It turned out I was right — being shot multiple times doesn't really hurt. It's like being punched by someone wearing boxing gloves; you feel the impact in your torso but there's no pain, just a sudden pressure and shocking push backwards as you absorb the momentum of the bullet as it spins into your flesh, tearing and ripping and smashing its way through you.
I hit the tiles hard and slid forward on a tide of my own blood.
All I could hear was gunfire and screaming.
And then, as silence fell inside my head, Mac whispered one word, clear and calm.
'Gotcha.'
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I hear the volley of gunfire and the sudden change from yelling to screaming as I pass the threshold of the Lords.
Ahead of me I can see the mass of children pouring past the Queen's chair, waving their weapons in a frenzy. Suddenly the tide turns and they back away and turn to run towards us. The children at the back are taken by surprise and some fall to the ground to be trampled by the mass panic that sweeps over them.
I try to wave them down, to get them to stop and regroup, but they're like a herd of panicked cattle — unthinking and unstoppable. Wilkes pushes me hard, flinging me onto the front bench, saving me from being trampled in the rush.
When the stampede has passed, I pull myself off the bench and see Wilkes picking himself up across from me. We can hear the commotion of the retreating mob behind us, and the groans of the injured and dying ahead.
'Put that bloody knife away and pick up a real weapon,' I hiss at Wilkes, annoyed by his sword. He nods reluctantly and pulls a handgun from his pocket with his left hand, although he keeps the sword raised in his right. We advance either side of the throne into the corridor beyond.
The long, wide room is strewn with bodies. The air is thick with smoke so it's hard to make out the far end, where Cooper and his men must be. The light is streaming through the windows behind them, casting their shadows into the smoke, making them seem ghostly.
I turn to Wilkes.
'Find someone, anyone, and go around. Get behind them.'
But before he can move there is a cry from the far end and the sounds of a struggle. The shadows dance and writhe in the smoke, there is a brief burst of gunfire, then footsteps on the tiled floor as someone comes running towards us.
'Stay right there!' I yell. The running man stops dead as the smoke begins to clear.
As the scene fades into view I first make out Cooper, standing about a third of the way to us, holding a handgun. He stares at me and snarls, a cornered animal. Then behind him I gradually make out four of his men, kneeling with their fingers laced behind their heads. Standing behind and above them are Green, Jack, Jools and some of the other women from the Lords, who have managed to outflank them.
'You're trapped, Cooper,' I say, sighting my gun carefully on his chest. 'There's nowhere for you to run. Your army's defeated, your prisoners are freed, your Palace is on fire.'
He looks left and right desperately, searching for an escape route, but there is nothing. Then he looks down at his feet, at the dead and dying, and he barks a short, humourless laugh.
Quick as a flash he drops to the floor and grabs one of the shot children, dragging them to him and then pulling the body to the side wall.
I nearly scream as I realise that the bloody mess he's dragging is Lee.
My knees give way and I crash to the floor as I cry out. It sounds like someone else. Surely that scream of anguish can't have come from me?
In a moment Cooper is sitting with his back to the wall, legs wide, with Lee slumped back against his chest as a human shield.
My breath comes in short, ragged gasps and I try to focus through my tears. Lee is still breathing, I can tell that, but he's been shot multiple times, across the chest and abdomen. He is literally soaked in blood from head to toe.
His head lolls back against Cooper's chest and his eyes open, rolling wildly, confused and in shock.
Cooper brings his gun up, presses it against Lee's temple, and stares at me over my dying lover's shoulder.
'He's still alive, Kate,' he says, no longer shouting.'There's a chance you could save him. Get him to St Thomas's quickly and you never know.'
Lee's eyes focus on me and his face forms a question. Then he looks down at the forty or so dead and dying children that litter the floor before him and his mouth hangs open.
'What did I do?' he whispers as he surveys the carnage. He looks up at me with eyes clouded by tears and blood. 'Matron, what did I do?'
I hear myself sob. This isn't the resolute warrior Lee has become. He just sounds like a frightened child.
I take a deep breath and force myself to take control. I slowly rise to my feet.
'Okay,' I shout. 'If you let him go, I promise you can walk out of here.'
'Like fuck he can!' It's Jools, shouting from the far room, bringing her gun to bear on Cooper. 'That rat bastard is mine.'
'Julia, darling,' says Cooper. 'I didn't know you cared.'
He takes the gun away from Lee's head for an instant and fires a single shot towards the far room. The gun is back at Lee's temple before Jools' lifeless corpse hits the ground. Jack cries out in alarm. There are shouts and screams both ahead and behind me.
Lee's looking left and right, starting to focus, starting to get a sense of his situation.
His eyes focus on the far wall and he seems to study the painting that dominates it. I glance right to see what he's looking at and realise it's a huge representation of the death of Nelson, who lies cradled in Hardy's arms much as Lee lies slumped in Cooper's.
He smiles, and blood bubbles from his lips. Then he turns and looks at me.
For a moment I'm back in Manchester, staring into the eyes of my brother, seeing the realisation of his own death so clear.
Lee mouths words, trying to tell me something, but I can't make out what it is.
I cry out. 'No!'
But his awful sad smile widens.
Then he lifts his right hand, grabs Cooper's gun, still tight against his skull, slips his finger inside the trigger guard and pulls.
There is a single shot.
Then many.
Chapter Thirty
They counted twenty-three dead soldiers, forty-six dead children and three young women in their final sweep of the Palace of Westminster. Plus Lee, of course.
Some of the soldiers' bodies had been horribly mutilated. One had been literally torn apart. Green chose to believe it was the women from the lords who did that, not the children.
He organised teams to recover all of the bodies from the building — all their dead, that is. They left the snatchers to burn, and buried their dead in Parliament Square.
When the mob finally burnt itself out they gathered in the road outside, dazed by what they'd done, slowly coming down like clubbers after a great night out. Green addressed the crowd, telling them about the school,
