Chapter 19
Despite every instinct that she needed to seek out her mam, Florentine followed Drew away from the warmth and protection of their kitchen hearth and into the chilling dark that was already swallowing her brother whole. She felt the bite of winter not yet passed on her cheeks. Her eyes watered. The circle of safety the street lights offered reached a few feet and no more. The rest of Macquarie Street, like Drew, had been devoured by the night.
Florentine came to a stop beneath the light pole. She sensed something menacing that set her hair on end. The monsters were real. They waited for her, barely two steps away. Sounds of a scuffle, Drew’s voice surprised and angry, the pounding of fists on flesh, and stumble of boots and dull thud of a body landing on the paved road, and a l
