I’ve stepped inside and it’s done.
I’ve crossed that line.
The smell of something like cedar and fabric softener meets my nostrils and I don’t hang back to think about what I’m doing. If it’s another false alarm, I probably don’t have much time. And if it’s Mara, well, that would present a whole other set of problems.
The wardrobe contains a lot of black clothes and scuffed boots. The mirror on the back of the door has a faded sticker of a rock band.
Where are the pagan stick figures and sacrificial knives? I thump the wall at the back of the wardrobe, but there’s no hidden alcove. I tug the carpet up in the corner, but the floorboards are firm, revealing no cubbyhole.
This isn’t right. I don’t have much time; she could come back any moment and I’ve still not found anything. Sweat breaks out over my top lip and I frantically cross the room again and again, crouching to peer under the bed, then peering behind the bookcase.
Nothing. Not a thing.
I scan the books and they don’t help. Some detective novels, more self-help trash, a copy of Winnie-the-Pooh.
One stands out from the rest, though. There’s no title on the spine and I realise it’s a photo album. I slide it free and flip the cover.
I stare at a miniature version of me. I’m maybe seven years old, scowling at a boy on a swing. We’re in a park and I’m unaware there’s a camera on me.
‘What the–’
Did Celene take this?
I flip the pages and they’re all the same. Me outside school aged fourteen. Me walking somewhere, Troll hopping along next to me. Me in a car. Me and Frances at the supermarket.
Me me me.
How did she get these? How the hell did she get them?
I can’t believe what I’m looking at. It’s a portal into my past, but through somebody else’s eyes. Celene said she searched for me after she abandoned me in Enfield, but according to these photos, she found me a long time ago. Has she followed me all this time? Has she been shadowing me my whole life?
The irony of that isn’t lost on me.
At the back of the album, there are newspaper clippings.
MAN DIES IN FREAK ACCIDENT.
It’s the story about Mr Carmichael, who sliced open his own throat with a malfunctioning power tool.
TEEN DIES IN FREAK SCRAP YARD ACCIDENT.
Troll.
CHARITY WORKER DEATH ROCKS COMMUNITY.
Frances.
They’re all here. Everybody I’ve killed. Collated and preserved.
Did she want me to find this?
She sent me back to the cabin alone. She knew I could do anything I wanted without her supervising. Did she expect me to snoop around and find her little book of the dead?
I want to tear my hair out. The constant doubt is splitting me right down the middle, cracking open my ribcage and dragging my guts across the floor. Any more of this and I’ll lose my mind.
Gunfire rattles outside the window and I snap the album shut. I edge over to the window and peer out into the woods at the back of the camp. Dark shapes dart between the trees. I can’t tell if they’re Celene’s fighters or Mara’s. I don’t know which is worse.
Whiteness flares and the window smashes into lethal shards.
I drop to the floor, pressing myself flat.
Across the room, the closet doors are shredded by gunfire.
A low whooshing sound is accompanied by orange light and a flaming object sails through the window. Even as I look up, the wardrobe catches fire.
Gripping hold of the album, I worm across the floor, straining with the effort. The closet’s ablaze and choking black smoke ripples over the ceiling. Wood spits and pops.
At the door, I heave myself onto the landing. I reach into the room, grabbing the door and swinging it shut.
That should buy me some time.
A terrible thought hits me.
What if Celene’s the one who tried to shoot me through the window?
I know it doesn’t make any sense, not after the way she’s been. And the album. Why does she have the album?
Racing down the landing, I take the stairs two at a time. At the bottom, I crouch low. The windows don’t exactly offer much protection. If somebody’s in the cabin opposite, they’ll be able to see right inside. I’m a sitting duck.
WHUMP.
Another flaming object ricochets into the cabin on the other side of the encampment and it goes up in flames. Within a few seconds, the front door flies open and a burning figure thrashes out, toppling over the railing and flailing out of sight.
I force myself to take slow breaths. Mara’s men have found the camp. Or one of the other factions has. It doesn’t matter who’s attacking, we’re under attack. At least two cabins are ablaze – including this one – and that means soon the entire camp will go up. I need to get out, escape into the woods, hole up somewhere and wait for the siege to pass.
Where’s Celene? And Frank? They could be dead. I’m not sure how that makes me feel, so I don’t think about it. All I know is that if I stay here, I’m dead, too.
Smoke pours down the stairs and I watch as the kitchen ceiling blackens, begins to buckle.
White lights flash outside. There’s the crackle of gunfire. Whoever it is, they’ve made it into the camp.
I can’t go out the front door. They’ll shoot me on sight. Same applies to the windows. Is there a back door? I peer round the banister rail into the kitchen, but there’s no way out.
My mind works quickly the way a trapped animal’s must. It’s growing unbearably hot and the thought of burning alive spurs me on.
Crouching low, I shove the photo album across the floor, into the kitchen. On all fours, I crawl after it and duck into the cupboard under the stairs. Not wasting a moment, I seize one of the backpacks and scan the shelves. Tucked into the back is Celene’s axe. I grab it and peek out into the cabin just in time to see a burning projectile smash through the front door and land on the sofa. It bursts into flames.
‘Great. That’s just great.’
I have even less time than I thought.
