Chapter 18

The shock rocked me on my feet and robbed me of all speech. I just stared and gulped, I saw Margaret crawling forwards, and with strength and cold fury I never knew I possessed, without even looking properly, I landed a kick in her stomach. She collapsed back like a punctured balloon. I felt turmoil such as I had never known. It was too much, too sudden. Black spots swamped my vision, and I swayed dangerously.

"Jill ... Oh Jill, my Jill!!" A curious peace descended upon me. I shook my head, opened my eyes, and I was in Sarah's arms.

She hugged me hard, quickly, then lowered me onto the sofa.

I didn't quite pass out, but sat watching helplessly as Sarah dragged Margaret, still gasping, into the sitting room. With savage skill she tied wrists and ankles with ropes no doubt intended for her just a minute ago, and stuffed her own panties into Margaret's mouth. My suddenly ex-Mistress's eyes were frozen with hatred.

Only when Em had been rendered completely helpless did Sarah speak.

"How the fuck did this happen? How did you get here? Did you know I was here? Did she tell you?" Margaret's furiously shaking head denied the last question.

"I ... I have no idea! What's going on? Why are you here? I don't understand..." I sobbed plaintively.

My whole world had been up-ended. I looked at Margaret writhing, she was mumbling unintelligibly through the gag. I really thought she loved me, and instead she had deceived me in the worst way imaginable.

Sarah squatted down on the floor and took my hands in hers.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go ... she was the only one left I could think of who could help me ... and the bitch said she would ... if I ... If she could do what she wanted with me. That's what was just about to happen when you arrived. She's waited years for this kind of chance!"

Margaret let out a muffled protesting roar. Sarah kicked her hard in the ribs with her bare foot. This was all so weird, unreal. I looked around, and all the evidence was there, Margaret had been preparing Sarah for sex. One day she seemed to love me, was as desperate for me as I was for her, and the next she was screwing Sarah, taking advantage of her when she was most in need, but why? Why was Sarah here at all?

"I still don't understand ... what are you running from?"

"You haven't heard? I'm a wanted criminal ... I'm a fugitive ... a ... a terrorist. I blow things up, and now the pigs know who I am."

My brain was spinning with the effort of taking in Sarah's words, of analysing them into a form that was acceptable to reason.

"Where have you been? I'm the most wanted woman in Britain, as of yesterday." She wailed.

I still didn't have a clue what she was talking about. I touched her cheek ... she still felt like Sarah, she looked like Sarah ... She WAS Sarah. Why should I care what she was, what she had done, she was the girl I had loved four years ago and now she was a woman.

"That bomb in London ... that was me ... well, not just me, but us, The Group. The timer must have been faulty 'cos it went up much too soon. We should have been miles away ... They got Jane, and now the silly cow has only bloody talked to the police. What a fuck up! I needed someone to hide me. What else could I do? I don't want to spend the rest of my life in jail!" A look of distress, not exactly fear darkened her face, and I took her in my arms.

"I'll look after you." I said, simply. It was all so clear now. I had been on the point of declaring my love to Lady Margaret Hunter, but that already seemed like dim and distant history. "I'll do anything for you."

"I know ... oh God Jill I know ... why did we ever let them part us? Why didn't we fight them?" She smothered my face in kisses, just like the adorable, precocious puppy she had been at seventeen.

"Let's go ... right now ... far away." I gasped, coming up for air.

I struggled up from the sofa, holding onto Sarah's hand as if my life depended on it ... as if both our lives depended on it, and in a way they did.

"What about her?" Margaret was trying to spit out the gag.

Sarah looked down and sneered.

"Not another word from you, you disgusting old bitch!" She stuffed the panties back in roughly. "She'll go to the police, she'll lie, she'll say anything to damage us now, because she's one of them, she wouldn't know how to do anything else ... she'll send you to jail too. You know that if you help me..."