100

Lennon stayed low, breathing as shallow as he dared. His eyes streamed and stung. He grabbed Fegan’s collar and dragged him along the floor, managing a few feet before he had to stop, his lungs screaming.

Fegan rolled to his side and moaned. Lennon knelt down beside him.

‘Can you get to your feet?’ he asked.

Fegan blinked at him, his mouth open.

Lennon slapped his bloodied cheek. ‘Listen, I need you to move. It’s not far, just through the door.’

Fegan looked to the doorway, his face twisting as he tried to concentrate. His eyes cleared as he seemed to realise what Lennon wanted from him. He got to his hands and knees and crawled towards the door where smoke swirled in the battling air currents.

Lennon came alongside him, keeping his head down. He wedged a hand under Fegan’s arm and pulled him to his feet. They staggered together, but Lennon steadied them. If he could just get Fegan to the fire escape, only fifteen feet away. He dragged Fegan after him, moving more by the momentum of their bodies than the will of their legs. The blackness swallowed them, billowing up from the stairwell, carried by the searing heat.

‘Go,’ Lennon said, his throat tightening against the fumes. He pushed Fegan forward until he saw the light at the end of the corridor.

Fegan stumbled, landed on his knees. Lennon wrapped his arms around his torso and hoisted him up. He shoved him towards the open door and the fire escape’s platform beyond.

Lennon tumbled through the door after Fegan, both men collapsing against the steel grating. Fegan gulped air. The gash beneath his left eye streamed red, the flesh around it swollen and puffy. More blood coated his neck, trickling and pulsing from his nearly severed earlobe. Lennon pulled himself up by the railing and breathed deep. He spat over the edge, fighting the swimming sensation that started in his head and ran down to his legs.

‘Where are they?’ Lennon asked.

Fegan retched and coughed.

Lennon hunkered down beside him. ‘What did they do with them?’

Fegan turned his face to him. ‘Upstairs,’ he said, his speech slurred, his tongue red and swollen behind his teeth.

Lennon leaned back and looked at the platform above. ‘Up there? In what room?’

A fresh wave of heat burst out of the door. Through the smoke, Lennon saw the flames advance.

‘He told me the end of the corridor,’ Fegan said. He coughed again and spat blood on the grating. ‘In one of the old servants’ rooms.’

Fegan got to his feet, using the railing to haul himself upright. He lurched towards the metal stairs and climbed. Lennon followed, pushed past him, taking two steps at a time despite the weakness in his legs. Fegan quickened his pace behind him, his feet slapping hard and clumsy on the steel steps.

Lennon reached the upper platform and went for the door. Like the fire exit below, it was old with plain glass panes set in a wooden frame. He smashed one of the panes with the pistol’s butt and reached inside. The heat lapped at his hand as he fumbled at the lock. He pushed the door open and dropped low as a scorching black cloud billowed out.

Fegan reached the platform and staggered past Lennon into the darkness beyond the door.

Lennon followed him in. ‘Which room?’ he called after Fegan. The smoke attacked his chest, and he crouched down, coughing until his sides shrieked.

‘Here,’ Fegan said. He opened the nearest door, and fell through.

Lennon scrambled towards it. Through the black swirls he saw the shape of a man lying a few feet along the corridor, maybe a guard, either unconscious or dead. He crawled through the door and found Fegan hunched against the wall, his face blank and staring as his chest rose and fell. Tears mixed with the blood on his cheeks.

Marie McKenna sprawled on a bed, her sweater soaked red, her skin grey. Ellen lay on the floor beside Fegan, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted.

‘Christ,’ Lennon said. ‘Christ, no.’

He crawled towards Marie and took her hand. The chill went to his core, the skin of her fingers dry and papery. Lennon’s stomach turned on itself. He swallowed and forced his mind to focus, then reached over to Ellen, running the backs of his fingers across her cheek.

Still warm.

He pressed his ear to her chest. He tuned out everything, the crackling of the fire, the distant wailing of the smoke alarms, and listened. There, maybe, perhaps, a faint hint of a heartbeat.

He looked up at Fegan. ‘I think—’

Fegan sat forward.

Lennon leaned down so his cheek was an inch from her mouth. The softest movement of air brushed his skin, sweet and warm.

‘She’s alive,’ he said.

Fegan smiled. ‘Take her. Get out.’

Lennon took Marie’s hand one more time, squeezed the cold fingers between his, and whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Go,’ Fegan said.

Lennon gathered the child in his arms and stood up. ‘You can make it out. It’s only a few feet.’

‘I can’t,’ Fegan said. ‘I’m tired. I want to sleep. That was all I ever wanted. To sleep.’

Lennon supported Ellen in one arm, and grabbed Fegan’s collar with his free hand. Fegan brushed it away.

‘No.’ He coughed and gasped. ‘For Christ’s sake, get out and let me sleep.’

Lennon nodded and cradled Ellen. He turned and left Fegan in the room. The smoke in the corridor formed a solid wall now, and only a faint haze of light showed where the exit lay. He crouched as low as he could and made for it.

The floor rushed at him before he was aware of the grip on his ankle. He broke the fall with his forearms, pain shooting up from his elbows, and barely avoided crushing Ellen.

Big, hard hands grabbed at his legs, and Lennon couldn’t tell if they were clawing to escape, or trying to drag him back. He kicked out, his foot connecting with something huge and immovable before the hands seized him again.

Lennon looked back as he struggled to free himself from their grip and saw Bull O’Kane’s blackened face, his eyes wide and wild, his teeth bared.

The Bull screamed something as Lennon’s foot slammed into his jaw.