from the burning crib, out of the house, and into the street where Mia stands with her arms out. While Wild holds him, she sticks her finger inside the baby’s mouth to clear his throat, pulling out a piece of wet wallpaper, a piece of plaster. The baby cries. He cries so heartily, he drowns out the wailing siren.
When the mother hears that sound, she calms down, stops being frantic and lies silently, watching Julian and Duncan struggle to move the wardrobe. “His name is Michael,” she says to them.
“We’ll get you out,” Duncan says. “You can call him by his name yourself.”
What’s left of the house is crackling, the fragile frame turning to tinder.
“Get out of there!” Wild calls from the street. “Get out! Duncan! Julian!” He points to the quivering roof.
“Let’s try one more time, Dunk,” Julian says. “You lift the cabinet just a few inches, and I’ll try to drag her out.” With a grunt, red from exertion, Duncan raises the wardrobe. Julian grabs the woman under her arms. He is able to move her half a foot. She is stuck somewhere he can’t see. “Just a little more,” Julian says. “You’re doing great.” He pulls the woman halfway out. “Almost there.”
From behind him, he hears both Mia and Wild scream. “Julian!” screams Shae. “Watch out!” A flaming crossbeam breaks and falls. It lands on top of Duncan and splits in two. It hits Julian across the shoulders and the woman across the face.
The woman stops moving. Duncan stops moving.
Wild is next to them. “Jules, can you get up? Dunk, can you get up?” Duncan can’t. He is breathing, but can’t stand up. One of Julian’s shoulders is dislocated. Wild helps him to his feet. With barely two working arms between them, he and Wild grab Duncan and drag him over the burning rubble into the street, and lay him down on the pavement next to Mia who’s trying to soothe the crying child in her arms. Now that she’s cleared the boy’s air pipe, he turns out to have quite a set of lungs on him. Wild takes the boy from her. He even lifts his stump to steady him. “Why are you shrieking, kid?” he says. “What do you have to worry about? Look around you. Shh.”
Mia is on the ground, touching Duncan’s face. “You okay, Dunk? What hurts?”
“Nothing,” he says. “But I can’t move my legs.”
The all clear sounds. The fire truck arrives. So does the HMU.
It’s obvious to everyone that Duncan requires the hospital, everyone, that is, except Duncan. He cannot feel his lower body. “What’s wrong with my legs?” he keeps asking. “Have they fallen asleep? Why can’t I feel them? Did I break my back? Fuck, tell me I didn’t break my back. Where is Shona? Shona! Tell me I didn’t break my back . . .”
No one wants to remind Duncan that Shona lost her leg and is in the dreaded hospital. Duncan keeps trying to grab the hem of Wild’s coat. “Wild, tell them to take me to Fixed Unit. I’ll be fine, but don’t let them take me to the hospital. Please, Wild, don’t let them take me to the hospital.”
“I’ll go with you,” Wild says, still holding the child. He explains to the new doctor how Duncan feels about hospitals.
“Where did you get the kid from?” the doctor asks Wild. “Did you pull him out of the fire?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s his family?”
Mia tells the doctor the boy was the son of the woman in the burning house, but they couldn’t get her out. And the other woman, perhaps her sister, is also dead.
“So he’s an orphan? There’s a whole procedure for orphaned children,” the doctor says, reaching for the baby. “Give it here. We keep them at the hospital until either a member of the family comes forward, or we find a placement. The orphanage is on the fourth floor of Royal London. Lots like him there.”
Instead of handing the baby over, Wild asks the doctor to look at Julian’s shoulder. Julian is in considerable pain, and in the havoc only Wild sees it. The shoulder needs to be reset. While Julian bites down on Mia’s scarf, the doctor yanks his arm back into joint. Julian doesn’t know how he doesn’t pass out. He feels better, but not much.
“Chaps, I’m going to ride to Royal London with Duncan,” Wild tells Julian and Mia. “Dunk needs me, and I might as well get this thing to the fourth floor, like