In Chap­ter Sev­en­ty-Two of *If These Wings Could Fly*, the ten­sion esca­lates as Leighton and his moth­er nav­i­gate a ter­ri­fy­ing sit­u­a­tion. The chap­ter opens with Leighton being urged by his moth­er to escape, despite the chaos rep­re­sent­ed by Leighton’s friend, who is hold­ing a gun. Leighton feels an unset­tling realization—his keys are gone, and escape routes are lim­it­ed, com­pelling them to leave only by climb­ing upwards towards the girls.

As Leighton crawls up the stairs, exhaus­tion weighs heav­i­ly on him, under­scored by the omi­nous scent of smoke that soon trans­forms into a visu­al real­i­ty when he sees it pour­ing from his room. He under­stands the dire impli­ca­tions: the lantern is spilled, ignit­ing the cur­tains and threat­en­ing his belong­ings. The dis­tress deep­ens when he real­izes the girls are trapped inside the armoire, their screams muf­fled by the wreck­age of flames and smoke.

Despite his attempts, the locked armoire presents an insur­mount­able bar­ri­er. A sense of pan­ic grows as the smoke fills the room; mem­o­ries of the key Joe once left, long thought lost, spur a des­per­ate search that leads to a moment of hope. Leighton suc­cess­ful­ly unlocks the armoire, free­ing the girls, whose faces reflect fear and tears from the heat sur­round­ing them.

How­ev­er, the dan­ger esca­lates as some­thing slams against the bed­room door, indi­cat­ing they are trapped. The deci­sion must be made to flee, and they rush to the win­dow for safe­ty, step­ping onto the roof as the house con­tin­ues to burn. Out­side, Leighton and his fam­i­ly face an unex­pect­ed con­fronta­tion; a dark fig­ure emerges from with­in the smoke.

As chaos unfolds with crows swarm­ing and pre­vent­ing the figure’s escape, the fam­i­ly ascends to the high­est point of their home amidst thick­en­ing smoke. A for­mi­da­ble shad­ow, sym­bol­iz­ing rage and anger, approach­es from the roof’s edge, adding to the sense of impend­ing doom. Yet, despite the threat loom­ing behind them, Leighton’s atten­tion is drawn to his family’s calm demeanor, their col­lec­tive gaze fixed on the approach­ing crows, hint­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hope amid despair.