40

JT’s vision goes fuzzy. There’s a metallic taste in his mouth.

Slumped against the wall, Carl is gasping, groaning, his blood a dark pool mingling with the shadows across the floor. Johnny is standing over him, watching. There’s blood over his clothes and in his beard. He looks like monster, but JT knows it was self-defence. Carl would have killed Carmella for sure.

JT is dying. He knows it. No doubt. There’s not enough oxygen left and his body has started shutting down. He can’t give up though. Won’t. He pictures Lori’s face and sticks the picks back into the lock. Slides one into the mechanism. Uses the other to try and stimulate the release. He gets them in position. Black spots dance across his vision. He knows this is his last shot. Takes what breath he can. Exhales. Makes his move.

The mechanism yields. The lock unfastens.

He shoves the door open. Pushes it wide.

Can’t speak. Doesn’t have enough breath.

Johnny moves past him through the doors and up the stairs towards the roof. JT gasps for breath that won’t come. There’s no air. He has to get out. Turning, he looks around for Carmella. Sees her lying on the floor. He staggers as he tries to move towards her, and loses his balance, dropping to his knees.

‘Carmella?’ His voice is a weak whisper.

She doesn’t response.

He leans over her. Checks to see if she’s still breathing, still alive. He finds her pulse, feels her breath on his skin – faint but there.

Knows he cannot leave her down here.

Summoning everything he’s got left, JT picks her up and hoists her over his shoulders. Every muscle in his body is on fire. His lungs are screaming for oxygen. His vision is a haze. But he manages to move through the doorway. He half walks, half crawls up the stairs. He can see the garden room at the top of the stairs and knows from what he saw on the blueprints that from there he can get out onto the roof terrace.

There are seven more stairs to go. He manages one.

JT collapses. He’s all out of gas. Carmella slumps onto the stairs beside him.

They’re not going to make it.