Fire crept up the walls, eating at the roof timbers. Tiles fell and smashed.
‘You just need a reason,’ I told Annalise, my voice high and afraid. ‘A reason to live. Or you won’t make it. You have a baby. Make this baby your reason.’
But Annalise didn’t move. Her breathing was barely there now, and she didn’t flinch as tiles dropped.
It’s something no one ever prepares you for, hearing another human being take their last breath. Shallow breathing became stop, start, and then nothing at all.
‘Annalise?’ I knelt beside her, my warm forehead to her cold one, trying to put life back into her.
Baby Reign had fallen asleep by then, into a blissful other-world. A place nobody could hurt her.
‘You have a reason to live,’ I whispered, tears falling. ‘You can’t give up.’
But it was too late. She was dead.
Baby Reign started crying and I pulled myself together.
‘You’ll be my reason to live, then,’ I told her, my own tears falling on hers. ‘Okay?’
The space around the metal front door was burning, blackened and warped and white-hot with thick, black smoke billowing in around the frame.
More hot tiles smashed to the floor.
I put a screaming Reign down on the damp mattress and looked around the burning building. Hope dwindled, but hope had dwindled before and I’d pulled through. And I decided, just as I had on the hospital bed, that I was going to survive. Not to see some make-believe pop idol this time around, but to protect this baby from her father.
As I prayed, the rain started – soft at first, then hard and heavy, pummelling the roof, falling through holes and steaming on the cement floor.
There were still flames everywhere, but the wooden frame around the metal door had turned black and charcoal-like. I hurled my body into the heat. The pain did not scare me. Nor did the choking, chemical smoke. My body had been washed with chemicals before.
I didn’t think the door would give way, but it did, exploding in sparks and wood splinters. Air rushed into the cottage, and with it fire, eating away at the walls. The doorway was an angry, burning ring, raging and tearing.
I took one last look at Annalise’s stiff, dead body. Then I picked up the baby and walked right through that burning doorway into cool, dark woods.
For a stupid moment I just stood, staring at the burning cottage. The roof was ablaze and tiles were falling. Then the roof collapsed and I ran through the woods. Reign bobbed in my arms.
Finally, I made it to the gate and hit the release mechanism. The gates opened slowly, whirring like screams in the silent night, but eventually they were wide enough and I slid through the growing gap and onto the lane outside.
It was a long way to the main road. About a mile down a straight, tree-lined path. Street lights twinkled up ahead like stars. There were big, swaying fir trees either side.
I began to half walk, half run down the path, the baby bundle held close to my chest, eyes fixed on those twinkling lights.
Then I heard it. The roar of a quad bike.
I began to jog, taking hasty glances over my shoulder.
Warm, distant headlights flickered in the woods, then appeared on the path behind me, a long way behind but gaining ground all the time, lighting up the bumpy road.
I knew I couldn’t outrun the bike. Any moment, Michael would screech up behind me, shoot me and take the baby. Or maybe shoot both of us.
I carried on running.
‘Lorna!’ called a voice. ‘Lorna!’
It sounded like Dee’s voice. My sister. But of course, it wasn’t really Dee. I was hallucinating. Or I was sleeping. This was a nightmare, after all.
But the shape got bigger and bigger and I saw it really was Dee, coming down the lane towards me.
‘DEE!’ I screeched the word and baby Reign gave a start and began to cry.
‘Lorna.’ Dee reached me, drawing in great lungfuls of air. ‘I saw the fire. I’ve been waiting … wait. What are you holding?’
‘A baby.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘It’s Michael’s.’
The quad bike headlights flowed behind us like waves.
‘Let’s get in the car, Lorna,’ said Dee.
‘What car?’
‘My car. It’s parked right over there.’ Dee pulled me to a dark blue car parked by the side of the lane.
‘How are you even here?’ I asked, taking a horrified glance down the lane at Michael’s approaching quad bike. ‘And you have a car. How?’
‘I told you I’d be waiting. Get in.’
We climbed into Dee’s car and I pulled the passenger door closed.
‘You have a baby,’ said Dee matter-of-factly.
