Twenty-three

“I’m going in,” Neil said, pushing away from the children and starting toward the building, now almost completely engulfed in flames.

“I’ll go with you,” Rafe said, walking at his side, no hesitation in his step.

Neil glanced at him. Having Rafe beside him, at his right arm, seemed eerily familiar. He and Rafe had fought together before, Ewan on his left—Neil’s weaker side—and Rafe on his right. Rafe was ready for battle again, though he looked much readier to dance a reel in the ballroom.

“Stay here,” Neil said, barking the order over his shoulder. “You’ll ruin your coat.”

“I don’t give a fig for my coat.”

“Liar.”

“Fine. I’ll allow you to buy me another.”

Neil paused and faced Rafe. “I need you out here,” he said quietly. “If Slag didn’t come alone, the women and children might be in danger. Stay here and protect them.”

Rafe frowned. “I’m never chosen for the dangerous assignments. It’s always, ‘Rafe, seduce that woman. Rafe, use your charm to distract those villagers.’”

Neil would have laughed if fear hadn’t been clawing a bloody path through his heart.

“Here, take this at least.” Rafe pulled a pistol from his coat.

Neil stared at the pistol and then at Rafe. When the devil had Rafe begun to carry a pistol?

“It’s loaded and ready.”

Neil raised his brows. Correction: When the devil had Rafe begun to carry a loaded pistol?

Neil took the pistol.

“Are you ready?” Rafe asked as Neil strode away.

“I have my dancing shoes on.”

“Hey, one of these days, I want to dance with the devil, eh what!” Rafe called.

Neil ignored him and stepped into the fire.

Flames licked at the walls and the ancient paper hangings decorating the vestibule. The bones of the house were dry and dusty, perfect tinder for a hungry fire. His instinct was to shout for Juliana, but then he’d alert Slag to his presence. Neil wanted the element of surprise on his side.

The rats were kept in the older boys’ dormitory, so that’s where Charlie would have gone to fetch them and where Juliana would have followed. If Slag had been lying in wait, he would have cornered them there. Neil started up the creaky stairs, covering his mouth with his sleeve when he coughed. The smoke filled his lungs and burned his throat. The heat from the fire singed at any exposed skin, but he walked through it.

He would come out with Juliana or not at all.

At the top of the stairs, he started toward the boys’ dormitory just as a loud crack boomed over the roar of the fire. Neil looked up in time to watch the heavy wooden beam slam through the ceiling and crash onto the floor.

A cloud of dust rose up, making him cough harder and momentarily blinding him. He stumbled back, barely catching himself at the edge of the stairway. Soot and debris rained down on him, and when he finally shook it off and he had a view through the dust again, he realized his path to the boys’ dormitory was blocked.

Even worse, Juliana’s escape route was gone.

* * *

“I sorry, Mama,” Charlie said, his voice high and frightened.

“Shh. It’s not your fault,” Julia said, pushing him behind her and turning to face Slag. What she saw when she looked at him made her belly roil. He hadn’t escaped from the blaze at the Ox and Bull unscathed. His face was a mass of red, shiny skin. One side drooped so badly it looked as though it had melted off, the eye completely lost. She couldn’t imagine the pain Slag must have been in. She couldn’t imagine how he was even on his feet.

He stumbled forward. “For once, Lady Juliana is correct,” Slag told Charlie. “It isn’t your fault. You broke away from the group and fell right into my plans. I thought I’d have to nab one of you, but you made it easy. And you”—he pointed his walking stick at Julia—“are so predictable. I knew you’d come back.”

“You have me,” Julia said. “Let Charlie go.”

“I don’t think so,” Slag said, moving away from the door. “I want you to suffer as I’ve suffered.”

“Charlie has done nothing.”

“You love him, so he dies.”

