Chapter 46
C assie
In darkness, I stumbled, half walking, half being dragged by someone. My head weighed a ton, and my movements were clumsy.
The air tasted strange. I coughed. Choked. Fell to my knees.
An arm curled around my back and lifted me.
“Who are ye?” I managed.
“Friend.” Pain laced his words, the voice familiar.
He supported me a few more steps, bricks or some sort of debris underfoot. The thick taste in the air grew heavier.
“Where are we going?”
“Old coal chute. You’ll fit through it.”
“Ye, too?”
I battled to place his voice, but my head swam again, and I lost touch with reality for another minute, only coming to when a splintering sound reached my semiconscious state. I struggled to stand, faint orange light coming through a hole in the ceiling.
It was nighttime. I’d been unconscious since… When? The hospital?
For fuck’s sake. Someone had knocked me out. Kidnapped me.
“Where am I?”
The man took another swing at the wooden trapdoor, this time dislodging two short planks. It left a gap big enough for escape.
He didn’t answer. “Put your foot in my hands.”
I hesitated. I knew him. I knew exactly who he was. Why wouldn’t my brain supply his name?
Something cracked overhead or outside, and through the hole in the trapdoor, a rain of sparks flew.
Fire. The building was burning. It was smoke infecting my lungs.
“Fucking hell, do it.” He broke out in a coughing fit.
“Only if ye come with me.”
“I won’t fit. I can’t climb either. But I can get you out.” He didn’t wait for a reply, grabbing me by the waist and shoving me upwards with a grunt of distress.
I grasped the edges of the broken wood and pulled myself through, boosted by the man below me. Splinters scratched my skin, but I cleared the hole and crawled to the gravel path, taking deep gasps of the night air.
Blackness overtook me, and I lay on my back on the cold ground. A whomping, beating sound grew louder, and I opened my eyes to an intense red fire scaling the old church building above me. Fear chilled me to the core. I had to get out of here. At the corner to my right, carved rock broke free of the structure and tumbled to the ground, cracking in two. In horror, I gazed up at the bell tower high above me.
Finally, my body obeyed my need to move.
I crawled to the edge of the hole. My saviour had called it a coal chute and said he wouldn’t be able to get out. But the hole looked bigger now, and as I peered inside, there was no one down there.
“Hello?” I choked.
How long had I been unconscious this time? Long enough for him to get out? No answer came from below, but a bellow sounded down the track.
“Cassie!”
Riordan. My heart squeezed. I twisted around. The last thing I saw before his arms surrounded me and lifted me clear was the spire of the church tower crumbling and falling with a shower of fire and stone.