I clicked the car lock down just as Michael’s quad bike roared up beside us. I saw him through the car window: his pale, dead-eyed face turned to us, more furious than I’d ever seen him.
I heard his scream through the glass: ‘GIVE HER TO ME.’
‘Drive, Dee,’ I shouted.
‘Lorna, if you have his child—’
‘Please. Please trust me. I’ll explain later.’
Michael’s fists pounded on the window.
I clutched Reign. ‘Drive, Dee, drive. Please. PLEASE!’
‘Okay.’ Dee nodded. ‘Okay.’ Dee put the car into gear and we screeched away towards the main road.
I didn’t look back. When we pulled out of Michael’s lane, Dee revved the accelerator and we raced into dark, early-morning countryside. Eventually, I started noticing the world around me and the quaint little village name signs. Huntingdon. Abbey Fields. Taunton Wood. And there were trees, too. A sunrise.
‘So what’s going on?’ said Dee, glancing at the sleeping bundle in my arms. ‘You have Michael’s baby. You’re a baby thief. Have you lost your mind?’
‘This was Michael’s baby,’ I said, kissing Reign’s head. ‘But she’s mine now.’
Dee sucked at her cheeks. ‘Okay. Let’s figure this out. We’ll take the baby to a hospital or a doctor or … I don’t know, some safe space. And then have someone tell Diane to come get her. And we have to do it now, Lorna. Diane must be going out of her mind—’
‘Diane isn’t the mother,’ I said. ‘The mother is dead. Michael shot her.’
Dee swallowed. ‘Lorna – what the hell are you talking about?’
‘Cat Cannon’s fifteen-year-old daughter is this baby’s mother. She gave birth out in the woods. And then she bled to death.’
‘I saw a fire,’ says Dee.
I started crying. ‘Annalise was in that fire. I had to leave her. She died before I could get her out.’
‘Oh my God.’ Dee gripped the steering wheel. ‘If this is true, you have to go to the police.’
‘No. No way.’
‘Why not?’
‘You think anyone will believe that Saint Michael Reyji Ray shot someone? That he kept a teenager in some makeshift prison cottage in the woods, where she gave birth to his child? I know him, Dee. He’ll talk his way out of it. And the police will make me give this baby back. No one will believe me. Who am I? Just some crazy American groupie.’
‘Well, what are we going to do about the baby?’
I clutched at Reign, my arms like steel cable. ‘I’m gonna take care of her.’
‘You?’
‘Me.’
‘How’s that going to work?’
‘I’m going to hide. Somewhere clever. Somewhere he won’t find us. I’ll say she’s mine. That I gave birth to her. No one in this country has seen my medical records. They don’t know I can’t have children.’
‘Don’t you think … I mean, shouldn’t you give the baby to the authorities and let them …’
‘Let them what? Give the baby back to Michael?’
We drove for a long time. I could have stayed in Dee’s car forever, that day. It felt safe, but the world outside … oh so scary.
‘Why were you waiting in the lane tonight?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been waiting for months,’ said Dee. ‘I wasn’t going to leave you.’
‘You’ve been parked on Michael’s lane for months?’
‘Every night. I sleep out here. I’m practically an expat now.’
‘You’ve been waiting this whole time?’
‘Of course. You’re my little sister. I’d do anything for you.’
I stared out of the windscreen, smiling.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘I had the real thing this whole time. While I was chasing after illusions of love in thin air.’
‘It’s not your fault. Michael’s a lot older than you. He took advantage.’
I gave a weird laugh. ‘Michael will try and ruin me now. He’ll make me out to be crazy.’
‘He already has.’
‘What?’
‘The press. I guess you haven’t seen the stories … you’ve been stuck in a Michael bubble. Well, according to the papers you’re a crazy stalker groupie. Michael’s PR team must be doing damage limitation. Or Michael’s trying to convince his wife that you’re nothing to him. There are articles about you, the unhinged cancer survivor, stalking Michael and his wife.’
‘He’s such a liar.’ I hold the baby tight. ‘He won’t mess with this baby’s mind, like he does everyone else. No way.’
It was spring, I realized. A time of rebirth. The leaves never looked so green.