Never Never (26 page)

“
T
hey've got him
!” Nuala said, shaking her head in horror as tears coursed down her cheeks. “Somebody has to do something! That bitch Saoirse! She blamed Damian for why she was thrown out of the castle! Sarah! We need to do something!
She has Damian
!”

Helplessly, Sarah watched Nuala. All the babies were crying now, Siobhan included, and most of the women too.

They have Damian. They're going to kill Mike and Gavin. They're going to kill all of us. The babies, the men, all of us…

“Sarah, do you hear me?” Nuala screamed. “
Do
something!”

Damian is her dearest boy, just like John is mine. She's out of her mind with fear for him. Of course she is.

Sarah looked at Siobhan.
She's in my arms but she's in just as much danger as Damian. In the end, her turn will come too.

Sarah turned away as others tried to soothe Nuala, tried to tell her it would be all right, tried to assure her that Damian would be all right. Sarah walked over and looked out the window. She could see ocean and gray sky.

Just yesterday she and Nuala had taken the children to the beach to find sand dollars and run in the sand. She'd stared across the sea and tried to imagine what part of Newfoundland or Canada they were parallel to—silly daydreaming with children's laughter and voices in the background.

Now she leaned into the window and peered over the edge. Eighty or ninety feet below there was nothing but large jagged rocks. Hopeless. She tried to focus on the ocean and to will herself mentally to leave this hellhole. But she couldn't. The ocean's roar wasn't loud enough to drown out the cries of despair that surrounded her.

As she watched the gray and green ocean under the dark Irish clouds, the sight of the ever moving waves could not blot out the image—or the moment—when Shaun had aimed his gun at Siobhan's back as Sarah held her. Sarah thought of that moment, and was surprised to realize that all her anxieties and fears—all the ones she'd harbored for so many months—all her anxieties about what
might
happen just got trumped by a single promise from Shaun of what was
going
to happen.

As she stood and looked out the window, a heavy pressure began to slowly lift from her shoulders when she realized her worry about what was coming wasn't going to stop it. Not one bit.

It was coming.

Her lungs expanded as she took in and let out a long breath. It was the first real breath she'd taken in months and she felt the tension ease from her mind as it gathered and coiled in her shoulders.

One way or another, it's over
.
Either we all die—Siobhan and Mike and all of us—or we don't. And fearing it or hiding from it won't affect what happens now.

There was a relief in that.

Sarah looked out the window again and down. There was a narrow crumbling ledge barely four inches wide situated five feet below the windowsill. She craned her head out the window but couldn't see how far the shelf went around the exterior castle wall.

She wouldn't know that until she was on it.

The minute the thought came to her, she realized she'd known all along what she had to do. She turned and handed Siobhan to Catriona.

“Be a good girl for Mommy, okay, sweetie?” Sarah said, her voice shaky as she kicked off her shoes and shrugged out of her jacket.

“What are you doing?” Catriona said. “You can't seriously be thinking of going out there.”

Terry came to the bars that adjoined their cell.

“Sarah, don't be daft. You heard what that hag said. You'll kill yourself.”

“It's true,” Frank said. “You can't get down from here.”

“I'm not trying to get down,” Sarah said as she peeled off her socks. “Tommy, there's another window twenty feet to my right, isn't there? Just like on the other side of the castle? What is that room?”

“I…I'm not sure…”

“Think!”

“A store room maybe or more dungeons.”

“Sarah, you can't. You'll fall,” Catriona said weakly.

“If you have a better idea I'd love to hear it,” Sarah said. She walked over to Fiona and knelt down. “Be brave, Fi,” she whispered. “Take strength from Declan. You know he's near.” She kissed Ciara and stood up and nodded grimly at both Frank and Catriona as they gaped at her.

“And meanwhile, just in case I do fall, I need you to be thinking of a Plan B.”

Then Sarah kissed her baby and climbed out the window.

F
iona blinked
in astonishment as Sarah crawled out the cell window and dropped out of view.

Is she mental? Has she finally gone round the bend?

Nuala's screaming was hysterical now and Fiona could see that Robby was holding Nuala's baby and patting Dennis on the shoulder while Nuala pounded the cell bars.

“What did Sarah say?” Nuala screamed. “Where is she? What's happening?”

“Plan B!” Frank shouted to her and everyone else in the cages. “She said to come up with a Plan B!”

“Where's Mike?” Nuala screamed. “He and Gavin aren't here! They'll rescue us!”

Fiona realized she'd been thinking the same thing. Her brother wouldn't let this happen. Mike would sort this out.

