Looking at the clock, I saw that it was nine at night. Sighing, I walked down the quiet hall of my house. I had just put my baby to sleep and my husband was still at work. I had taken time off for maternity leave for the next twelve months. My husband had protested a little in leaving me alone at home a few days after I just got out of the hospital from giving birth to our first child. Even though I loved him dearly and always wanted him near me. I thought it was best that he worked in order to support us. Since I would be out of work for a couple of months until I was . . . FULLY ready to let someone watch my precious baby, Pandora.

A name my husband and I had thought about for a long time. Strange as it may seem to others, Pandora, Greek for Gifted, matched our little pride and joy perfectly. For she was a gift. A gift to us from the Gods themselves.

Walking into mine and my husband, Michael’s, bedroom. I turned on the lights and walked across the carpet flooring and to the dresser drawers where I took out my nightwear and started to change. It would be another four hours before Michael would return back from work. Which mean quiet for me unless Pandora was to wake? Pulling back the covers of the bed, I slipped into my side . . . Yet grabbed my husbands pillow and held it close as I also reached for a book that lay on the bedside table. And opened to where I had previously left off the night before.

Nearly finishing the latest chapter that I had started, half and hour into my reading . . . and relaxing time. I heard a sound. I thought maybe that it was the baby throwing something around in her crib. And then I heard the sound again and it was familiar . . . like broken glass. Eyes widening, I got out of bed and was fast as I could run to the top of the stair case. I saw a shadow of a man moving in the living room down below, but what frightened me most was what I saw the man holding. A gun. Heart pounding I had no clue what to do . . . Except I had to get Pandora before the man spotted me and I had put both of us in more danger then we already were with some mad man in our home with a gun.

Turning I hurried down the hall, quietly, but as fast as I could. I had reached the nursery to find that the noise that I had heard before, had too woken my baby. I hurried over to her and picked her up in my arms, grabbing a receiving blanket I wrapped it around her. Sighing in relief that she didn’t cry, I looked back at the door. Walking closer to the door, the only escape of the nursery, I listened closely to hear the man tearing apart the downstairs of the house.

My heart was pounding so fast that I felt like it was going to jump up my throat. My stomach was turning. All I could think of was getting my baby to safety. And then finding a way to get a hold of my husband. I crept down the hall, to where I had placed my purse on a small round table earlier and reached inside and grabbed the first solid thing my hand touched. My cell phone. I looked toward the stairs when I heard the man coming closer to the bottom of the stairs. Looking around, panicking, heart pounding, thoughts running. I saw the trapped door that lead to a small crawl space in the house.

Hurrying over to it. I had to placed Pandora down to open the lock and the door. But what terrified me then, was not the man coming closer to where we were. But the cry that my daughter had let out the moment I placed her down. I looked at the stairs as I heard the click of a gun’s safety being turned off. Breathing heavily, and in my haste the lock fiddled in my hand and I fought to unlock it as I heard him start to climb the stairs. Finally I heard the click of the lock and took it off the door, lifting Pandora I opened the door and placed her inside first before I climbed in after her.

But a fear of being found was running through my head. In a hurried state of panic I grabbed the lock and slammed the door shut behind me and locked the door from the inside. I heard the mans feet pounding up the steps but stopping when he saw that there was no one there. I picked up Pandora and moved further into the crawl space. Finally at the end, I curled up in the small dark space and cradled my precious gift to my chest.

Tears of my own were running down my face. Never had I thought I’d be in such a situation as this. I closed my eyes as I could hear the man still running throughout the house, I would jump when I heard random shots as he thought he got someone. The shots scarring Pandora, made her start crying louder and louder. I tried my best to calm her so we wouldn’t be found. I started thinking that this would be the last I ever saw of my baby . . . that the kiss I had given my husband the time he went to work that morning would be the last I would ever share with him. My husband?

That is when I remembered my cell I had grabbed. Reaching for it, I took it out of my small pocket in my night gown and flipped it open. What little light from the screen filled up the small area of crawl space, Pandora and I were curled up into together. I figured I wouldn’t get him through his own cell and dialled his office number.

“Come on . . . come on . . . ” I kept on whispering over and over as I heard it ring on and on. I kept praying her would answer. But doubts started coming by twentieth ring.

“Hello?”

My heart seemed to stop when I heard him answer. “Hello?” I heard him repeat again when I did not reply for the first time. “M...Michael?” I stuttered on saying.

“Jess? What is wrong?” he asked as I heard the slam of a book on his office desk. I took in deep breaths as I was holding back my sobs, “Michael . . . there’s a strange man . . . in the house . . . he has a gun . . . Pandora . . . I . . . in the crawl space” I had managed to say through choked sobs that were fighting to come from me.

I thought I had heard the clunk of something hard, like the phone its self hitting the desk from the other end. Before I heard my husbands fake calm voice on the other end, “All rights . . . listen, I need you to call the cops. Tell them what is going on and where you and Pandora are in the house. I am on my way” was all I heard before there was a click at the other end of the phone and I knew he had hung up. But I also knew he was on his way home. Michael wouldn’t leave us here to just die now . . . would he? No. That’s insane to even think about. My husband loved us dearly and wouldn’t just leave us in the house with a mad killer.

Looking at the phone, still flipped open, the little green light from the screen reflecting off my face in the darkness and if anyone, besides my daughter, were near by they would see the look of fear etched across my pale sleep deprived features. Gulping hard I dialled the number to the police emergency that, surprisingly, I had memorized just incase something like this ever did occur to me or anyone that I was close too.

