Locked.
For a second nobody moved. Then he knocked softly, as if he were a normal husband and father trying to check on his family after a minor accident.
“Lucía?” he called, using that gentle voice he saved for school conferences and neighborhood barbecues. “Baby, if you’re awake, open the door. I called for help.”
You didn’t breathe.
His knuckles tapped the wood again, less patient this time.
“Lucía.”
Then the woman’s voice came from just behind him, lower and colder.
“They’re in there.”
Your blood turned to ice.
Sergio let out a slow breath, and when he spoke again, every trace of sweetness was gone.
“You should’ve stayed down.”
Tomás whimpered despite himself, and Sergio heard it. You could practically feel the smile spreading across his face through the door.
“So the kid’s awake too,” he said. “That’s inconvenient.”
You shoved the bathroom hamper against the door with your foot. Then the small cabinet under the sink. It wasn’t much. It wouldn’t stop a determined man for long. But it bought noise, and noise bought time.
“Police are outside!” you shouted, even though you couldn’t be sure they were at the door yet. “They know everything!”
There was a pause.
Then the woman hissed, “We have to go.”
But Sergio didn’t move.
“No,” he said. “If she’s talking, she can talk later too.”
The first hit against the bathroom door made Tomás flinch so violently he almost cried out. The second splintered something near the lock. You wrapped an arm around him and scanned the room wildly, as if some miraculous weapon might appear in a suburban bathroom in the middle of a nightmare. All you saw was tile, a plunger, bath towels, your son’s dinosaur toothbrush, and a heavy ceramic tank lid on the toilet.
So you grabbed the lid.
