as she tried to regain control of her body. Her throat was sore and she had no doubt that she had been screaming. She pushed out of bed and went to the bathroom. She put a cool washcloth on her face and tried to mop up the torrent of sweat that had been streaming from her pores. As she looked up from the sink to stare at her own guilty face, a strange feeling came over her. It was as if she were being watched. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and sent a shiver down her spine.
         She