Chapter 5 - The Poison's Toll
The rain hit Fiona like a physical blow as she crawled out of the coal chute into the mud of the sunken garden. The storm was at its peak, the sky turning a bruised, violent purple between flashes of sheet lightning that illuminated the massive, gothic silhouette of the Costello mansion.
The cold water gave her a temporary jolt of adrenaline, clearing the gray fog from her eyes for a brief moment. She stumbled through the mud toward the old Victorian glass greenhouse, fifty yards away. The structure was mostly abandoned, used only for storing winter tools, but it offered concealment from the security lights sweeping the main lawn.
Arthur was silent now, his head resting heavily against her shoulder. He wasn't unconscious, but he was slipping into the deep lethargy that preceded respiratory failure.
"Hold on, Arthur," she muttered, her voice sounding strange and distant to her own ears. "Just a little further."
She kicked the greenhouse door open, the old glass pane rattling but not breaking. Inside, the air smelled of damp earth and fertilizer. She laid Arthur down beneath a long wooden planting bench, pulling several empty burlap sacks over him to keep off the chill.
Her hand was shaking so badly she could barely open her medical kit. She had one syringe of epinephrine left. She knew what it would do—it would force her heart to pump harder, clearing the blood vessels and fighting the neurological shutdown for maybe ten minutes, but the crash afterward would be lethal if she didn't get medical attention.
"No choices left," she whispered.
She drove the needle into her own thigh through her jeans.
The effect was instantaneous. Her heart exploded into a furious, frantic rhythm. The numbness in her face receded, and the strength returned to her right arm with a violent jolt. Her vision sharpened until she could see individual raindrops tracking down the glass panes above her.
She looked toward the main house.
Flashlights were moving across the lawn, five or six of them, fanning out from the east wing terrace. They were tracking the blood she had left behind in the mud.
"They're in the gardens!" a voice shouted over the roar of the wind.
Fiona stood up, her jaw set. She couldn't run anymore—not with Arthur in this condition, and not with the epinephrine clock ticking down in her blood. She grabbed a heavy iron spade from the tool rack near the door.
If she was going to die in this garden, she was going to make sure the people who tried to kill a seven-year-old child paid for every single breath they took.
Suddenly, a massive explosion shook the front of the estate.
The sound was distinct from thunder—a deep, concussive boom that shattered the lower windows of the mansion's main façade. The security lights across the lawn flickered and died, plunging the grounds into darkness except for the sudden, angry orange glow of a fire near the main gates.
The guards on the lawn stopped, their flashlights darting erratically toward the front of the house.
"What the hell was that?" one of them yelled.
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Through the darkness, the roar of a high-performance engine cut through the storm. A heavy, armored black SUV tore through the wrought-iron side gates of the property, spinning out in the wet grass before straightening and accelerating directly toward the gardens.
Dominic was back.
