Wheezing, Emily took a moment to shove the files down the front of her dress.Annie’s was thick, and bulged a little, but she had no other option, and hopefully no one would notice the lumps in her dress amid the chaos.
Emily made toward the stairs, then skidded to a stop.
My notes.
She spun and pounded back toward her open cell, dove to the tap and wiggled her fingers in to retrieve the roll of tightly coiled paper.She tucked it into her brassiere, then fled back out the door.
She was at the top of the stairs when she heard muffled screams coming from the psychiatric ward.The gates were open, but all the cell doors were shut.Emily’s insides turned to ice.
Annie!
She ran to the ward and through the iron gates, following the screams, and stopped outside Annie’s cell.Her friend’s terrified brown eyes were in the window, and bulged when she spotted Emily.
“EMILY, HELP!”she screamed, pounding on the door.“We’re locked—”
“Just—just wait!”Emily shouted.“I’m going to get help!”She coughed, and feeling a little sickened, turned away from Annie and her stricken face, back toward the staircase just as the firemen had reached the landing.
“Miss!”one shouted.There were four others on the stairs behind him, all dressed head to toe in their alarming-looking gear: navy-blue coats, hard hats, gloves, and smoke-repellent gas masks.She could hardly see his eyes through the goggles.“What are you doing up here?Get down—”
“There are people!”Emily cried, then doubled over in another coughing fit.“Th—there!”she croaked, pointing toward the psych ward.“They’re locked in!”
He began shouting instructions to his fellows, who all rushed forward through the gates.Emily was rooted to the spot, unable to leave until she saw that Annie was safe.
“Sir, my friend—!”
“The fire isout, miss,” the firefighter shouted over his shoulder.“They aren’t in great danger; we’ll get them out.”Emily’s panic came down a notch.“But the smoke is toxic, it’ll burn your lungs.For God’s sake, get downstairs and outside with the others!”
Emily’s eyes flicked back to the ward, where the firemen were now shouting at the patients to stay back from the doors as they hammered their axes at the locks.
“Go, miss!” the fireman urged, and Emily scrambled down the stairs.She flung herself around the corner.It was freezing down here.To her right, the front doors of the prison were wide open.With a final burst of adrenaline, she sprinted toward them and out into the frigid December air.
CHAPTER 31
EMILY
December 17, 1961
Day 181 (2 to go)
For the first time in six months, Emily was outside.
Her vision blurred, eyes watering.She blinked several times as she took rasping breaths in the darkness.It was frigid, and she wrapped her arms around herself.There were people all around her, a sea of brown and white, some faces just coming into focus in the golden light of the nearby streetlamps.
“Emily!”someone shrieked, and Eliza came running toward her through a throng of inmates.She pulled up short on the gravel path leading to the front door.“Good God, what were ye thinkin’, ye loon!”She sounded angry, but Emily saw that her eyes were glassy.
“I got it,” Emily whispered with a shaky smile before buckling into another coughing fit.“I got it.”
“Jesus H.,” Eliza breathed, the puff of heat fogging the air.
“Radcliffe!”
Emily looked up.It was Matron White.
“What in God’s creation took you so long?You—”
Annie’s terrified face staring back at her through the glass of the cell door filled Emily’s mind, and her rage erupted.
“You justleft them there!”she shrieked, voice cracking.She steppedtoward the matron, whose eyes widened.“What is the matter with you?Have you no—”