Placing it by my ear and waiting for anyone to pick up. Holding Pandora close to me with just my left arm, she squirmed making it difficult but I held her tightly and protectively to my chest. Watching from the bottom of my eyes at her as she sucked on her finger, a trait she had gotten from my youngest brother Drake, remembering he used to do the very same when he was but a baby back when I was still in my teenage years.

“Hello this is the police department how may I help you?” came the voice of a woman on the other end.

“Yes, my name is Jessica Fournier-Hamel. I...I wish to report a brake in at my home, a man broke in from my living room window and is armed with a gun. My six day old baby and I are locked in the crawl space on the second floor hiding. I don’t know how much longer until he finds us please I need help”

“Calm down Miss. Just tell me where you live and we will have some men out there as fast as we can”

“I live at 3467 St. Clair. Please hurry. My husband is on his way home and I fear for his life just as much as I fear for mine and my babies” by now I was once again in tears. Just than the thoughts of my husband coming in the house and trying to stop the guy and getting shot filled my mind and I became horror stricken that I was beginning to have a hard time hearing the woman speaking to me over the phone.

“All right Miss. We have two cars on the way. They will be there shortly just-hang on”

“Thank you . . . than . . . ” that was when my cell’s battery went dead. Cursing under my breath I stuck it in the small pocket of my nightgown again. I heard footsteps on the second floor again and looked toward the entrance to the crawl space, my heart once again was pounding in my chest like mad that I thought it would jump up my throat to escape my lips. The footsteps stopped. But that is not what filled my body with a new fear, they had stopped just outside the crawl space. I looked toward the handle of the door, which was still locked from the inside, I saw it rattle and heard it as well as the man started shouting out curses as he tried to break down the small door.

BANG!

A scream came from me as the man had shot the gun at the door, my scream had awakened Pandora who had fallen asleep for a few short moments ago and had woken to the scream of her mother, and apparently the man had heard me as well. Well who wouldn’t when you scream bloody murder because someone shot a gun and it was inside your own home very close to where you were hiding to stay safe. He had known, now that we were in the crawl space and I listened as he tried to break down the small door with even more force than before.

Closing my eyes tightly. I pictured my husband in my mind, the day we met, the times we had together, our wedding, our honeymoon in Rome where I had pleaded with him to take me, and I told him I was pregnant to the day he found out it would be a girl to the day Pandora was born. And I was praying and hoping I would make it to see that handsome face of his once again, to be held and kissed by him telling me how much he loved me.

A new sound came into the house. The sound of another door being forced open and banged into the wall. I had figured out it was the front door. At first I thought it was the cops but was very much mistaken when I heard the voice of my husband calling out my name. I listened as the man stopped trying to open the small door and watched as his shadow from the crack under the door moved toward the stairs again and I screamed inside. Holding Pandora close I crawled toward the door on my hands, well one hand, the other holding my daughter, and knees.

I heard shouting and curses coming from downstairs. The sound of break objects from glass to wood being shattered and thrown about in various places, and by various things hitting them. Just then. I thought I had died. For my heart stopped when I heard the sound of a shot. Fiddling with the lock as fast as I could I thought I was going to be sick at the thought of my husband getting shot. Who possibly could it had been? I never heard the cops arrive yet and the man was the only one with the gun. When the lock was finally unlock I dropped it and burst open the door, getting out of the crawl fast in suck a hurry I bumped my head a numerous of times, cutting open the side of my head as well so that only a bit of blood showed.

Standing on shaky legs I ran to the stairs and down them, nearly tripping in my hurry to find my husband. I looked around my house that was utterly destroyed, there was no other word to describe it. So many things were broken and there were bullet holes in the wall. I heard a sound, that sounded like a human groaning. Cautiously I crept toward the sound, Pandora had calmed again and was looking around in confusion. Peeking around the corner I gasped.

“Michael?” I ran over to my husband that was sitting on the floor of the kitchen slumped against the wall. I kneeled beside him and looked him over. What surprised me most was he was not shot. Only battered up from fighting, he looked at him with his deep brown eyes.

“I’m...glade you’re ok” he said lifted his hand that was cut from some glass I heard shatter earlier as well. He placed the palm of his hand on my cheek, cupping it, his thumb rubbing my skin. Tears pouring from my own green eyes I hugged him close just making sure I didn’t squish our daughter between us as I sobbed muttering words like, “I’m so happy your safe” and “I thought you had gotten shot”

Shot? Yes now I remembered. I looked at my husband questionably. If I had heard that shot and someone falling, why wasn’t he wounded or dead? Michael who had seemed to notice my look smiled a little and nodded toward the man that lay on the ground just a little ways away from us with his gun still in his hand. How had he gotten shot? Did he shoot himself without even knowing?

I got my answer when I heard the cops barge in. I saw a small bullet hole in the kitchen window and knew just what had happened. Smiling I kissed my husband lightly on the lips. “I’m so happy you are safe”

“I can say the same to you” he said holding me close in his arms and kissing his forehead.

He was soon taken out to the ambulance that was called in too, he was treated for the minor wounds he had gotten. Standing in the cool night air holding my baby I just stared at my husband who sat on the back of the ambulance as they tended to him.

I now saw him in a new light. A light like no other. I saw him in the new light of the flame of love that filled my heart. I had come to love him more than ever this night. The night he had risked his own life to save mine and our child’s.