THE GREEN SAUCE: PART 2 – News

The wood of the bathroom door groaned under the impact of Daniel’s palm.

Inside the suffocating, dimly lit space, the air felt thick, smelling faintly of lavender soap and the metallic, sour tang of the poison coursing through my veins. Every breath felt like inhaling ground glass. My stomach twisted in a violent spasm, but I clamped my hand over my mouth, swallowing down the bile. I couldn’t make a sound. Not now.

“Rachel!” Daniel’s voice came again, dropping an octave, losing every shred of the charming, upper-middle-class husband persona he had maintained for eight years. “I know you’re holding the door. Don’t make this harder than it already is. You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

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.”