As he leant forward to take a kiss, he abruptly lunged, knocking me backwards. A tree trunk splintered five feet behind us. Simultaneously, I heard a report like a car backfiring.
Zed dragged me behind a fal en tree trunk and pushed me under, sheltering me with his body. He swore.
‘This isn’t supposed to be happening!’
‘Get off me! What was that?’ I tried to get up.
‘Stay down.’ He swore again, even more colourful y. ‘Someone took a shot at us. I’m getting Dad and Xav.’
I lay quiet under him, my heart pounding.
Crack! A second shot struck the trunk not far above our heads.
Zed slid off me. ‘We’ve got to move! Rol out the other side of the trunk and run for the big pine over there.’
‘Why don’t we just shout to tel them that they’re shooting at humans?’
‘He’s not hunting animals, Sky: he’s after us. Go!’
I squeezed under the trunk, scrambled up and ran.
I could hear Zed just behind me—a third shot—then Zed tackled me from behind, his elbow connecting with my eye as we went down. A fourth shot hit the tree in front just level with where my head had been.
‘Damn. Sorry,’ Zed said as stars whirled. ‘Saw that one almost too late again.’
Better stunned than dead.
Yeah. But still I’m sorry. Just stay still. Dad and Xav are hunting our hunter now.
I think there’s more than one.
‘What?’ He lifted his head a fraction to look at my face. ‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t know. I just feel them there.’
Zed didn’t question my instinct and relayed the news to his father.
‘I’ve told him to be careful.’ Zed stayed over me, refusing to let me risk being in the line of fire. ‘It could be a trap to lure him out. We’ve got to get back to the house. There’s a stream just over that ridge. If we get there, we can stay hidden and circle back. OK?’
‘OK. How do we get to it?’
Zed smiled grimly. ‘You’re amazing, Sky. Most people would have lost it by now. We crawl—make like lizards. I’l go first.’
He slithered on his bel y over the ground then dropped over the ridge out of sight. I fol owed, trying not to think about what it would feel like to get a bul et in the back. It was too dark to see what was down there so I just had to trust him. I slipped head first down the bank, rol ed and landed with my butt in icy water.
This way, said Zed.
Keeping low, Zed led
me down the course of a
shal ow stream that fed into the Eyrie. He was wearing walking boots, but my canvas sneakers had no purchase on the stones and I kept stumbling.
Hold on to my jacket, he told me. Almost there.
As the stream got deeper, the bank lowered al owing us to clamber out of the gul y. We emerged on the grassy slope in front of the house.
‘Sense anything?’ Zed asked.
‘No. You?’
‘I can’t see anything. Let’s make a run for the house.’ He gave my arm a squeeze. ‘On three. One
—two—three!’
Feet squelching in my shoes, I sprinted across the open ground and through the front door. I heard the lock click behind me without Zed touching it.
‘Your dad and Xav OK?’ I panted.
He looked distant for a second, checking in with the rest of the family.
‘They’re fine, but they lost the hunters. You were right: there were two of them. They took off out of town in an unmarked SUV. Black, dark windows.
Hundreds of cars like it in the mountains. Dad says to stay here til he gets back. Let’s look at that eye.’
Zed steered me into the downstairs bathroom and sat me on the edge of the bath. As he fumbled with the first aid box, I realized that he was shaking.
I put my hand on his arm. ‘It’s OK.’
‘It’s not OK.’ He ripped open a pack of cotton wool, shooting the bal s al over the vanity unit.
‘We’re supposed to be safe here.’ Fury rather than shock was making him tremble.
‘Why wouldn’t you be safe? What’s going on, Zed? You seem not real y surprised that someone wanted to shoot you.’
He gave a hol ow laugh. ‘It does make a kind of horrible sense, Sky.’ He rinsed out a flannel and placed it against my eye, the cold dul ing the edge off the pain. ‘Hold that there.’ He then cleaned my cuts and scratches with the cotton wool. ‘I realize you want to know why that might be, but it’s better for you and for us if you don’t.’
‘And I’m supposed to be OK with that? I go for a walk with you, and get shot at, and I’m not supposed to wonder why? I can live with exploding lemons and the rest of it, but this is different. You almost died.’
He pushed the cloth back against my cheek where I had let it drop away. ‘I know you’re mad at me.’
‘I’m not mad at you! I’m mad at the people who just tried to kil us! Have you told the police?’
‘Yeah, Dad’s handling it. They’l be along. They’l probably want to talk to you.’ He took the cloth away and whistled. ‘How’s this for a first date: I’ve given you a black eye.’
That gave me a jolt.
‘This was a date? You asked me here on, like, a date and I missed it?’
‘Yeah, wel , not many boys take their girls out on a duck shoot with them as the target for a first date.
You have to give me points for style.’
I hadn’t got past first base yet. ‘This was a date?’ I repeated.
He pul ed me up into his arms, my head against his chest. ‘It was a date—I was trying to get you used to me, kinda in my natural habitat. But I can do better, I promise.’
‘What? Gladiatorial combat next?’
‘Now there’s an idea.’ He nuzzled my hair. ‘Thanks for keeping a cool head out there.’
‘Thanks for bringing us through it.’
‘Zed? Sky? Are you al right?’ Saul was shouting from the hal way.
‘In here, Dad. I’m fine. Sky’s a bit roughed up, but she’s OK.’
Saul hovered in the door, his expression anguished. ‘What happened? Didn’t you see the danger, Zed?’
‘Yeah, obviously I saw. I thought, “Let’s take my girlfriend out for a walk and try and get her kil ed”. Of course, I didn’t see—no more than you sensed it.’
‘Sorry, stupid question. Vick’s on his way. I’ve cal ed your mom and Yves back. Trace wil be here as soon as possible.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know. The two Kel ys were sent down on Tuesday. It could be payback. But they shouldn’t know where to find us.’
I turned in Zed’s arms to look at Saul. ‘Who are the Kel ys?’
Saul saw my face properly for the first time. ‘Sky, you’re hurt! Xav, get in here.’
The bathroom was beginning to feel very crowded with so many Benedicts hovering over me.
‘I’m fine. I just want some answers.’
Xav came running. ‘She’s not fine. Her face feels like it’s on fire.’
I opened my mouth to protest.
‘Don’t bother, Sky, I can feel what you’re feeling.
An echo of it.’ Xav reached out and put his fingertip on the bruise. I experienced a tingling like pins and needles on the right side of my face.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Trying to stop you looking like a panda tomorrow.’
He lifted his finger away. ‘It’s my gift.’
I touched my face cautiously. Though the bruise throbbed, the intensity of the pain had dimmed.
‘You’l stil have a bit of a bruise. I haven’t had time to get rid of al of it. Pain’s quick, bruises take more time to clear up—at least another fifteen minutes or so.’
‘We’d better get Sky home. The further from this mess she is, the better.’ Saul ushered us out of the bathroom.
‘Won’t the police want to take her statement?’ Zed handed me a dry pair of socks from the clean laundry basket.