Stall For Time

Rainey tightened her arms around the baby. ‘Did you know the police were going to arrest me?’ I nodded. ‘I heard.’ ‘I would be in jail right now if I didn’t get out in time. I got lucky. I was out buying a pack of cigarettes when the police vans pulled up outside my building. I ran. But then my luck seemed to run out. I can’t leave the city. My husband and friends abandoned me. I’m penniless.’ ‘You should turn yourself in. Give up your accomplices. Maybe the prosecutor will knock a few years off your sentence.’ ‘You are lying!’ she shouted. ‘I’m getting the electric chair!’ I said nothing. She was right. Once she was arrested, she was heading straight to the death row. She wouldn’t be leaving the prison alive. ‘I know I’m going to die,’ she said. ‘I’m fine with that. But I can’t accept the fact that you are still breathing!’ ‘Let the baby go.’ I inched forward. ‘I’m the one you hate. I’ll swap myself for the baby. You’d like that, don’t you?’ ‘Don’t move!’ Rainey raised the baby. ‘Or I