Page 94 of A Relentless Rake

Her brother sat tied to a chair in the middle of the classroom.

“Henry!” She ran to him and tore off the gag that silenced him. “What did they do to—”

“Get out of here!” he yelled at her, angry and fearful as the ceiling above them now began to crack and creak. The fire had eaten into the supporting joists, and the integrity of the building was failing around them. They only had a few minutes before the entire building collapsed.

“Not without you and Cora.” She knelt at his feet and tore loose the ropes with her fingernails, then clawed at the ties binding his wrists. In the deepening darkness, she noticed the bruises on his face and drops of blood staining his torn shirt. He’d been beaten. Badly.

“Dear God…who did this to you?”

“I don’t know.” He coughed hard. “Men I’d never seen before.”

When the last rope gave way, he climbed stiffly to his feet, only to collapse to the floor, overcome by smoke and his wounds. She grabbed him into her arms, and he shuddered against her as he gasped deeply for air.

Her chest screamed in pain, both from the smoke and for her brother, and she knew the awful answer even before she asked, “Did you give them the calculations for Waterloo Bridge?”

“I had no choice.” Guilt radiated from him. “They said they would kill you if I didn’t.”

Her shoulders sagged. They’d both been played for fools.

“Go, Olivia,” he ordered between coughs. “Get out of the school. I’ll make my way down after you.”

She refused to leave him behind. “Where’s Cora?” She pulled him to his feet and staggered with him toward the wall. “We have to find her.”

A soft cry came from the hall.

“Go!” Henry ordered and slumped against the wall, ordering her on. “Save her!”

Olivia crawled into the hall, following the sound. It came from behind the old rear door where a rickety set of wooden steps led down into the basement. They’d once been the servants’ stairs before the old house was converted into the school. But they were far too narrow, dark, and dangerous to use and had been closed off for years. Yet if Cora had felt trapped, with no other way to escape—

She threw open the door. “Cora!”

Olivia saw the little figure half a flight down from her, huddled against the wall.

“Miss!” The girl sobbed in shuddering pain and pointed toward her leg. “It hurts…”

Through the darkness, Olivia could just see her right leg. It lay twisted beneath her at an unnatural angle.Broken.

“I fell,” Cora forced out in gasping, pain-filled breaths. “I tried to go down. I tripped…”

Now she was trapped. On her broken leg, she couldn’t crawl up or down.

“I’m coming!” Olivia moved gingerly down the old stairs. Each board creaked angrily beneath her, and she held her breath at the possibility that the old structure might give way at any second. “Just stay there. Don’t try to move.”

Olivia reached the girl, grabbed her into her arms, and pressed her tightly against her, careful not to hurt her leg any more than she had to. Cora’s slender arms wrapped around Olivia’s neck. Slowly, she rose to her feet to carry the girl with her. She glanced down the stairwell. A bright light grew from below as the flames at the bottom of the stairwell licked their way upward. There was no going down.

She turned to climb back up the stairs when a great groan rose up from the house. With a terrifying shudder, the structure shifted around them. The entire set of stairs shook and cried out like a dying animal, the wooden anchor in the basement devoured by the flames that now leapt higher up the narrow stairwell toward them. Without warning, the stairs broke loose from their supports. They dropped with a hard thud and smacked against the wall, coming to rest at a dangerous, leaning angle.

Olivia screamed as she held frantically with one hand to the banister to keep from plunging into the flames below. Her other arm wrapped like a steel band around Cora.

“Olivia!” Henry leaned into the stairwell on his stomach and reached down for her. “Put Cora down and take my hand.”

“No! I won’t leave her—”

“The stairs won’t support both of you. Give me your hand! I’ll rescue you first, then save her.”

Knowing she had no choice, Olivia set the wailing child down onto the precariously leaning stairs and reached up to take her brother’s hand. With a groan of exertion, he pulled her up the steep incline and into the hall. She sprawled across the soot-blackened floor.

“Stay here,” he ordered. Then he slipped down into the disintegrating stairwell.