Never Never (19 page)

“Secrets?”

“Just those between a man and his wife.”

She turned away to accept a bowl of mashed potatoes but the hint of a smile was on her lips.

“I think that can be arranged,” she said.

T
hat night
, after his rounds to make sure the sentries were awake and ready, Mike hurried to their bedroom. Siobhan was asleep and Sarah waited for him in bed. Without a word, she folded back the covers in invitation.

He dropped his clothes on the slate floor and slid into the warm bed bringing her into his arms where they held and forgave each other—again—for everything said and unsaid between them in the last several days.

The moon through the south window illuminated her face and he truly couldn't remember seeing anything as beautiful.

“I promise you're safe now, Sarah. Nobody can get in. Not without a tank or a flame thrower—and neither of those things exist in our world any more.”

“I'm sorry to be such a basket case.”

“Sure you're not. Not-at all.”

“I'm so tired of worrying about everything, Mike. I know once I have John back, I'll be fine. Promise me we'll get him back.”

“I do promise ye, Sarah. And once he
is
back, he'll not be allowed to leave.
Ever
.”

Sarah laughed and Mike felt the tension in his shoulders ease at the sound of it.

“Well,” she said with a yawn, “at least not until all the lights turn back on in the western hemisphere. I don't think that's too much for a mother to ask.”

S
ometime early the next morning
, deep in the thickest cloud of sleep, the smell crept under the heavy wooden door of their room and slid up the sides of the bed. It stole into the room like an invisible phantasm until Mike awoke, choking and coughing.

Smoke…

S
arah was
on her feet with the baby in her arms before Mike was even out of bed. The smoke was thick on the floor and pooled around their feet.

“Mike!” she screamed. He leapt to his feet, looking confused in his half awake state.

“Outside!” he rasped as he snatched up his clothes from the floor. “Go to the courtyard!”

Barefoot and wearing only her nightgown, Sarah dashed out of the room and ran to the end of the stone hall. From the window at the end of the hall she could see a bonfire in the courtyard jumping and cavorting across the dry winter grass of the dead lawn.

Mike put a hand on her arm as he passed.

“The water supply is outside,” he said. “Go to the courtyard. Tell everyone to—”

“Mike, the fire is
in
the courtyard,” she said. Siobhan was now screaming in her arms. But he was gone.

Sarah ran down the icy stone steps of the stairwell. As soon as she came into the courtyard, the thick smoke billowed like dense fog. The moon had escaped behind the clouds and only darkness, panic and fear swirled in the courtyard.

She heard screams and could see shapes and figures as people ran out of the other building wings into the open.

“Sarah! Sarah!”

“I'm here, Sophia!” Sarah cried, trying to move in her direction. The screams of the children and the babies interlaced with the hoarse voices of the men around the stone perimeter.

How could there be so much smoke? Is it possible this is an accident?

Sarah had no time to think more. She saw Jill—clutching her little boy's hand—step out of the cloud of smoke, her face streaked with soot.

“They've got the gate open!” Jill shouted as she passed. Behind her streamed a hoard of panicked women in their nightclothes. Sarah tried to see beyond the fire in the courtyard. She remembered a large holly bush had been there. Was that what was burning? How? There'd been no lightning last night.

“Sarah!” Sophia gasped as she grabbed Sarah's arm. “We must leave! The castle is burning!”

Sarah turned toward the gate and watched the people stream out.

“It can't burn,” she said as Sophia ran toward the gate. “It's made of stone.”

No one heard her. Mike was shouting orders over the din. A sudden fear seized Sarah that she and Siobhan would be the only ones left inside.

She turned and ran toward the gate, feeling the warmth of the inferno recede behind her as she ran onto the wooden slats of the drawbridge and out into the coldest, darkest part of the night. She stumbled half way across and tightened her hold on Siobhan as she fell to one knee.

The sounds of horses screaming behind her shot a bolt of terror straight through Sarah.

Someone was stampeding the horses out of their stable. She looked frantically to both sides of the bridge for escape. The jump would kill her and Siobhan both.

The pounding of the horses' hooves moved through the ground like an earthquake.

Suddenly a hand from behind her pulled her to her feet. It was one of the castle women, her eyes narrowed with effort and determination. She dragged Sarah forward where they both jumped to the other side seconds before the horses crashed down the bridge and into the front court outside the castle.

“Thank you,” Sarah gasped, her knees turning to jelly.

The woman didn't answer but ran to join her group. Outside was pandemonium. Most of the people had gathered in the castle parking lot. They stared at the castle as if expecting it to burst into flames.

Why did we run?
Sarah thought as she stumbled to the parking lot to join the others.
The castle can't burn. Why did we panic?

She saw Sophia next to several of the other compound women. Sarah went to her.

“Where's Gavin?” Sarah asked.

“With Mike,” Sophia said. She shivered in her nightgown and held Maggie tightly.

Sarah looked around. “Fiona?” she said. “And Declan?”

“Nuala has Ciara,” Sophia said. “I don't know where Fiona is.”

Sarah looked back at the castle. The fireball seeming to grow larger behind the stark outline of the arched front gateway.

“I think I do,” she said grimly.

F
iona sat
in the stone room of the clinic and watched the people pour out of the castle. She glanced over at Declan, who was still asleep on his cot. There had been no point in moving him. All she could really do besides abandon him, which she wouldn't do, was prepare herself for whatever was coming.

