The fire had trapped my children by the window, while a single shout from a neighbor made the color drain from my husband’s face.

Part 1

When I was about to lower my three-year-old child from the window, I realized that the life saved down below was meant for only one. It was three o’clock in the morning, but an afternoon-like heat already filled the apartment. The air scratched my throat, and waves of black smoke gathered in the corners of the room.

I held Sasha in my arms. The three-year-old was half-asleep, half-coughing, clutching my shirt with tiny fingers. From the other room, I could hear Masha’s voice.

— “Mom, the door won’t open!”

— “Don’t go near it! Come to the window!”

Masha was fourteen, but at that moment, her face looked like that of the little girl to whom I used to read bedtime stories. Her hair was disheveled, and she held a single shoe in her hand. She couldn’t find the other.

— “Where is Dad?” she asked me.

— “He’s in Kazan. It’s just me here right now.”

Saying those words out loud made me realize for the first time how truly alone I was. My husband, Andro, had gone on a business trip three days ago. I tried calling his phone several times, but there was no network. Then smoke covered the phone screen as well.

I opened the entrance door and shut it immediately. The smoke pouring in from the hallway was so thick it felt as though someone had erected a wall of ash right behind the door. My face burned. The door handle felt scalding against my fingers.

— “We can’t get out through there,” I told Masha.

— “The window?”

Our apartment was on the ground floor. I had always considered that an advantage. But that night, the iron grilles installed on the windows resembled prison bars. A few years ago, after a series of burglaries, the housing management had installed them everywhere. The small lower opening section locked with only a decorative lock, but now that lock wouldn’t budge.

Masha pressed down on the handle.

— “Mom, it’s jammed!”

— “Step back.”

I brought a heavy frying pan from the kitchen and struck the grille. The iron clanged loudly, but it didn’t break. My wrist swelled up. Sasha began coughing even harder.

Someone was shouting from below.

— “Open the window! Lower the child!”

I looked out. Our neighbor Dmitri was standing in the yard, wearing only a t-shirt, his hands raised upward. Beside him, neighbors had spread out a blanket.

— “The little one first!” Dmitri yelled. “We’ll handle the older one next!”

Masha understood instantly.

— “I won’t fit through, will I?”

I couldn’t answer her. The lower opening of the grille was enough for Sasha. For Masha’s shoulders—it was not.

— “I’ll get both of you out,” I said, though I heard the lie in my own voice.

Something collapsed heavily in the hallway. The wall shuddered. White plaster fell from the ceiling, landing in Sasha’s hair. Her small red plastic hairpin—which I had found next to my bed that night and put in my pocket—rolled across the floor. I picked it up. My hand trembled so violently I could barely hold it.

— “Mom, you have to decide now,” Masha said with remarkable calm. “Lower Sasha first.”

— “I won’t sacrifice you.”

— “If you don’t lower her first, you might not save either of us.”

The reflection of fire near the window painted a giant red hand across the wall. Outside, Dmitri was shouting again. I was wrapping Sasha in a blanket when a police siren suddenly wailed from down below, and someone yelled beneath the window:

— “Don’t break the grille! The man from management says the lock opens only with a special key!”

Masha looked at me. For the first time, I saw terror in her eyes.

I raised the frying pan once more, but this time a heavy thud sounded from the door. Someone was trying to break into the apartment. A stranger’s voice called out through the smoke: “Ekaterine, don’t touch the grille, or…” And right then, my hand touched a small slit hidden beneath the lock…

Part 2

My fingers lingered in the small slit. There was something hard inside. Not the lock—a thin metal plate concealed within the frame of the grille so well I had never noticed it before. I pulled it with my finger, and the plate dropped. Behind it lay an old key.

— “Mom, did you find it?” Masha rushed over to me.

— “I don’t know. Step back.”

I inserted the key into the lock. It didn’t turn on the first try. Nor on the second. On the third attempt, the metal snapped with a sound as if someone had broken a bone in the room. The lower grille opened a few inches.

From outside, Dmitri shouted:

— “Leave it like that! Get the child’s feet out first!”

I was wrapping Sasha in the blanket when someone struck the door again from the outside.

— “Ekaterine, it’s the fire department!” a man yelled.

— “Tell me your name!”

— “I’m Levani, a firefighter! We can’t open the door, smoke is everywhere in the hallway!”

Masha placed her hand on my shoulder.

— “Mom, I’ll lower Sasha myself.”

— “No.”

— “Then climb down after her.”

— “I’ll get you out first.”

— “This hole is too small for me.”

Her words stabbed through me like a knife. The room was growing smaller by the second. Smoke reached all the way down to the floor, and the air coming through the window offered only momentary relief to breathe.

Dmitri threw up a rope from below, improvised out of tied blanket strips.

— “Tie it securely around the child’s waist!” he called out.

Sasha opened her eyes.

— “Mom, where am I going?”

— “To Uncle Dmitri. He has a warm blanket.”

— “Are you coming too?”

