Flames of Revenge

God

13th March 1872

FRANKIE DEVEREAUX

The night of the fire.

Please be alive. Please, please be alive. God, if you are there, please let my children be alive.

These were the only thoughts that ran through my brain as I charged up the stairs. Down the corridor. Around a corner. Up another flight of stairs. Goddamnit, why does this place have so many stairs?

Please be alive. Please. Clara, Joshua, please don't let them be dead. They're only children.

I thought of Joshua, and his illness. He wouldn't be able to breathe with all this smoke. I thought of Clara, and the way she always protected her brother. She would not have left him. She would die by his side before she left him. I prayed to a god that I barely believed in.

Please God, please don't take them from me.

I wasn't a good enough father for them. I never have been, and they deserved better than me. So did Elizabeth, they all deserved better than me. I disappeared for weeks on end, researching my device. Even though it was for Joshua, so I could return to my time to get him the medicine he needed, I know now that I should have spent more time with them. I loved them so much. I never deserved it, but when I was battling my demons God sent me three angels. I don't deserve them, but they're all I have. And I'll be damned if I let them die here.

When this is over, I will be better. I will be a better father to my children, a better husband to my wife, a better man, I swear it. I will never allow anyone to suffer under my watch again. If God will only let them live.

When the first signs of fire were noticed, when the smoke began to billow and the heat began to seep from under doorways like a toxic gas, when the screams began, that was when I knew that they were in danger. Even though the fire was nowhere near our quarters, I knew. I knew Joshua and Clara were not there. I don't know what it was, maybe instinct, but I knew that I had to find them. Once outside, as everyone stood gaping as flames devoured the building, I turned and ran back inside. I had to find them.

It was hard to see in the darkness and the smoke, but I could make out two figures heading my way. One leaning heavily on the other. When their faces emerged, I recognised my nephew Nicholas immediately, and the look of pain on his face had me worried instantly. But it took me a few seconds to recognise the other face, soot stained and dirty. I had never seen her with a hair out of place, and the young woman in front of me didn't look anything like the cold, indifferent girl that I once knew. But beneath the torn dress and messed hair, she was still, undoubtedly, Genevieve.

"Have you seen Joshua and Clara?" I demanded of them frantically, hoping that they had information that I didn't.

Nicholas winced, and shook his head. "We came to look for them, but we had to turn back. Felix went on ahead..." I didn't hear the rest of what he had to see because I was off again, running. I had to find them.

Down a flight of stairs, and up another. I was beginning to feel light-headed and dizzy, and the walls seemed to be closing in. My vision was blurring and morphing and I began to feel like I might faint, but I kept running. The thought of my children kept me going. My beautiful, amazing children, who had been cursed with an idiot of a father. Please let them be alive.

I don't know whether it was a stroke of good luck, or terribly bad luck, but either way I suddenly and inexplicably ran straight into the back of Felix St Luca.