Squeezing the bag to my chest, I inch into the kitchen and fumble for the album, shoving it inside and zipping the bag up. Above me, the ceiling sags and crackles as the inferno in Celene’s bedroom spreads like some furious plague.
Hopping onto the sideboard, I throw open the kitchen window and immediately shrink back behind the wall, waiting for the frame to splinter and shudder under an onslaught of bullets. But there’s no gunfire. Whoever was in the woods earlier must have moved on. I peek around the frame.
Still nothing.
Are the odds finally turning?
You’re trapped in a burning building. I’d say the odds are as bad as ever.
It’s now or never.
I edge onto the windowsill, squatting low, digging my nails into the wood – which is made difficult by the fact that I’m still clutching the axe – and not daring to look down. If I look down, I won’t do this, not even with a wall of fire behind me.
The cabin’s on stilts. All I have to do is get my feet on them and I’ll be able to shimmy my way to the ground.
Positioning myself on the outside of the window, I find myself staring back into the cabin. It’s a vision of flames and smoke like velvet. There’s no going back now.
For an insane moment, I think of my bedroom – the one Celene made for me – and it’s like somebody’s skewered my gut with a hook and is tugging it to one side. Come sunrise, my room – the whole camp – will be gone.
The kitchen ceiling collapses.
I cry out as I slip. My heart stops as I’m momentarily airborne, but then I catch hold of the windowsill and my heart’s jerking around in my chest like it’s trying to escape a leash. I dangle there, my legs kicking thin air, my shoulders screaming.
‘Stop being a baby,’ I grunt, and heave my legs up, steadying myself against the side of the cabin with my feet.
I look down.
‘Shit.’
It seems more than thirty feet now I’m dangling from a windowsill but I don’t stop looking down because I’ve spotted the stilts. They criss-cross under the cabin, like the inside of a jack-in-the-box. If I can inch down just a few metres, I’ll be able to slide onto one of the beams and clamber to freedom.
Gritting my teeth, I take the pick axe and slam it into the wood below the kitchen window. Testing it to make sure it’s not going to wobble free, I suck in a few short breaths and then let go of the windowsill.
The axe creaks in the wood as I cling to it with both hands, but it stays firm.
My feet fumble for one of the props supporting the cabin, and for a moment I think I’m still too high up, I’ll never reach it and I’m going to fall and break my neck and that’ll be the end.
Then my feet make contact with something solid.
‘Come on, come on, come on,’ I whisper, easing myself down, splinters needling my palms. Then I’m on the beam and sliding down it, tumbling onto the earthy ground beneath Celene’s home.
I lie on my back for a moment, panting, staring up at the darkness of the cabin’s belly, knowing that at any moment the whole thing will collapse. But not yet.
Finally, I pry myself up.
For somebody who’s spent her whole life counting the ways the universe has screwed her over, I’ve been unbelievably lucky these past few days. Alright, I might have ended up in a pit and hunted by a ruthless mobster, but I’m still going. I’m still alive. That has to count for something, right?
The gunfire has been going on for so long now I’ve grown used to it, but then it abruptly stops, and only the snap of burning wood fills the silence.
I have to move. Getting out of the cabin was one thing. Now I have to get out of the camp. I can only hope that the fighters have all killed each other. At least that way I can just stroll out of this place.
Hands outstretched, I go from beam to beam, heading for the front of the cabin. Then, huddling low to the ground, I scan the area. Not a person in sight. Not a sound other than burning. Plates cracking in the heat. Things falling over as the fire eats away at everything it can fit its teeth around.
Is everybody dead?
This place has been Celene’s home for a decade. I turned up and twenty-four hours later it’s a pile of ash. Celene can deny the curse all she likes, but I know this place is burning because I’m here. For once, I’m glad. The camp’s an abomination. A hiding place for serial killers. They don’t deserve it.
I’m going to have to run for the gates.
If I head into the woods, I’ll get lost. Woods all look the same. At least the gates lead somewhere. The road will take me back to the motorway and then I’ll hitch a ride back to the city.
I count to ten. When there’s still no movement, I crawl out from my hiding place and skirt around the building. Then I hop to the next cabin. Still no sign of life. There are only three cabins between me and the gates. My muscles yell at me to run, but that’s the stupidest thing I could do. I have to move slowly around the camp until I’m at the gates.
I’m about to move to the next cabin when I hear something. Rustling leaves or a breath. My shoulders tense and I strain to hear so hard I’m sure my ears are bleeding.
Somebody grabs my arm and spins me round.
I stare into Celene’s face.
‘You got out,’ she pants, relief in her voice.
I nod. ‘We have to get out of here.’
‘The cars.’ I remember the jeeps parked outside headquarters and kick myself for not thinking of them earlier. Stealing a car is a much better plan than heading out onto the road unarmed.
She pushes me to one side and surveys the camp.
‘We should–’ she begins, but I see movement before she does.
There’s the angry clap of a bullet firing, and then we’re both on the ground.
Dazed, my ears ringing, I try to figure out what just happened.
Celene’s back up in an instant, aiming her gun at a figure on the other side of the camp. She fires and the man goes down in a burst of red. Then she’s looking back at me and she’s wearing an expression I’ve not seen before. Her mouth pushes up on one side and I remember what I did.
I saw the man rise from behind the steps, his gun trained on Celene.
I grabbed her and pulled her out of the line of fire.
I saved her.