Chapter 8 - The Basement Trap
"Put the binder down, Sarah," Daniel commanded, his voice cold and devoid of any emotion.
Margaret sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes before a wicked smile spread across her face.
"I knew you were too stubborn to stay away," Margaret cackled, throwing off her blankets.
"Daniel, look at these papers, she isn't even your real mother," I pleaded, holding the binder up like a shield.
"She kidnapped you when you were a baby," I cried desperately.
Daniel didn't even flinch.
"I've known that since I was eighteen, Sarah," he replied blankly.
"She told me the truth to prove how far she would go to keep me," he explained with a sick kind of devotion.
He stepped forward and snatched the binder from my trembling hands.
Margaret walked over and grabbed me by the hair, dragging me out of the bedroom.
"Take her down to the basement, Danny," she ordered ruthlessly.
Daniel kept the gun pointed at me as Margaret forced me down the narrow wooden stairs into the dark cellar.
They shoved me hard, and I tumbled to the cold concrete floor, scraping my knees.
Margaret slammed the heavy basement door shut and locked the deadbolt from the outside.
I scrambled in the pitch black, feeling my way up the stairs to pound on the heavy wood.
"Let me out of here!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"Lily is asleep, she won't hear you," Margaret's muffled voice taunted through the door.
A few minutes later, I smelled the sharp, unmistakable odor of gasoline seeping through the cracks under the door.
Liquid started pouring down the wooden steps, soaking my socks.
"Daniel will tell the police that you broke in, went crazy, and tried to burn the house down with us inside," Margaret laughed.
"It's a tragedy that you got trapped in the basement and burned alive," she added cruelly.
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I heard the distinct sound of a match striking against a box.
A bright orange glow suddenly flickered beneath the door gap, and the wooden stairs instantly erupted into roaring flames.
