Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,106

hands to her mouth.

“Elodie! Look!” Niall was pointing at something pale moving carefully out of one of the far windows. They ran closer. It was a white hand, clutching the broken glass.

“I’m coming!” called Niall. He grabbed the fingers, holding them firmly as they groped along the glass. It was a woman’s hand. Sarah’s? Winter’s? He couldn’t make it out. Another hand appeared, and a pair of bleeding arms, and finally, a silvery head covered in ashes.

It was Winter, her hair blackened and singed, her skin red raw where the flames had burnt her.

“Niall?”

“I’m here. I’m here. Come on.” Niall helped her up and out, not caring about whether he cut his own arms or not.

Winter staggered free and lay down on the grass, panting and coughing up black blood.

“Thank God,” murmured Elodie. But she couldn’t rest. “Sean! Sarah!” she kept calling, to no avail.

Once he was sure that Winter’s breathing was steady and that she could stand – and run if need be – Niall joined Elodie once more, as close to the house as they could get in the face of the scorching heat. They called frantically. No reply. Just licks of blue flame darting out of the windows.

“They’re gone. Sean and Sarah are gone,” Niall whispered in disbelief. He pushed his hands through his filthy hair and turned away.

Mike. Sean. Sarah. Nicholas.

Dead.

Niall felt a wave of despair sweep him. It was all over.

Elodie appeared by his side and took his hand. Instinctively, he took her in his arms, gesturing to Winter to join them. The three of them stood close together, clinging to each other, watching the house being reduced to ash and rubble.

And then there was the sound of shattering glass and, in disbelief, they watched as two blackened shapes threw themselves out of the farthest window, followed by hungry blue tongues of flame. They lay on the ground a few yards from the house, skin cut, eyes weeping, coughing, heaving, snatching ragged, short, painful breaths. But alive.

It was Sean and Sarah.

As soon as she could draw enough breath to speak, Sarah tried to scramble to her feet. “Nicholas!” she screamed. “Nicholas is still inside!”

“There’s nothing we can do!” Sean restrained her, but she struggled to be let go until he encircled her in his arms, pinning her to him, refusing to let her re-enter the building. Finally she stopped struggling and turned away, weeping with frustration.

And then she saw the body.

One of them hadn’t made it.

Sean walked over and knelt, taking in the frozen, livid features of his friend. Mike, lying terribly, terribly still, his body broken and his soul gone. Sean whispered his name over and over, louder with each call, and then he screamed, all his fury pouring into the terrible sound.

Sean’s cry of rage was joined by sounds of sadness from the others as they all began to take in the enormity of what had happened. And as they stood there, a million little flakes started falling on and around them all, resting delicately on their stricken faces and their bloodied hands. They stood there, in shock, the heat of the burning house coming against the frozen December air.

And then, as the fire in the house consumed itself, as the snow kept falling, a black figure appeared silhouetted against the white sky – black hair, black face, eyes crazed with pain.

“Nicholas!” cried Sarah. She ran to him and held him, but he was too heavy. They fell together on the grass. “You’re alive!”

“I can’t die in fire,” whispered Nicholas through parched, charred lips. “Because I. Am. Fire,” he added slowly, as if to remind himself of his identity. He fell supine on the slowly growing mantle of snow.

Sarah bent over him and touched his face, his hair, feeling his features with her fingers and sweeping the ash from his skin. Something was wrong, she knew it. Something was very wrong, and it would never be right again.

Nicholas kept blinking, his eyes streaming from the ash and the smoke, but he wasn’t focusing. His eyes were sweeping all around, darting towards the sky, the ground, not quite resting anywhere or on anything. Sarah’s heart missed a beat.

She looked into his eyes, and that’s when she realized what had happened to him.

Nicholas was blind.

56

Like a River to the Sea

The last words I said to you

Weren’t even words at all

Sean

He was the best Gamekeeper I knew. But before being a Gamekeeper, he was my friend. Mike had sacrificed everything for our mission, as if he’d