Page 172 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

‘It’s OK,’ she said, pushing the hair back from her eyes, a smear of wet blood on her forehead. ‘It’s going to be OK. Help will come.’

She ripped off the other sleeve, bunched it up and held it to the gushing wound in his neck. But there were six holes in Stanley, and she only had two hands.

He blinked slowly, his eyes slipping shut.

‘Hey,’ she said, grabbing his face. His eyes snapped open again. ‘Stanley stay with me, keep talking to me.’

‘It’s OK, Pip,’ he croaked as she tore more strips of fabric from her jacket, balling them up and stuffing them against the other wounds. ‘This was always going to happen. I deserve it.’

‘No, you don’t,’ she said, pressing her hands against the hole in his chest and the hole in his neck. She could feel the pulses of blood pushing against her.

‘Jack Brunswick,’ he said quietly, eyes circling hers.

‘What?’ Pip said, pushing down as hard as she could, his blood pooling out in the webs of her fingers.

‘It was Jack, that was my name,’ he said, with a heavy, slow blink. ‘Jack Brunswick. And then I was David Knight. Then Stanley Forbes.’ He swallowed.

‘That’s good, keep talking to me,’ Pip said. ‘Which name did you like best?’

‘Stanley.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Silly name, and he wasn’t much, he wasn’t always good, but he was the best of them. He was trying.’ There was a crackling sound from his throat; Pip felt it in her fingers. ‘I’m still his son, though, whatever my name is. Still that boy that did those things. Still rotten.’

‘No you aren’t,’ Pip said. ‘You’re better than him. You are better.’

‘Pip . . .’

And as she looked at him, a shadow crossed over his face, a darkness from above, something smothering the light of the torch. Pip glanced up and that was when she smelled it too. Smoke. Rolling black smoke creeping out across the ceiling.

Now she could hear them too. The flames.

‘He set it on fire,’ she said to herself, her stomach falling away from her as she watched the smoke pour in from the hallway across from where the kitchen must be. And she knew, knew it would only be minutes until the whole house went up.

‘I need to get you out of here,’ she said.

Stanley blinked silently up at her.

‘Come on.’ Pip let go of him, pushing up to her feet. She slipped in the blood at his side, staggering over his legs. She bent down and picked up his feet, pulling him, dragging him.

Holding his shoes up by her hips, she twisted round, front-facing so she could see where they were going, dragging Stanley behind her, her grip on his ankles, trying not to look at the trail of red following behind him.

Out in the corridor, and the room off to the right was filled with fire: an angry, roaring vortex up every wall and across the floor, spilling through the open doorway into the narrow hall. Flames were licking along on the old, peeling wallpaper. And above her head, the exposed insulation in the ceiling was burning, dropping ash down on them.

The smoke was getting lower and darker. Pip coughed, breathing it in. And the world started spinning around her.

‘It’s going to be OK, Stanley,’ she called over her shoulder, ducking her head down, out of the smoke. ‘I’ll get you out.’

It was harder dragging him, out here on the carpet. But she dug in her heels and she pulled as hard as she could. The fire was growing on the wall beside her – hot, too hot – and it felt like her skin was blistering and her eyes were burning. She turned her face away from it and pulled.

‘It’s OK, Stanley!’ She had to scream over the flames now.

Pip coughed with every breath. But she didn’t let go of him. She held on and she pulled. And when she reached the threshold, she sucked the clean, cold outside air into her lungs, dragging Stanley out on to the grass, just as the carpet behind them started to catch.

‘We’re out, Stanley,’ Pip said, dragging him further through the unkempt grass, away from the burning house. She bent and laid his feet gently down, turning her eyes back to the fire. Smoke was billowing out of the holes where the upstairs windows once were, blocking out the stars.

She coughed again and looked down at Stanley. The wet blood glistened in the light from the flames, and he wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed.

‘Stanley!’ She crashed down beside him, grabbing his face again. But this time his eyes didn’t open. ‘Stanley!’ Pip lowered her ear to his nose, listening for his breath. It wasn’t there. She placed her fingers on his neck, just above the gaping hole. Nothing. No pulse.

‘No Stanley, please no.’ Pip settled on her knees, placing the heel of her hand in the middle of his chest, right beside one of the holes. She covered her hand with the other, leaned up and started to push down. Hard.

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