Flare

Chapter 50

We jolted and swayed in the back seat, Melody tucked under my arm and sleeping despite the noise and movement. I watched her face as she slept, having to stop myself from waking her by covering it with kisses.

Her eyes kept scrunching up, her hands balling into fists as she muttered incomprehensible words, and again I worried that what she’d been through might take years to heal. Added to that, I realised, would be more months or possibly years of hardship while we waited for the sun to stop hurting our world, and grief, worry and joy mingled until they were almost one emotion, taking me to the crest of the wave one second only to drop me into the trough a moment later.

I rested my cheek against the top of her head and tried to stop thinking, just taking pleasure in the feel of having my little girl back in my arms. It was an intoxicating feeling, and with it came the towering need to protect her from everything this new world might throw at her, while at the same time knowing that she would have to become tough to survive.

I raised my eyes to the back of Emily’s head, realising that here was the perfect role-model for Melody. Tough but honest, caring yet uncompromising, she was exactly what someone needed to be to survive, and I knew that I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for her.

As if she could feel me watching her, Emily glanced at me in the mirror.

“We’ve got a full tank of petrol, do you want to try and head straight back home?”

I shook my head gently, scared of waking Melody.

“No, we need to go back to the farm first, warn them that it’s not safe up here.”

She nodded and turned her attention back to the road, flashing me a quick smile as if I’d made the right decision. That smile gave me a warm glow inside, not dissimilar to the way I felt with Melody in my arms, and that made me realise something.

I wasn’t quite sure when, exactly, I’d fallen in love with Emily, but sometime in the last week I had. Not the head over heels, crazy intensity that I’d felt when Angie and I had met, but we’d been little more than kids then, both too wrapped up in our own little bubble to see that we were a disaster waiting to happen.

No, this was the long, slow burn of loving someone that I knew was too good for me, a person I’d come to rely on so completely that I couldn’t imagine waking up and her not being there.

Of course knowing how I felt and acting on it were two very different things. What woman wouldn’t run a mile if you told her you loved her after little more than a week in each other’s company? Even in my heyday I’d been bad with things like that anyway, and just the thought of trying to tell her how I felt made my stomach turn inside out.

Melody stirred next to me and I pulled away to see her eyes crack open, flaring wide in a moment of panic before she realised where she was.

“Hey, it’s ok,” I said, brushing the top of her head with my hand. “I’m right here.”

She yawned and then pulled a face. “I need to clean my teeth.”

I nodded. “We all do. When we get home we’ll make sure we all get properly clean. You smell.” I poked her in the ribs and she giggled, then her face grew serious.

“Dad, what if those men find us again?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

I sighed, not knowing what to say to make her feel better. I finally settled on the truth.

“I’m never going to let anyone hurt you ever again,” I said seriously, “and if we see those men then Emily has a gun and she’ll shoot them. She’s a soldier, you know.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Really?”

I nodded. “Really. And she’s a really good shot.”

Melody leaned forwards. “Are you?”

Emily glanced back in the mirror and smiled.

“I am. Better than your dad, anyway. Perhaps, if your dad thinks it’s ok, me and my dad can teach you how to shoot when we get back to the farm. How does that sound?”

Melody turned to me hopefully.

“Can I dad? Please?”

I shrugged. “I don’t see why not, if you really want to.”

She nodded. “I do, because if I can shoot then I can stop anyone from hurting me if you’re not there.”

“But I’ll always be there.”

She turned away, looking down at her hands.

“I thought mum would be too, but she went away.” She glanced up at me out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t know what’s going to happen, do you?”

I opened my mouth to reassure her, then realised I was falling into old habits, so instead I took one of her hands and kissed it, regardless of the filth that caked her skin.

“All the time I’m alive, I will keep you safe. If I ever have to go away for any reason, then you’ll be with Emily, or Ralph or Harriet. You’re right, I can’t promise that I’ll always be there, but all the time I am I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you believe me?”

She nodded and took her hand back, hiding it in her lap as if embarrassed.

“I’m hungry.”

“So am I, but we’re going to a place that has food, and nice people. It’s run by a woman who was a chief inspector in the police, her name’s Lindsay and she’s really nice.”

“Will we be there soon?”

I glanced at the empty space on my wrist, my watch most likely still sitting next to my bed in Hove, if the house was still standing.

“Uh, not too long.” I leaned forward and saw that we were going about fifty miles an hour. The speedo didn’t go much higher and from the shaking and rattling, neither would the car.

“Maybe an hour or two. Why don’t you try and get some more sleep?”

She nodded and curled up, head on my chest and feet tucked under her legs. In a few moments she was breathing deeply, eyes closed as she drifted off into dreams that I prayed were pleasant ones.