The noise was sharp, high-pitched, so loud that it hurt Amy’s ears. She sat up in bed and tried to think, her eyes feeling as puffy and tightly clenched as fists. The room was pitch-black around her. What was going on? What time was it? What was that terrible noise?

Then the smell hit her. Sharp and acrid, like bacon mixed with plastic. All the emergency training drills she’d learned in middle school came surging back to her at once.

The noise was the smoke detector.

FIRE.

She jumped out of bed and yanked open the door to her bedroom. The hallway light was on, and a cloud of thick smoke hung overhead, streaming up from the kitchen. Amy’s eyes stung and her throat tickled as she ran down their stairs, following the sound of crackling flames.

In the kitchen, she stopped dead as heat seared her face.

The corner of the kitchen closest to the oven was on fire. Huge orange flames licked their way up the cupboards, sending ripples of black smoke spreading out along the ceiling. The blaze made the room flicker orange, throwing huge shadows out from everything. Even worse was the sound, the crackling of wood louder than anything Amy had ever heard.

In the middle of the tile floor sat Rover, watching the blaze. When he turned back to Amy, she could see that a hot spot had blossomed on his neck and spread to one half of his face. Amy stood frozen at the sight of one eye glaring out at her from a patch of raw, open flesh.

“Amy, move,” shouted Mom from behind her. Amy looked back to see her parents sprinting down behind her. Mom grabbed her arm and pulled her back out of the kitchen while Dad headed down to the basement to get the fire extinguisher. Amy noticed, as Dad ran past, that Rover was gone.

Mom dragged Amy into the front hall, where Katie huddled looking tired and scared. Mom had to hunch low to keep from coughing, and Amy saw her eyes were bloodshot. She handed the girls their coats and frantically yanked at the door—

And it didn’t budge.

Mom pulled again, harder. She tried both locks, but they were undone. Finally, she broke into a fit, screaming and crying out, “OPEN!” and yanking at the door again and again. Katie started crying and ran to Amy, throwing her arms around her. Amid the shrieking smoke detector and their mother’s panicked screams, Amy realized it had been too long since her sister had asked her for help. Katie had just been impossible to separate from …

Of course. It had to be.

Amy held Katie out at arm’s length and looked her in the eyes. “Katie, is Rover holding the door shut?”

“I … I don’t know,” said Katie, her eyes filled with tears.