42
Shaun came into the room like a robot, stiff legged and dull. He knelt by Saoirse’s body. His face was white with shock and disbelief.
He crouched between the door and Sarah and Damian.
No way out but through him.
Sarah licked her lips. Should she tell Damian to run? Or to hide under the bed?
Shaun had a gun. That trumped Sarah’s nothing. By a lot.
She scanned the room but the only weapon was Saoirse’s knife and she was laying on that.
“I’ll make you pay for this,” Shaun said in a soft voice. “You’ve now killed everyone I love, you filthy, Yank bitch.”
“Not quite everyone,” Sarah said. “There’s still Ava.”
He looked at her, his eyes hooded. “You’re not fit to say her name.”
I have no weapon. No avenue of escape. No shoes…
And saving Damian only counts if he lives to walk out of this room.
She had to get Shaun to put the gun down or at least exchange it.
“Your sister was crazy, Shaun. Everyone knows that. You know that.”
He turned his head toward her and his eyes were wet.
“Don’t talk about her!” he snarled.
“She said shooting was too good for me. She was going to cut me up like some psycho bitch from a bad horror flick.”
He hesitated and glanced back at Saoirse. And then his gun.
That’s right, Shaun. Connect the dots. Put the gun down.
“I was going to save you for last,” he said as if speaking to Saoirse. “But circumstances change.”
Sarah watched him and for a moment she wondered why she thought an attack by a hundred and sixty pound man with a knife was any better than being shot at close range.
But she had no chance with the gun.
“Damian,” she said calmly. “Listen to me.” She didn’t dare take her eyes off Shaun to look at the boy.
“Do you hear me?”
“Aye,” the boy whispered.
“When the bad man attacks me I need you to run, do you hear? Don’t wait to see what happens. Just run.”
“Where?” Damian asked breathlessly.
The fifty million dollar question.
“What a clever lad you are,” Shaun said as he put the gun down on Saoirse’s dresser and picked up the butcher knife from the floor. “You’re smart enough to know there is nowhere to go. And you mind well too, which is why I know you won’t make me chase you, eh?”
Without any further warning, Shaun flung himself at Sarah, slashing the air in front of him with the carving knife. Although she was waiting for it, she wasn’t ready. She fell from the bed, twisting fiercely away, trying to avoid the deadly slashing blade.
“I’ll eat your baby first, you malicious bitch!” Shaun screamed, his teeth bared like a wild animal. His breath was rancid. He smelled like he’d recently eaten.
She battered him with her hands, and desperately tried to bring her knees up under her.
“Hold still, you fecking bitch,” Shaun screeched as he grabbed her hair with one hand and yanked her to a sitting position on the floor. “This is for Saoirse, do ye hear me?”
Sarah jabbed him hard in the eye with two fingers.
He roared with fury and she raised her head and slammed it against his face as hard as she could, twice in fast succession.
“Goddamn you!” he screamed. He pulled the knife back like he would throw a punch. Sarah was pinned under him, gripped in place by his knees, nowhere to go, nowhere to maneuver.
An image of John came into her head. She closed her eyes. I love you…
Shaun grunted and his head fell forward onto her chest. Standing behind him Sarah saw Damian holding the handgun by the barrel, ready to hit him again. Shaun moaned and put a hand to his head.
His other hand still held the knife.
Sarah tried to scramble out from under him but he was too heavy.
“Give it to me!” she screamed.
Damian pushed the gun over Shaun’s shoulder, handle side toward her. She slipped her fingers into the trigger guard, and pressed it against Shaun’s chest just as he brought his knife up again. She pulled the trigger.
Shaun jerked once. His eyes flew open in surprise. Sarah shot him again. And again.
By the time she got to her feet, holding the gun in both hands, Shaun was face down on the floor next to his sister.
She looked at Damian. His eyes were wide.
“Someone’s coming!” he said.
“Get behind me,” Sarah said and pointed the gun at the doorway. “If we have to shoot every mother…person in this castle—”
The door burst open and Mike filled the opening with Gavin right behind him. Mike’s eyes went from Sarah to the two bodies on the ground.
“Holy Mother of…Sarah!”
“They’re holding the others in the dungeon,” she said, gasping. “You have to hurry…”
“The dungeon?”
“I know where they are!” Gavin said and disappeared out the door.
Mike pulled the gun from her hands and she sagged to her knees. He wrapped one arm around her and pulled Damian into a hug with the other.
“You did well, lad,” he said in a hoarse whisper with his eyes on Sarah. “Ye both did.”
Fiona watched as Margo turned the gun onto her cell. People were dying. Everyone was screaming and still the relentless noise of the men smashing the locks with their boots resounded over all else.
She tucked Ciara behind her and crossed herself, thinking only of Declan and how she would see him soon. She straightened to her full height as Margo lined her up in her scope and then pulled the trigger.
It clicked empty. Margo cursed and pulled another cartridge from her jeans pocket and slammed it into the rifle just as Robby smashed open the far cell door. Margo turned her rifle on him and shot him as he was coming out the door. But there was another one right behind him.
Fiona watched with a sickening feeling of mounting hope and she tried to push it away.
No, it’s a trick. We can’t win. We can’t get away!
The gunshots came one after another now, boom-boom-boom like a repeating rifle. It wasn’t until Fiona watched Margo jerk rudely as if pantomiming a grand mal seizure that she realized the shots weren’t coming from Margo’s gun.
Margo fell onto her face, her body drilled with bullets, as Gavin stepped into the room.
“Gavin…” She spoke so softly that he didn’t hear her.
Nuala rushed out of her cell. “My Damian—”
“He’s okay. Sarah got to him in time,” Gavin said.
Nuala let out a long moan and crumpled to the floor. Her boy Dennis was behind her with a hand on her shoulder and the baby in his arms. Robby sat up, his face streaked with blood.
A gasp of horror made Fiona turn to see Frank kneeling on the floor with Catriona’s body in his arms. Siobhan was crawling toward Fiona.
Fiona scooped her up and knelt to draw Ciara into her trembling arms.
The room was filled with cries of relief and cries of grief. Gavin’s voice was deep and questioning under it all. The babies howling was louder than anyone else’s.
Ciara tugged on Fiona’s sweater. “Hungry, Mummy,” she said. “Now, please?”
Fiona stared into the petulant face of her tired and hungry child and bit back the irrational bubble of laughter that threatened to escape.
A sound she was sure would echo unmercifully against the stone walls of a castle dungeon.