‘Listen!’ He tried to think how he could stop this girl from landing him in trouble. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ But his voice sounded gruff and hoarse, even to his own ears. The girl started to scream again. She wrapped the towel around her and tried to run past the sofa, where Jamie stood. He grabbed at her, to stop her from leaving.
‘Calm down,’ he said, catching hold of her wrists, so her towel dropped onto the floor again. His damaged shoulder burned with the effort of holding her. She had a great body, but he wished she’d shut up. He was thankful the main house was set so far back from here, but any of the guards could walk past at any moment and hear her screams. He finally managed to get a hand over her mouth which she promptly bit, pushing him away from her with her one free hand.
‘Jesus, you bitch,’ he gasped, as her teeth sank into his flesh and a searing pain flashed through his already throbbing shoulder. She ran towards the door, picking up his bundle of possessions to try to cover her nakedness. At least she’d stopped screaming for a second.
‘My stuff!’ he shouted and lunged towards her to try and grab his bundle back. She yelped and dropped the bundle. Whilst he was reaching down to retrieve it, the girl grabbed an empty beer bottle from the floor and smashed the bottom of it against the wall, holding it in front of her, like a weapon.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ she trembled, ‘or I’ll slash you.’
‘Look,’ said Jamie, raising his hands, but still holding onto his possessions. ‘I was just sleeping here, but I’ll go. I don’t want any trouble. Just let me go. I won’t hurt you.’
But the girl was backing towards the closed door and, if he didn’t stop her escaping, she’d alert the whole perimeter and then he’d be done for. He calculated the distance, dropped his bundle and lunged towards her, finding his hands around her slim, white throat. She slashed up at his chin and he felt a stinging pain as he saw his blood drip down onto the wooden floor. But he pushed her back at arm’s length, so she couldn’t reach his face with the bottle.
The problem was he was doing her some serious damage – she was choking. Finally she was forced to drop the bottle, to try and prise his hands from around her neck, and so at last he could release her, shoving her away from him. But the force of this push sent her flying backwards into the door, crashing through the stained glass window and clutching at her throat, her eyes bulging in her head.
The noise was terrific and Jamie expected half the Perimeter to come running at any moment. She sat there, inside the empty doorframe, in shock, covered in splintered wood and coloured glass. They stared, dazed, at one another.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jamie looked down at the naked, gasping figure. She was bleeding all over from hundreds of tiny glass cuts and, with the fragments of stained glass, her white skin looked like it was encrusted with sparkling precious jewels.
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay? Stupid question. I have to go. I can’t get caught here, they’ll kill me. You’ll be alright.’ He was panicking. She seemed okay to him, just a bit shocked and messed up.
He heard a small creaking sound and looked up to where it emanated from – the top of the doorframe. She followed his line of vision upwards, tipping her head back, just in time to see a large shard of blue glass sky fall out of the frame and drop, with deadly accuracy, into her throat.
Her eyes moved downwards and locked onto Jamie’s, they widened momentarily. She opened her mouth and tried to speak but, instead, warm blood frothed from her lips. She fell backwards and lay awkwardly across the doorframe, half in and half out of the poolhouse. The glass shard still protruded grotesquely from her throat and blood pumped from the wound, quickly pooling around her lifeless body.
‘No,’ he exhaled as he realised she was past saving and he had better get as far away from there as he could. He gathered up his blood-soaked bundle and the remaining contents of the fridge, scanning for anything else that may be of use to him.
He decided to break the habit of a lifetime and travel by night. He would aim to reach the Boscombe Compound as soon as he could, hopefully before dawn, although it would be tough going with his banged up leg. If anyone asked, he would say he spent the night outside Boscombe’s walls.
Hopefully, the girl from the Poole Shanty would already be inside Boscombe Compound and he’d charm her into accompanying him to London. He’d make something up – the promise of a great job once they got there, or something. He didn’t plan on ever coming back.
Other titles by Shalini Boland
HIDDEN, book 1 in the Marchwood Vampire Series, is out now in print and as an ebook
About The Author
Shalini Boland lives in Dorset, England with her husband and two sons where she writes novels (in between doing the school runs and hanging out endless baskets of washing).
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Copyright
Copyright © Shalini Boland 2011
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 9780956998514