be with Rob, no question. Did it matter if she died? Not much. But she was gripping her neighbour’s hand and the woman looked almost to term. Two lives depended on her and Rob had told her what he expected.
And she expected it of herself. That one touch and she knew what she was doing couldn’t be questioned.
But by now it was almost impossible to move. She hardly knew where the bunker was. The world was a swirling blast of madness. Trees loomed from nowhere. She could see nothing. How could she be lost in her own front yard?
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She had the woman’s hand in a grip of iron and she kept on going, tugging the woman behind her.
Finally she reached the side of the house. There was no vision left at all now. The last of the light had gone. The world was all heat and smoke and fear.
She touched the house and kept touching as she hauled the woman along behind her. The woman had ceased fighting, but she could feel her heaving sobs. There was nothing she could do about that, though. Her only thought was to get to the rear yard, then keep going without deviation and the bunker would be right there.
But Rob...
Don’t think of Rob.
There was so much smoke. How could they breathe?
And then the bunker was right in front of her groping arm. She’d been here earlier, checked it was clear. She should have left the door open. Now it was all she could do to haul it wide. She had to let Amina go and she was fearful she’d run.
If it was her little boy out there she’d run.
Christopher. Aiden...
Don’t think it. That was the way of madness.
But Amina had obviously made a choice. She was no longer pulling back. Her maternal instincts must be tearing her apart. Her son was in the fire but she had to keep her baby safe. She was trusting in Rob.
Do not think of Rob.
Somehow she managed to haul open the great iron door Rob had built as the entrance to the bunker. The bunker itself was dug into the side of the hill, with reinforced earth on the sides and floor and roof, with one thick door facing the elements and a thinner one inside.
She got the outer door open, shoving the woman inside, fighting to keep out embers.
She slammed it shut behind her and it felt as if she was condemning Rob to death.
Inside the inner door was designed to keep out heat. She couldn’t shut that. No way. The outer door would have to buckle before she’d consider it. One sheet of iron between Rob and safety was more than she could bear; two was unthinkable.
The woman was sobbing, crumpling downward. There were lamps by the door. She flicked one on, took a deep, clean breath of air that hardly had any smoke in it and took stock.
She was safe here. They were safe.
She wasn’t sure what was driving her, what was stopping her crumbling as well, but she knew what she had to do. The drill. Her dot-points. Rob would laugh at her, say she’d be efficient to the point where she organised her own funeral.
He loved her dot-points.
She allowed herself one tiny sob of fear, then swallowed it and knelt beside the woman, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulders.
‘We’re safe,’ she told her, fighting to keep her voice steady. ‘You and your baby are safe. This place is fireproof. Rob’s designed it so we have ventilation. We have air, water, even food if we need. We can stay here until it’s all over.’
‘D...Danny.’
‘Rob is with Danny,’ she said with a certainty she had to assume. But suddenly it wasn’t assumed. Rob had to be with Danny and Rob had to be safe. Anything else was unthinkable.
‘Rob will have him,’ she whispered. ‘My...my husband will keep him safe.’
* * *
‘Danny! Luka!’ Why was he yelling? Nothing could be heard above the roar of the fire. He could see nothing. To stay out here and search for a child in these conditions was like searching in hot, blasting sludge. A child would be swallowed, as he was being swallowed.
He’d asked for the dog’s name. ‘Luka,’ Amina had told him through sobs. ‘A great big golden retriever my husband bought to keep us safe. Danny loves him.’
So now he added Luka to his yelling. But where in this inferno...?
He stopped and made himself think. The boy had followed the dog. Where would the dog go?
Back to the house, surely. He’d escaped from the car. He’d be terrified. If Danny had managed to follow him...
The heat was burning. He’d shoved a wool cap over his head. Now he pulled it right down over his eyes. He couldn’t see anyway and it stopped the pain as embers hit. He had his hands out, blundering his way to the front door.
At least Julie was safe. It was the one thing that kept him sane, but if there was another tragedy out of this day...
He knew, none better, how close to the edge of sanity Julie had been. He knew how tightly she held herself together. How controlled...
He hadn’t been able to get past that control and in the end he’d had to respect it. He’d had to walk away, to preserve them both.
If he died now maybe Julie’s control would grow even deeper. The barriers could become impenetrable—or maybe the barriers would crumble completely.
Either option was unthinkable.
Last night he’d seen a glimmer of what they’d once had. Only a glimmer; the barriers had been up again this morning. But he’d seen underneath. How vulnerable...
He could go to her now. Save himself.
And sit in the bunker while another child died?
He had his own armour, his own barriers, and they were vulnerable, too. Another child’s death...
‘Danny! Luka!’ He was screaming, and his screams were mixing with the fire.
‘Please...’
* * *
Please.
She said it over and over again. She’d found water bottles. She’d given one to Amina, and watched her slump against the back wall, her face expressionless.
Her face looked dead.
Her face would look like that too, Julie thought. Maybe it had looked like that for four years?
She slumped down on the floor beside her. Fought to make her mind work.
What was safety when others weren’t safe? When Rob was out there?
‘Do