Julia stood immobile in the center of the room. All around her the fire crackled and hissed. Small tongues of it licked at the door. It had a taste for the orphanage now. It would lick and taste and devour until the building was nothing but ashes. Slag was correct that watching Charlie die would cause her to suffer. But if he’d allowed Charlie to go, then she might have accepted her fate docilely. Now the crime lord gave her no choice but to fight.

She looked down at Charlie. She didn’t know anything about fighting. But perhaps she could distract Slag long enough for Charlie to escape. She bent and hugged Charlie, whispering in his ear under the guise of comforting him. “I will attack Slag.”

Charlie stiffened. “No.” He shook his head.

“While he fights me, you run. Run as fast as you can and straight outside.” She prayed he could still get through the fire.

“What about Matthew, Mark, and John?”

Charlie would never make it carrying the rat cage. It was too large and unwieldy for him under the best of circumstances.

“I’ll get them out,” she promised, knowing it was a lie. Knowing she would die here with Slag.

Charlie nodded.

“Ready?” she asked, hugging him tighter.

“Yes.”

And then she released Charlie and ran straight for Slag, screaming like a wild banshee.

* * *

Neil heard the screams and felt the twin emotions of terror and elation rise in his heart. Juliana wasn’t dead, but she was in danger. He’d been staring at the fallen beam for a good thirty seconds, and he saw only one way around it—under it. He’d have to lift it and then slide underneath. Unfortunately, the quickness required for the move would mean dropping the beam back into place. And once the beam dropped, more debris would rain down. He wouldn’t be able to go back the way he’d come.

He was trying to think of another way—any other way—when he heard Juliana’s screams. They were immediately followed by a man’s yells. Neil didn’t stop to think any longer. He ducked under the charred and steaming beam and used his shoulder to lift it. With one arm, he held it up, then slid through the narrow passage. Just as he was about to drop the beam back into place, the dormitory door opened and a small figure rushed out.

Neil’s arm shook from the effort of holding the heavy beam aloft. The heat from the burning wood seared through his gloves. But he held the beam. Squinting, he saw a child had emerged from the room—a child with his thumb in his mouth.

“Charlie!” he called.

Charlie, eyes wide and terrified, looked up. “Major?”

“This way,” Neil said. “Through here and down the stairs. Hurry now.” He said the last through gritted teeth. Charlie darted through the small opening with little trouble. As soon as the boy was safely through, Neil’s strength gave out, and he dropped the beam and rolled clear. A mountain of plaster and wood and rained down, all of it burning with the wrath of the fire.

“Major?” Charlie called.

“I’m fine. Go!” Neil answered. “Hurry!”

He ran for the boys’ dormitory and kicked open the door. The sight he came upon would forever haunt him. Slag stood over Juliana, cane raised. Juliana lay on the floor, her hands held up in a defensive posture. But Slag had turned when the door burst open. Neil shrank back at the devastation the fire at the flash ken had wrought on Slag’s face. But Juliana had wasted no time at all. She’d kicked up, her foot colliding with the tender flesh between Slag’s legs. The crime lord crumpled to the floor.

Neil rushed forward and pulled Juliana up and away from Slag. The man was clutching himself and rolling on the floor, but Neil wanted Juliana far away when Slag regained his strength.

“You came back?” she asked, looking at him as though he were a ghost.

“I should never have left.” He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly, thanking God he’d been in time. He would never let her go again. “You were right,” he said stroking her back.

“I know,” she answered, her arms coming up to embrace him. “But what specifically are you referring to?”

He smiled. The orphanage was burning all around them, their only escape cut off, and the man who wanted them both dead lay just a few feet away. Still, she could make him smile. “We are stronger together,” he said.

She drew back. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You did. And now we’d better use that combined strength to get out of here.”

“Charlie—”

“Is safe outside.” He hoped. But when she started for the door to the dormitory, he grabbed her hand. “Not that way. It’s cut off. Charlie made it through, but we won’t.”

“Then how?” she asked.