A fire in a stone castle?
She looked around and noted the wooden door, the wooden tables, and the beds with their wooden frames. But everything else was stone.

She didn't fear fire. Not like she had at the compound where a few well placed matches could—and did—see the end to everything they'd built.

No, fire wasn't their enemy at Henredon. Although why the fools running for their lives outside didn't know that—especially the castle women—she couldn't imagine.

She bent over Declan's bed and listened to his breathing and the rattling deep in his chest. She had no idea if that was good or bad. He seemed to be in no pain and when he was awake, he was usually lucid. Well, as lucid as he'd been since the attack last year.

A wave of sadness washed over Fiona at the memory of that attack. So much lost in one afternoon.

She went to the window. While the clinic didn't look out directly over the front, it did give a clear view of the northern woods beyond the gardens and the closest castle pasture. She knew that's where Mike and the men would go. The spring was there. They had yet to devise a way to have ready access to water within the castle. It seemed the group who'd lived here before hadn't even tried. They just went out every couple of weeks and dragged in enough to last them awhile.

As Fiona stood by the window, she could see the men around the spring. The clouds shifted and a strong shaft of moonlight lit up the ground below, allowing her to easily pick out Mike. She watched him gesture to the others and then saw the horses appear at a run. She caught her breath. They were panicked and one of them was headed straight up the main road like the devil was on his tail. Fortunately, the other three horses didn't follow.

What a nightmare.
She turned to look at Declan and then back at the activity of the men at the spring. Mike was standing with his back to the castle, his hands on his hips.

That was when she saw the figure materialize from behind a bush. The glint of moonlight on the knife he held sent a shiver of terror though Fiona and she felt the scream building in her throat.

He was running straight for Mike.

S
haun couldn't believe
his eyes. As the sky lightened with the coming morning, a fire raged in the interior of the castle and everybody was outside in the parking lot either screaming or running around acting crazy.

Saoirse, what have you done?
he thought as he ran into the crowd of screaming people.

He'd awakened not an hour ago to an unusually quiet cottage and the dead certainty that Saoirse was gone. He didn't know when but
where
was a given.

Whatever reason Saoirse had, Shaun knew it could only mean disaster—not only to the people in the castle but for him and Saoirse too. If only the stupid girl could see that.

He hurried as fast as he could through the woods, stumbling over branches and into invisible holes and praying he didn't run into any wild animals. He had to get to Saoirse before she got to the castle. Why hadn't he listened to her threats? Why hadn't he paid more attention to her ranting?

He knew she hated Donovan and all his people. She'd told him she wanted them dead every minute of every day of the past two weeks.

Saoirse, what have you done?

Shaun knew his sister well enough to know she'd go for Donovan first—and then probably Nuala or even her child.

He ran into the crowd and two of the castle women grabbed him by the arm and squealed their pleasure at seeing him. He shook them off and, in his determination to find Saoirse, even pushed past Beryl as she attempted to throw her arms around him.

“Where's Donovan?” he shouted to two compound women standing with their babies in their arms in front of the castle. One of them pointed in the direction of the spring.

Of course. He would be getting water to put out the fire.
Shaun started to run around the drawbridge when a woman stepped into his path.

Ava.
With the moonlight lighting up the planes of her beautiful face and her hair wild around her shoulders, she looked like a goddess. Shaun hesitated and for one mad moment wondered if this was all a dream. A dream capped off by the appearance of this radiant creature who was the embodiment of all feminine beauty in the world.

“Shaun,” she said.

He touched her arm and the dream dissolved in his hands. Keeva was standing by her mother and slapped his hand away. The child screwed up her face to cry.

“What did you do?” Ava said, her face angry and accusing.

M
ike thought
he heard a scream somehow above the cacophony that was the soundtrack for the night. Why that one scream—faint and familiar—would make him turn when all the others were just so much background noise, he would never know. He felt a hard thud against his shoulder and then a jolting pain that shot immediately into his brain.

He twisted around to see Saoirse pulling her arm back with a butcher knife in her grip. His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist as she brought her arm down for another stab. She was strong and Mike was off balance. He felt her wrist slipping out of his grip.

“You're dead!” she screamed, her eyes on his in loathing.

He stumbled backward, only having time to hold up both hands as he fell. He watched the knife rise up again and then a dark shadow shot across Saoirse's face. She yelped and dropped the knife. Gavin appeared beside Saoirse as she collapsed to her knees.

“Ye bastard!” Shaun screamed as he pushed past Gavin. “She's mentally challenged! She's not responsible for herself!”

Gavin picked up the knife and pointed it at Shaun.

“The blood on this blade is me da's,” he said roughly.

Shaun looked at Mike, still lying on his back. Saoirse tried to stand but Shaun forced her to stay on her knees.

“He broke me nose!” she howled.

“Shut up, Saoirse,” Shaun said.

Sarah ran up and knelt by Mike.

Mike didn't feel any pain but he knew he'd been stabbed. Was he in shock? He looked at Sarah and tried to speak.

“How bad is it, Sarah?” Gavin asked, his tone frantic.

“I don't know. Mike? How do you feel?” She had her hands under his shirt. Her probing was gentle but she needn't have bothered. If he could speak, he'd tell her that. He didn't feel any pain. He didn't feel anything.

“Not good,” Sarah said shakily, drawing back a hand coated with his blood.