Hearing the first crackle of flames.
Terror…
And then Dom was there. Magically. Hauling her wet blanket up, pushing a limp body into her arms. Martin.
‘I…I can’t…’ Dom stuttered. ‘I need…a minute. Go. Get him out.’ He was out from under her blanket, leaving Martin behind, and she heard him beside her, choking, lungs desperate for air.
He’d come from the seat of the fire, she thought. If she was struggling to breathe, the fact that Dom had managed to haul the child to her was nothing short of miraculous.
They couldn’t relax yet. Martin was limply unconscious. She hauled him close under her blanket. Smoke was pouring through.
‘Go,’ Dom muttered.
‘You follow,’ she gasped, and as he didn’t move she struck out with her foot, kicking so hard she heard him gasp in pain. ‘You follow or I’m not moving. Don’t you dare give in. Move.’
She could do no more. She was sliding down the stairs, clasping Martin to her, bumping on her backside, afraid to stand, not knowing what was in front or what was behind, not knowing if Dom was able to follow but knowing only she had to get outside before she lost consciousness. How many stairs? She sagged and something hit her in the small of the back.
Dom was behind her. ‘I can take him now,’ he muttered. ‘I’m okay.’
‘Pigs might fly,’ she managed, and focused on the next step.
The knowledge that Dom was right behind her was enough to get her down the last three stairs into the hall. She fell sideways on the last stair, rolled, tugging Martin with her, and kept going, hauling him out through the front door and onto the veranda.
She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t wait for Dom. Even here it wasn’t safe. The smoke was billowing outward, a tunnel of acrid poison. She was blind, still unable to remove her blanket. She shoved herself sideways, away from the door, tugging the dead weight of the child along with her.
One last tug and she was over the side of the veranda, dropping the eighteen inches or so into the flower bed below, out of the path of the smoke, out into clean, clean air…
Martin fell with her. Still. Ominously limp.
‘Oh, Martin…’ She was sobbing with fear and desperation. She tugged him free of the bushes so she could assess clearly what was happening.
She searched for a pulse. It was there…
And suddenly it wasn’t.
One part of her was blinded by panic, horror struck, terrified for Dom as well as for Martin. The rest of her was moving into medical mode. Checking airway, shifting the little boy into a position where she could work.
‘You’re going to live,’ she muttered fiercely. ‘Dom didn’t save you for nothing.’ She pinched his nose, put her mouth over his and breathed until his chest rose.
One breath. Fifteen pumps on his chest. Hard, fierce, determined.
Breathe, damn you, breathe, but she didn’t have the strength to say it. She bent again and breathed hard, filling those small lungs, then shifted to thump again…
‘I’ll do it.’
And miraculously Dom was there, edging her aside so he could work on Martin’s chest. ‘I’ll do CPR,’ he croaked. ‘You keep breathing.’
It was like a gift from heaven. Dom was safe. Dom was with her.
One life safe. One to go. Please.
They had much more chance of succeeding with two of them. She’d have more clear air in her lungs than Dom did, she acknowledged, although surely she must be stronger than he was right now. How could he have the strength to perform CPR?
‘If you’re not risking cracking ribs, you’re not thumping hard enough.’ It had been one of her first lectures.
But Dom was thumping hard enough, strongly and steadily, as if he had all the energy he needed and then some.
Breathe. Thump, thump, thump.
There was a desperate whimper from behind her. Nathan. It was too dark, too smoky, to see, but she could hear his terror.
‘Nathe,’ she managed between breaths. ‘Can you look down the road to see if the fire brigade is coming? Then stay with Marilyn to stop her getting frightened. We’re okay.’
There was a grunt of approval from Dom but there was room for nothing else.
Breathe. Thump, thump, thump. Breathe. Thump, thump…
How was he doing it? The man had almost died himself. For him to give Martin to her at the head of the stairs…she had no doubt he’d been feeling close to the edge himself.
People did extraordinary things under pressure. Stories came back to her…mothers lifting cars off their children. Running when running was otherwise impossible. Life or death-the threat gave superhuman abilities.
The need to perform a miracle…that was what they needed. A miracle. She breathed again, cupping the little boy’s chin, tilting it, pushing the breath down, hoping, hoping…
And then…a tiny gasp. A jerk.
A cough. His eyes fluttered open.
‘Martin,’ Dom said in a voice she didn’t recognise.
‘Dom,’ the little boy faltered, and then he was thickly, splendidly ill.
And suddenly it was over. The threat was past. There was nothing more for her to do. Dom was supporting his foster-son, tugging him in against him, cradling him so he couldn’t choke, soothing, holding, holding.
‘Nathe,’ she called into the dark, and Nathan came flying back to her.
‘Hey,’ she said, and tugged the little boy into her own arms. ‘These two are going to be okay. We’ve rescued each other.’
And then she hugged him so hard she thought she might break one of his ribs and Dom was reaching out to touch her. She hauled herself closer, tugging Nathan close with her and they sat in a huddle of mess and soot and smoke and she thought she’d never felt happier. And when Marilyn appeared through the mists of smoke, signifying her presence by a slurp to the face, she grabbed her, too, and the dog was enveloped in their sandwich squeeze as well.
‘Hey,’ Dom managed in a voice that was full of smoke and fear and the remnants of toxins. ‘We’re all okay. Thanks to our wonderful Erin.’
‘Thanks to all of us,’ she replied, kissing Nathan’s hair. What she really felt like doing right now was kissing Dom but it was hardly appropriate. So she just sat within the circle of eight arms and Marilyn’s tongue and felt fabulous, and then the sirens started in the distance and the cavalry was here.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FIRST came a fire engine, screaming though the dark, screeching to a halt at the front gate, sending floodlights over the scene and disgorging maybe fifteen men and women, all in various states of undress. They were donning uniforms as they climbed from the vehicle, Erin saw from the safety of her under-veranda sanctuary. They’d be local volunteers, roused out of their beds, expecting anything.
‘We’re over here,’ she tried to call, but her voice wasn’t working properly, and then she saw them heading toward the gate and Marilyn’s puppies were right in the way.
‘Go stop them,’ Dom said, and she cast him a look of desperation. Because that was how she felt. Desperate. Her voice didn’t work. She wasn’t sure her legs would work.
‘The boys are safe here with me,’ Dom said. ‘Save the puppies.’
How did he know where the puppies were?
But then she looked out through the smoky haze and Marilyn was making a beeline for the gate and she thought it wouldn’t take much of Dom’s intelligence to figure out that’s where the puppies were.
