The Hunt (26 page)

Rose fired at him three times before he reached one of the outbuildings. If she hit him it didn’t seem to slow him one bit.

‘Chris, circle around!’ she called, hoping the instruction reached Chris but not the Trail man. She started moving forward, eyes on the barn and outbuildings.

Chris stood, swaying. His face was splashed red, but he was beyond caution. He started running again, limping badly, veering slightly to the left to bypass a dip in the ground.

Tom darted for the barn’s front door. If it had been open, maybe he’d have got inside.

As he stood struggling with the handle, Rose braced herself into a shooting position, shutting out the pain, aimed, fired.

The bullet smacked Tom against the door. He slid down, leaving a smear of blood on the old oak.

Rose readied to fire again but the barn door opened and Tom slumped to the ground. There was movement inside. She eased her finger from the trigger.

She wanted to see Margaret Vey’s face as she killed her. Wanted to kill her slowly, make her feel every moment of it. A bullet through the skull was much too kind.

The door slammed closed again, and Rose felt an instant of regret. If Chris’s family
were
still alive, maybe that one shot would have saved them.

But the moment was past.

Rose followed Chris towards the converted barn, alert for movement at the windows. Grin would certainly be watching.

Chris reached one of the outbuildings but did not pause. He ran across the tended lawn and pressed up against the barn’s wall.

Rose passed the woman she’d just shot. Half her face was missing. The other half was pale and attractive, and she wondered what made a young woman like this do the things she’d done.

Money, of course. But that was the least of it. The Trail were as bloodthirsty as the clients they served.

A window smashed and Rose ducked down. But no gunfire came.

‘I’m leaving here!’ a voice called, and Rose felt a wave of nausea. Margaret Vey. The woman she’d dreamed of killing for so long, and who now was less than a rifle shot away. ‘I’m coming out, and you both need to step back and drop your weapons. Both of you!’

‘No way!’ Rose called. She was close to the edge of the barn’s garden, hidden in a field of ferns. She lifted her head a little, saw Chris. There was blood on his face and neck. His eyes were wide. He was in the same place, gun across his chest, not knowing what to do. If he dropped the gun and walked into view, she’d likely shoot him. Rose didn’t think he could see her, but she still held up her hand –
Stay there!

‘I have three of them in here,’ Grin shouted. ‘I’ll kill the first two quickly! He’ll not want them all dead, I’m sure. Not all of them. Three seconds and I send the first one out to die.’

‘No, don’t!’ Chris shouted, and then there were squeals from inside, and then a gunshot.

‘No!’ Chris ran for the door, passed it, ducked around the smashed window.

Rose readied herself to hear the gunshot that would take Chris’s life.

He saw them.

Terri, his dear wife, in her jogging bottoms and tee shirt. And his girls, Megs still wearing her pyjamas, Gemma in wrinkled school clothes, dried blood on one shoulder. They were sitting on a sofa, Terri in the middle. Their arms were tied behind their backs. Their ankles were bound. They wore gags, but their whines could not be constrained when they saw him.

The woman from the van was crouched behind the sofa, gun pointing at the window.

Chris went to lift his rifle, but she was turning slightly towards him, and he saw not an instant of doubt or hesitation in her face.

He dropped down and back as she fired, and the bullet whispered by close to his face. He’d already been shot in the cheek by the machine gun. He didn’t know how bad it was, his entire face burned and blood flowed, but he didn’t care. As long as he could still see, stand, shoot, he didn’t care.

Rose was running across the garden. She signalled that he should stay down as she headed for the front door.

Where was the guy she’d shot, Tom? Chris didn’t know. Badly injured, at least, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t fire a gun.

‘Last chance!’ the woman shouted. ‘I’m sending Megs out the window now, and if I can’t see you both standing there with guns on the ground, I’ll blow her brains all over you!’

No no no!
Chris thought, but he could see no other way. He hated the bitch using his daughter’s name. The woman meant to escape, and she’d happily kill them all to do so. If she had only one hostage, it would be easier for her.

As she’d said, killing the first two would be quick.

‘Okay!’ he said. ‘I’m backing away, dropping my gun!’ His jaw and face hurt when he spoke. He sounded desperate.

Rose frowned at him from by the front door. He raised his hands –
What else can we do?

Rose tried the front door, and from deeper in the house Tom called out, words lost but his alarm obvious.

‘You try the front door again and I’ll start shooting them in here!’

Chris stared at Rose. Desperate. Hopeless. To have come so far
…

She lifted her jacket and showed him the pistol in her belt. He signalled for it. She shook her head.

Chris scurried along the barn’s wall to Rose, whispered, ‘She’ll be watching you, not me.’

Rose shook her head again. The woman was the one she’d come here to kill, and to hand over that task to Chris—

Chris grabbed her shoulders, ignoring her wince of pain. ‘It’s not all about you,’ he whispered.

‘Yes it is,’ she said. But he could already see that she was wavering.

Chris reached for the pistol.

Rose tensed. Then let him take it. ‘You’ll have to be very quick,’ she whispered.