But Frank shook his head.

“What do you know?” she asked Frank. He turned to look at her and hesitated.

“Don't tell her, Frank,” Catriona said. “There's no point.”

“Don't tell me what?” Fiona said. But she didn't want to know. A part of her prayed he would listen to Catriona and not tell her.

“They're waiting for Mike and Gavin once we're all in here. They intend to kill them as soon as they come back into the castle.”

Fiona felt as if she'd been punched in the stomach. Mike was out there, hunting for food, enjoying the day, and laughing and talking with Gavin. He was unaware that he was walking back into a death trap.

Nuala's howls crested and bounced off the stone walls until only her wails of agony filled the room.

Plan B she say
s
as she hops out the window like she's going to the market for milk.

Like she wasn't going to her death as sure as summer follows spring.

Which any sane person knew she was
.

Fiona stared out the window, her eyes filling with tears.

That was just so Sarah.

S
arah's adrenalin
took her as far as getting out the window. She hung from the windowsill by her fingertips, knowing the ledge was just inches from her feet—and let go. As she gripped the lip of the window and steadied herself on the ledge, she realized she didn't have too much more of that kind of nerve in her.

She took a full moment to steady herself on the ledge, her stomach and chest pressed to the castle wall and her fingers gripping into small crevices in the rock face.

Don't look down. Don't look down.

She pressed the side of her face against the wall, and while planting her left foot took a tiny tentative step forward with her right, then stopped. She felt solidly centered, although a sparrow or crow could easily unbalance her—and God knows a sneeze—if she didn't think too much about the rocks below, or the cold, the wind, and the sounds of Nuala's screaming still audible through the window—she would be okay. From her vantage point she could now see the ledge curved along the castle rock face to where it continued beneath another window twenty feet away.

Twenty feet. That's all. I can make that.
She crept along with several more tentative, short sliding steps. Slowly. Inches at a time. Forcing herself not to think about anything. Not to think of Siobhan or John or Mike—somewhere out there—
had he come back yet
? Had Shaun already killed him?

She grimaced.
Stop! Just move. Don't think. Tiny steps. No hurry. Just get there.

A gust of wind hit her full force but she held on. She was glad she'd removed her shoes and socks because she was able to grip the ledge with her toes. But the cold was numbing her feet.

With her next step she felt the ledge crumble away. For a split second she lost her balance, but immediately leaned back on the secure foot and dug her fingernails deeper into the rock face. She recovered her balance, her heart pounding in her ears.

She was okay. She was still on the ledge. But the piece that had fallen was big. It created at least a two foot gap in the shelf. Sarah stared at the break and tried not to focus on the rocks on the distant ground below.

She looked at the ledge on the other side of the gap. Would it crumble too? Should she try to step beyond the edge of it? Could she do that? Even in the cold, she felt the sweat dripping off her face and into her eyes. She didn't dare move from her handholds long enough to wipe it away.

Sarah closed her eyes and blocked out the sound of the ocean and her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. She took a deep breath and then another to try to slow down her pulse. She could only pray the ledge wouldn't break more.

It wasn't stepping over the gap that worried her so much as her hands. She needed secure handholds above and across the gap to allow her to take the first big step without falling. Wishing she could wipe her hands on her jeans and knowing she absolutely had to resist the impulse, Sarah felt the muscles in her calves tighten—heralding the start to cramping. Slowly, she moved both feet close together by the ledge, and groped until she found two handholds above the gap.

Now or never.

She lifted her right foot and stepped across the gap, holding her breath as the ledge lip held. As she stood there straddling the break, she glanced down between her feet at the rocks far below and instantly felt a wave of dizziness. She quickly looked up again before bringing her trailing foot across to the other side of the ledge. The sweat was pouring down her face now. But the ledge held.

The window was close now—only five feet away. And yet she felt terror riding on her shoulders like a malevolent imp. The urge to look down was intense. She bit a hole in her lip as she turned her head—the first step to upsetting her balance—and forced herself to keep her eyes forward. On the window.

It was right
there
.

The desire to end the trial, to have it be over was so strong that she found herself rushing to get there faster. Her mind was whirling with warnings but her body wasn't listening. She took three more quick sliding steps and reached for the sill before she even knew there was something to grab onto. She knew that was a mistake but by that time she was already committed.

With a grunt of surprise, her fingers fumbled at the sill, and found nothing to hold onto. Her knee moved upward in premature anticipation of the climb to the window when her center of gravity shifted. With a fierce intake of breath, she felt her balance shifting away from the wall.