— “Right away.”

That was no longer a lie. It was a promise I wanted to keep more than life itself.

Masha set her knee on the window sill and supported the blanket from below. The iron grille scratched her arm. A drop of blood fell on her wrist, but she didn’t make a sound.

— “Turn her to the left,” Dmitri called up. “A little more.”

I slowly guided Sasha’s body through the opening. Her heel caught on the iron. The child let out a cry. I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached.

— “Mom!”

— “Don’t move! Look at me, Sasha. Look only at me.”

Dmitri opened his arms down below. Within seconds, the weight of the child was gone. A shout echoed from downstairs.

— “I caught her! She’s alive!”

Masha drew a breath for the first time, but at that exact moment, a streak of fire swept across the room’s ceiling. The window glass grew scalding hot. Levani broke through the door from the outside with an iron tool and entered, hunched over low.

— “Leave the girl here!” he shouted at me. “We need to get the woman out first!”

— “Is my daughter staying behind?”

— “If you stay here, both of you will stay!”

Masha shook her head.

— “I can endure it.”

— “No, you can’t endure it,” I told her.

— “Mom, remember what you used to tell me? Fear doesn’t mean you should stop.”

Levani grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the window. But right then, Dmitri’s voice from below changed so drastically that we all fell silent.

— “Ekaterine! There’s something else behind the grille! Someone hid something here!”

— “What?”

— “I can’t see properly. It’s a small bag, tied with wire.”

Levani looked at Masha.

— “Ma’am, if you have anything important, you need to tell me now.”

— “I have nothing,” I replied, though I instantly recognized the falsehood in my voice.

I had no memory of any bag. But the key hidden inside the grille was no accident. Someone had concealed it in advance.

Levani cut into the window frame, and I grabbed Masha by the arm. The child was crying from down below. Fire was approaching from above. Behind the black smoke in the corner of the room, a small bag appeared.

Masha whispered:

— “Mom, that bag belongs to Dad.”

I leaned toward her. Attached to the bag was Andro’s work ID card. Levani pulled out a knife, brought it against the wire, and said:

— “We’ll open it first, then we’ll find out why your husband left this here…”

Part 3

…The knife touched the wire, and the bag opened. Inside lay a small voice recorder, several photographs, and folded sheets of paper. The edges of the paper were already curling from the heat. I recognized Andro’s handwriting immediately.

— “Why was this here?” Levani asked me.

I had no answer. I pressed the play button on the recorder. Static came through first, followed by Andro’s voice—low, tense, as if he were hiding from someone.

“Pavel, these grilles are a hazard. The lower locks must be replaced in every apartment. If the emergency exits remain blocked, someone is going to die.”

I recognized the second voice instantly. It was the housing manager, Pavel Orlov.

“Nothing is going to happen to anyone. You’ll sign the inspection sheets, and that will be the end of it.”

“I’m not signing them.”

“Then remember that your wife and children live in this building alone, won’t you?”

A silence heavier than the fire seemed to settle in the room. Masha stood beside me, soot covering her face, but her eyes never closed.

— “Were they threatening Dad?” she asked.

— “It appears so, yes.”

The recording continued.

“I’m going to the police tomorrow,” Andro said.

Pavel sneered.

“A lot can happen before tomorrow.”

Levani took the recorder from my hand.

— “This is evidence. Don’t turn it off.”

Just then, our neighbor Dmitri shouted from below:

— “Ekaterine, Masha, you need to come down right now! The window frame is catching fire!”

Levani helped Masha through first. The girl managed to squeeze through the opening of the grille only because the lower iron had already been cut. Her arm was scratched, but within seconds, Dmitri caught her as well. I was the last one left. I set my foot on the window sill just as the ceiling inside the room collapsed.

The firefighter reached out his hand to me.

— “Now, ma’am!”

The outside air struck my face. I fell onto the ground and pulled Sasha tightly into my arms. Masha was on her knees beside me. Three lives. All three alive.

However, Andro was still flying back home. I dialed his number immediately. He picked up on the third ring.

— “Eka? Where are the children?”

— “They’re alive. But I’m listening to your recording.”

Silence fell on the other end of the line.

— “Which recording?”

— “The one you hid behind the grille.”

— “Ekaterine, listen to me. Don’t go to Pavel right now. Go to the police.”

— “Why didn’t you tell me?”

— “Because I knew they would threaten you.”

— “They already threatened us. My children nearly died.”

His voice broke.

— “I was only trying to buy time.”

At that exact second, a text message arrived on my phone from an unknown number. The photo showed Sasha’s empty bed. Below it, a single sentence was written: “If that recording reaches the police, the next window won’t be in your house.”

Andro’s voice came through the phone:

— “Eka, where are you?”

I looked at the photo once more. It was our bedroom. But no one should have been able to take a picture from inside it.

That was when I realized that the fire hadn’t started merely in the hallway that night. Someone had access to our apartment in advance, and the most terrifying part was that this person was still walking freely through the city…