and steadied and Dom was already invisible.
‘Ring emergency services,’ he snapped from the gloom. ‘Get Nathan outside, and the dog. I need to find Martin.’
He was gone.
She staggered down the stairs again, carrying Nathan. He had his arms round her neck, holding on as if his life depended on it, sobbing with fear. As she hit the flat surface of hall she staggered a little with the weight of him, and he clung tighter still.
She groped for the phone-she had a clear idea where it was now, which was just as well as the smoke was so thick she’d never have found it by sight.
‘Fire,’ she snapped into the phone without waiting to hear the operator ask leading questions. She gave ten seconds of curt directions. ‘Repeat it,’ she ordered, with the same efficiency she used with interns when she had to make sure they understood in an emergency.
Marilyn was whining, agitated, in the kitchen. Erin shoved open the door; the dog pushed her nose against her leg and then headed back to her pups.
‘We need to get us safe,’ she said to Nathan, trying to figure what to do next. Somewhere upstairs were Dom and Martin, but by the way Nathan was clinging and sobbing she knew he wouldn’t let her go. ‘I’ll take you onto the veranda.’
‘No,’ Nathan whimpered, but there was no time for sympathy. She should take Nathan outside, leave him, then go to help Dom, but she knew he’d come back in after her.
And Marilyn was clearly a dog in panic.
Okay. She had to let Dom take care of Martin as best he could until she had Nathan safe. The only way to get Nathan safe was to anchor him.
Anchor him to Marilyn. Anchor Marilyn with the puppies.
She bent over the pups, setting Nathan firmly on the floor beside her. ‘Nathan, hold my shirt and don’t let go,’ she snapped before he could clutch her round the neck again. ‘Don’t move away from me. I’m picking up the puppies.’
She tugged Marilyn away from the pups, and before Marilyn could react she gathered pups-bed included-against her. She now had an armload of blanket and pups, a little boy clutching her shirt and Marilyn making a Herculean effort to jump up and get to her babies.
And there was smoke. She was struggling to breathe without gagging. She wanted to hold her shirt over her mouth but she had no hands left.
‘Let’s go,’ she muttered, and headed out the door. In seconds she was out on the front veranda, with Nathan towed behind her and Marilyn leaping anxiously about her feet.
The relief to find herself outside was almost overwhelming. She kept going, over the grass, well away from the front door. Near the gate she allowed herself to pause.
‘Dom, Dom, Dom,’ she found herself saying, swinging round to face the house and hoping against hope he was following.
The lights in the upstairs windows flickered and went out. The power was gone.
At least she couldn’t see flames. There was an almost full moon in a cloudless sky and the house was a great, unlit shape.
No flames.
‘You need to stay here,’ she told Nathan, and he whimpered and clung, but she put him away from her, mustering strength before she started to speak. If she sounded scared there was no use expecting courage from him.
She laid the puppies on the ground by the gate. Marilyn whined her distress and started doing a maternal tongue count.
‘I have to help Dom bring Martin out,’ she said to Nathan, keeping her voice flat, inflexionless, like this was a completely normal scenario. ‘But Marilyn has to stay here. Can you put your hand in her collar and not let her move until I get back?’ She tucked his hand under the dog’s frayed collar. ‘Promise you won’t let her go? She might still think there’s a puppy inside and run in after me. It’s too smoky inside to be safe.’
‘You’ll come back?’
‘Of course I’ll come back.’ She gave him a swift, hard hug. ‘With Dom and Martin. But you’re in charge of Marilyn and puppies. Can I trust you?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘You’re great, Nathe,’ she said.
‘Erin…’
‘Mmm.’
‘Will you save the Easter eggs, too?’
The smoke had increased so much it was terrifying. It was a thick, flat wall, oozing out the door, stinking, grit- filled and dreadful.
She got three feet inside the front door and backed out. She’d make it maybe ten feet without a plan. If that.
Plan. Right. Like wait until the fire brigade arrive and men in uniform take over?
Not an option.
She leant on the wall of the front veranda and took three, four, lungfuls of cleanish air and then decided what were lungs if not to be used.
‘Dom!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.
Nothing. He’d hardly be able to scream back if he was in the pall of smoke inside.
So think. Layout of house. She hadn’t been upstairs apart from that one brief foray to get Nathan. She was going to have to feel her way.
She hauled back and checked the upstairs windows again. No orange glow. Lots of smoke. She could contend with that.
The downstairs bathroom was right next to the front door. Head there first and wet towels.
No. Wool would be better. Back into the sitting room. Blankets.
She was back beside her makeshift bed almost before she thought it, grabbing blankets, feeling her way back out into the bathroom, tossing the blankets into the shower, turning on the tap, then getting herself back outside for another couple of lungfuls of air while the blankets soaked.
‘Stay, Nathan,’ she breathed, but there was no time to check he was following directions. She was inside again, hauling sodden blankets out from the shower, draping them over her head, then groping her way along the hall toward the stairs.
Underneath the dripping blankets she could at least breathe, and she managed to call. ‘Dom. Dominic!’
‘Erin!’
The call, ending on a choked cough, had her feeling her way up the stairs again, clinging to the balustrade, blind under her canopy of wet wool.
‘Dom…’
He was on the top step. Crouching as she was. She almost fell as her feet came into contact with his solid presence. A hand came out and caught her ankle.
She was crouched low but now she sank even further, her hands seeking contact.
Her hands met his. Fingers clasping momentarily in the gloom. Registered the wetness.
‘Great forethought, Dr Carmody,’ he managed, the words coming out as a hoarse, choking gasp.
‘I have two.’ She tugged one of the sodden blankets from her shoulders.
He grabbed it. Hauled it over himself. ‘I can’t find him,’ he breathed. ‘There’s only Tansy’s room left. Stay here.’
‘I’m coming.’
‘Don’t be stupid. But stay here unless it gets so bad you can’t breathe at all. I might need help carrying…’
He didn’t waste further breath. He was gone.
Leaving her to wait. And wait.
Maybe it was only seconds but it was the longest wait of her life. Crouched at the head of the stairs. Not knowing the layout of the house. Knowing if she moved, Dom might well end up hunting for her.