Neil pulled her to the window. “There’s one latch I fixed three times but mysteriously kept breaking.” He pushed on the window latch, and it gave easily. Obviously, the boys had intentionally broken it so they could sneak out of the dormitory without Julia knowing. Neil lifted the window. The escape route the boys had taken was plain to see. A decorative ledge, one of the remnants of the building’s finer days, wrapped around the outside of the structure just a few feet below the window. Any of the older boys would have been tall enough to climb out of the window backward and rest his feet on the ledge. From there, he only had to walk around the side of the building to the edge where an old drainpipe ran from the roof to the ground. A nimble boy could shimmy down with little trouble. Neil was not so certain Juliana could manage it. And even after he explained the plan, she looked a bit worried.

He glanced back at Slag. The man had risen to his knees and appeared to be gathering the last of his strength. There was no time for doubt.

“Juliana, there’s no other way,” he said.

“I can make it,” she said sounding far more confident than she looked. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You’ll have to do it all carrying the rat cage.” She pointed to the cage sill sitting in the middle of the floor. Neil wanted to say hell no. Those rats had been the bane of his existence since the first day he’d met her. But he also knew she wouldn’t leave them behind. She would have made a good soldier, if her superior officer didn’t order her hung for insubordination.

Neil knew he couldn’t manage the ledge or the drainpipe with the cage, but he could do it with the rats in his pockets. He shuddered, realizing he’d have to touch the creatures again, but he gritted his teeth. This was for Juliana.

She glanced up at him. “Stronger together, right?”

“Right.” And he had no time to argue as to which situations that phrase applied to. Slag had begun to crawl toward them—or perhaps he was crawling away from the fire. It had engulfed the doorway now and enveloped the bed closest to the door.

Keeping an eye on Slag, Neil bent, opened the enclosure, and gathered the trembling rats into his hands. One bit him, of course, but he just swore and tucked the little bastard into his pocket. When he had all three, he raced back to Juliana. “Go.”

She threw one leg over the ledge, but before she could climb out, he grasped the back of her neck and kissed her. “I love you,” he said.

“I didn’t hear that,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me again when we’re on the ground.” And she slid out of the window, her feet dangling in the air for a long moment before they landed on the ledge. With a wobbly smile for him, she slid away from the window, her sooty fingers clamped tight on the wall of the orphanage. When she was close to the drainpipe, Neil followed her out. He’d never liked heights—a fact about himself he’d learned on a mission for Draven—and he didn’t look down. Instead, he scooted one foot and then the other, his progress a bit shakier than Juliana’s, as his feet were wider than the ledge. At one point, he almost lost his balance, and he pinwheeled his arms. When he didn’t fall, he rested his cheek against the building’s wall and stifled the urge to whimper. Opening his eyes, he saw Juliana descending the drainpipe. Her progress wasn’t smooth or graceful, but when she landed on the ground with a thud, she stood and gave him a wave.

“Stronger together,” Neil muttered to himself, ignoring the feel of the squirming rats inside his clothing. He slid closer to the drainpipe. That was when the first object almost hit him. Neil hadn’t seen it coming or he might have tried to avoid it and fallen. When it soared past him, narrowly missing him, he’d looked back at the window. Slag stood there with a wooden toy in his hand. Neil didn’t waste time, moving even more quickly toward the drainpipe. Slag threw the toy and it bounced off the building where Neil’s head had been a moment before. Slag lifted another toy, but he would have to lean out farther to hit Neil. Neil felt a surge of relief until Slag leaned farther out the window—a bit too far.

Neil saw the horrid loom of realization on the crime lord’s face. The streak of black was gone in a moment, barely enough time for Neil to call out, “Don’t look!” to Juliana.

The thud was soft, like a boot sinking into mud.

Quickly, Neil made his way to the drainpipe, shimmied down, and when he stepped away, Juliana threw herself into his arms. “Say it now,” she said. “Please.”

“Can I at least free myself from the rats?”

“No.”

Truer words were never spoken. He’d never be free from these rats—or from her—and he liked that idea just fine. “I love you, Juliana,” he said, and kissed her.