Page 99 of Robin and Marian
Alan punched Robin in the face, and Robin concentrated on getting the man off him. “We know you did it, Alan; there’s no reason to kill her now. You’ll get nothing.”
“I’ll get it all!” Alan reached over and scraped up a cast-off two-by-four and cracked him over the head with it.
He fell back. His head swam while he grabbed Alan by the collar and pulled him close. All the years of believing that this man was his best friend, the fury of finding he’d trapped his sister in a fiery inferno, the injustice of being locked up for this man’s crimes, erupted inside Robin into rage and he shook him. “You’ll burn with your money!”
Chapter 26
“Scarlett!” Marian shouted. She reached the window, ignoring the pain in her legs as best she could. She wrapped the ripped tatters at the bottom of her skirt around her hand and punched through the window. Smoke streamed out to choke her. “Scarlett?” she screamed through it. “Are you there? Can you reach the windows?”
“I can’t!”
Marian’s shoulders sagged. All the windows that faced the street were at this height. She peered through the smoke, trying to figure out what they were up against. The sawmill was huge like a warehouse, with plenty of firewalls to stop the fire from spreading too fast. Through the windows in the vaulted partition walls, she could see that sprinklers had gone off on one side of the building, but the wall closest to the shipping yard where most of the lumber was stacked was consumed with fire. Had Alan found a way to disable the extinguishers over there? A shipment of new machinery—Little John’s screw chipper and trimming table, the crosscut saw—was engulfed in flames. This had been a double assault. Alan and Guy had chosen this place as a personal attack.
“Marian? Marian! Can you get me out of here?”
“Yes, yes, I will.” She spotted Scarlett in the loft, huddled as far away from the fire as she could possibly get. She was holding her head. Blood spread through her fingers. Alan must’ve knocked her out before dragging her there. She was barefoot and in the pajamas they’d first found her in. Alan had shown no mercy. The fire hadn’t consumed even a portion of the sawmill yet, though the smoke would get her friend if she didn’t get out soon. “What about the windows by the lake, can you get out that way?”
“The fall would kill me! Where’s Robin?” she screamed.
“He’s stopping Alan while I get to you.”
“He’ll kill us all!”
“No, no. There has to be a way out! Can you unlock the door somehow?”
“I can’t!” She cried into her hands. “Alan… Alan… How could he do this to me? He put chains all over the doors.”
But that was from inside. How had he gotten out? Like a spider? There had to be a way, but she couldn’t see it from here. “Scarlett, listen to me. Get to the window under the fire sprinklers. I’ll meet you there!” It was slick with water on the far end of the building, so Scarlett would have to be careful not to slip. “Do you see any boxes? Anything you can stack to get up there?”
Her friend made strangled sounds of fear and studied the area below her and then, setting her shoulders, she made her descent from the loft. It got her out of the smoke and under a downpour of water. Groaning out in pain, she shoved crates under the window. Nothing quite seemed high enough to reach it, and if it was, then it was too heavy to push. Alan must’ve hit Scarlett hard by the way she kept holding her head.
Marian watched helplessly from above. “Keep going,” she shouted. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Hurry!” Scarlett yelled up at her. “Please hurry.”
She climbed down the ladder and saw nothing of Robin or Alan… until she heard a crash and a shout of pain coming from the shed. The ensuing silence filled her with dread and she staggered over to look through the opening of the door just as Robin ran Alan against the wall. Alan held a two-by-four and he knocked Robin back, who stumbled and picked up a shovel. They had a whole shed of tools to fight each other with.
Robin spied Marian past Alan. “Where’s Scarlett? Did she get out?”
“I’m working on that!”
Alan growled and dropped his two-by-four to pick up an axe. He lunged at Marian. Robin caught him by the ankle and wrenched his leg back, flipping him over so that the axe tumbled from his grip. She scrambled out of the way just as Robin hauled him backwards by his legs. Alan swung around with a snarl to face him again, each of them trying to take out the other.
Marian peeled the axe off the ground before Alan could get it again and hobbled to the side of the mill. She’d use it against a door if she couldn’t get Scarlett out through the window. Hiding the axe in the bushes, she moved the ladder to the farthest window and scrambled back up to the top to break more glass.
The air was much clearer there under the heavy sprinklers, and Marian let out a sigh of relief. Scarlett was going to get out of this. She cleared the rest of the glass out with her skirt and leaned through it, seeing that her friend had built up the boxes higher. “I’m here!” Marian cried.
Moaning out in fear, Scarlett balanced on the boxes with her bare feet. As Marian had feared, the stack was slick from the sprinklers, and she watched tensely as her friend climbed through the precarious barricade. It folded and pressed against the wall the closer she got to the window. Marian scooted further out the ledge, leaning through it with her whole body as she tried to guide Scarlett closer. “Take my hand!”
Flapping her hands through the air for balance, Scarlett tried to reach her.
The ladder jolted beneath Marian’s feet and she fell back, wrapping her legs around it to keep it upright. She turned, seeing Robin and Alan had moved their fight below her. They’d almost knocked the ladder out from under her. Alan was trying to get at her. “Hurry!” she called to Scarlett.
Taking a deep breath, her friend made a swipe for Marian’s hand and missed. The boxes went crashing out from underneath her. Marian screamed. Scarlett landed hard and hit her head against the corner of one of the crates and lay, sprawled against the wet cement floor. She didn’t stir.
Marian rushed down the ladder, each movement sending jolts of pain through her leg. She seized the stowed axe from the bushes, her body shaking so hard she could barely get a grip on it as she dragged the axe to the warehouse door. The pain in her leg was all-consuming as she raised the heavy blade and chopped at the door until her hands ached. Little John must’ve used his strongest wood by the way it felt under her throbbing fingers.
Robin shouted out and she looked up to see Alan’s hands around his neck as he backed him against a crumbling parking barrier that stood between him and the sheer drop to the lake below. With a vicious shove, Alan knocked him over the side.
