The fire must have reached the generator in the mansion’s west wing because my conversation with Stacey is interrupted by a gigantic explosion. Part of the building’s façade, away to my right, is blasted apart and although we’re not hit by any debris, the force of it knocks us both off our feet.
We land on the ground, on our backs. I glance to my left. Stacey eyes me like the whole thing is somehow my fault. Which you could argue it is. But she doesn’t absolutely know that.
I give a defiant shrug. ‘I only popped over to borrow the lawnmower.’
She laughs for a second, but stops when I wince. The blood is pumping out of me fast. Maybe the adrenaline is starting to wear off, but I suddenly feel nauseous and feeble.
Stacey says, ‘We need to get you help . . .’ and a lot of other words I don’t hear. It’s as though someone has turned the world’s volume right down to zero.
I see the house engulfed by flames. Firefighters running towards us and suddenly—
Stacey’s face, worried and intense. She’s mouthing something. My name? A command? A question?
I start to tell her, ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine,’ but feel myself passing out before I can reach the end of the sentence. I sense myself sinking into the ground and realise that, given the remote location of Paige’s estate, there’s every chance I’ll have bled to death before medical assistance can reach me.
The world is still silent, but Stacey is directly above me. I think she’s tending to my wound, but even that’s stopped hurting. Small mercies, you could call it. I see her look up at my face, and she’s shouting something in my direction. She’s also weeping.
My head falls back and the sunlight dazzles me. Before I slide into unconsciousness, two things occur to me.
I didn’t think firefighters wept, and it’s far too nice a day to die.
Smoke drifts across the sun.