Page 85 of Keeping Knight

Treats? his gaze asks. Are you talking about treats?

Well, why not? “How about a treat?” I ask as I rise from my chair. “Since you’re such a good boy.”

Sampson hops to his feet. His tongue lolls out happily. “Come on,” I tell him as he falls into position beside me. “Let’s go get a treat.”

Just as we reach the kitchen, a piercing alarm blares.

I startle so badly, I drop my phone. Sampson freezes.

Glancing around the room, I try to figure out where the sound could be coming from. The oven? The smoke detector above the stovetop? One of the windows? The front door⁠—

My heart stutters. The front door. Could someone have gotten inside?

I drop to my knees as I scrabble for my phone. I have the security app installed on it. If someone broke in, it would tell me.

My heart races so quickly I’m lightheaded from it. My fingers tremble.

The alarm keeps blaring. Belatedly, I notice a light in the far corner of the kitchen, just beneath the molding, flashing in rhythm with the still-blaring alarm.

Micah never mentioned lights in here. He never mentioned an alarm like this. He said it all works through the phone. That I’d get a notification if there was anything wrong.

But maybe he didn’t think I’d need to know about the lights. Maybe he forgot.

Sampson bumps my leg with his head. The fur all along his back is standing up. His ears are flicking back and forth, as if he’s trying to figure out where the awful noise is coming from.

Though I’m more than a little freaked, having Sampson here is comforting. Before Micah left, he told Sampson to guard me, just like he does whenever he has to leave the condo. “When I give Sampson the command to guard,” Micah explained, “he won’t leave your side. If he senses a threat, he’ll warn you. And if you’re in danger, all you have to say is defend, and he’ll protect you.”

Please, I silently beg, don’t make me have to give the command. Let this be a false alarm. Maybe I triggered something accidentally. Or… I don’t know. Anything other than a person inside the condo, intent on killing me.

Once I have my phone in hand, I hold my breath as I turn it over to look at the screen. A beat later, my breath comes out in a relieved rush. There are no security notifications. When I click into the app, the security system is still armed. Which is great, except why is this awful alarm still going?

Gesturing at Sampson to follow me, I head into the living room. The alarm is just as loud in here. And in the upper left corner of the room, there’s another light flashing.

“What the⁠—”

Then it hits me. The fire alarm. Not for the condo specifically, but somewhere in the building. When I was visiting Jordan one time, the fire alarm in her building went off, and while it wasn’t as loud as this one, the experience was similar.

On the heels of that realization, fear spikes again. Could there really be a fire?

It’s a fear I think most people who live in a skyscraper experience, because escaping from a fire is a lot different when you’re in a building with dozens of floors. You can’t just run out the door or climb out a window. Evacuating everyone could take hours. Depending on where you are in the building, you might be able to get out, or you might have to relocate to a different floor and wait for the fire to be extinguished.

At least you hope it can be.

Heart pounding, I run to the front door and turn on the little monitor beside it that shows a view of the hallway. At first, I don’t think the camera is working because the screen is a blur. It takes me a second to realize it’s not the camera at fault. There’s smoke in the hallway. Lots of it.

“Crap. Crap. Crap.” The alarm is so loud, I can’t hear myself speak. Clearly, I need to get out of here.

But Beau, I think. Where is he? Still out in the hallway? Has he been knocking at the door, trying to get my attention, but thanks to this deafening alarm, I haven’t been able to hear him?

I don’t want to leave the safety of the condo. Not without Micah. But I can’t stay in here, either.

It takes me several tries to get up the courage to open the door. But I think about all the times Micah’s called me brave and force myself to do it.

When I push the door open—just a few inches, so I can peek out to look—the acrid scent of smoke burns my nose. My eyes immediately start watering. Instinct screams at me to get back to the safety of the condo.

But Beau is out here. And I have Sampson. Sampson, who I have an obligation to keep safe. And I can’t do that if we hide in the condo while the building burns around us.

So I poke my head out further to look up and down the hallway. Through the heavy smoke, I spot a woman in red a few doors down. She’s carrying something large and white in her arms. A cat? A dog? A designer purse?