Chris nodded as he tucked the pistol into the waistband of his running trousers. Everything was moving very slowly. He wished he was still running and could run on forever, but sometimes things had to stop. Every race came to an end.

‘I’m coming out!’ the woman shouted.

Chris and Rose threw the rifles onto the grass and backed away, but not too far.

Megs appeared at the window.

Gemma had thought they were fireworks. But only for a minute. Vey’s reaction made her hear and see the truth. Their captor dashed from the room, more shooting sounded, and the heavy front door opened and slammed again. She returned a few seconds later carrying a big gun. She moved quickly and calmly, but her eyes were wide and Gemma heard her fast breathing. There was blood on her hands.

Gemma, her mum and sister pressed in close. Megs whined behind her gag. Gemma looked at her mum, wishing she could communicate something about what she was doing, what she had in her hand. But through the sudden sting of tears, all she could do was smile with her eyes.

Vey scooped up a potted plant and threw it at the window. The glass was single glazed, and it smashed, the pot cracking and spilling soil and roots across the carpet and windowsill. Gemma had a flashing, crazy vision of her own body doing the same. Breaking, falling, spilling—

Vey came at them with a knife. Megs squealed, their mother writhed against her restraints, Gemma tensed. But Vey said nothing as she knelt and slashed the ties binding their ankles.

And now she’ll go for our wrists and she’ll see what I’ve been doing and I’ll have to try to get her, because everything’s happening now and I might not get another chance.

Panic hovered at the periphery of her senses, sharpening them. But that curious distance also remained, and while events moved quickly, Gemma was able to observe and absorb, slowing things down and settling her thoughts as much as possible. If she looked at her mum and sister again she might lose it, so she breathed deeply, feeling the warm nail in her right hand and the bloody, burning pain where she’d been working her wrists against the rope.

Vey disappeared behind the sofa, but she didn’t cut their ropes. Instead, she knelt and rested the rifle across the sofa’s back. Its barrel touched Gemma’s neck briefly, shockingly cold.

Vey started shouting.

Gemma closed her eyes. She heard the hated woman’s voice but it was only volume, a song of hatred, and she ignored the meaning of the words. It aided her concentration. Her right hand slid from the loop of rope, and it felt like someone was pouring acid on her hand, stripping skin and scouring exposed nerves. She shivered with pain.

But that’s okay
, she thought.
She’ll think I’m scared. And that’s good
.

And then she heard her dad’s voice and everything changed. All the coolness, the concentration, were swept away by a terrible sense of dread and hopelessness, and though she wanted to remain quiet Gemma squealed loud and long against her gag.

A gunshot smashed into her ears, her head, thumping at the centre of her. Dust rained down around them, and all sound receded. It faded back in slowly; Megs crying, coming in from a distance to Gemma’s ringing ears.

Her dad appeared at the window. There was something wrong with his face. He was bleeding. But he saw them, and Gemma saw him.

He fell back just as Vey fired the rifle.

The noise slammed Gemma’s hearing to nothing, and she realised that the previous warning shot must have been from the smaller gun. It was like the whole world had exploded. The impact was a physical thing, seeming to bruise her ears and head. It sent a wave of pain through her whole body, and Gemma grabbed hold of this.

The pain, the nail. She clasped them both, because she knew they might both help her.

The pain, the nail. The rage.

Rose felt curiously distant. No longer armed, she was not part of this any more. She was an observer, and whether Chris killed Grin, or Grin killed both of them, was now out of her hands.

She had spent so long trying to maintain control that it felt terrifying to be helpless.

But Chris had been right. Grin would be watching her, not him, because she was the greater threat. And the only slim chance they had of stopping her killing them all – because she would try, Rose had very little doubt about that – was now all on Chris’s shoulders.

She heard his gasp as the gagged little girl appeared at the ground-floor window. A rifle barrel smashed away more glass, then a bloodstained hand dropped a small rug over the sill. The kid sat up on the windowsill and was shoved through. Her arms were tied. She fell to the ground and hit hard, but it was a flower bed, and she rolled and sat up. Her eyes were wide with terror as she struggled to her feet. She stared at her father.

Rose couldn’t help thinking of Molly, sitting up dead with blood in her ear, and she resolved to do anything to avoid seeing this girl become the same.

Another shape appeared, the older girl. She followed Megs through, swinging her legs out first and managing to land on her feet.

‘If you run I’ll shoot your mummy!’ Grin shouted.

Bitch. She was going to shoot them anyway. She wanted a clear shot at Chris and Rose, then the others – the innocents, those who were not a threat – would fall last. Rose glanced sidelong at Chris and hoped he knew that. He’d been shot in the face, the wound pouting, fleshy. He was shaking slightly, difficult to read. Yet staring at his daughters, his eyes seemed clear, his expression neutral.
Trying to stay calm
, Rose thought, but she didn’t really know this man at all.

A woman came through next, Chris’s wife, hands also tied behind her. And then Grin. She kept the woman close to the window as she climbed out, rifle barrel pressed into her back. Then she stood behind the woman and two children.

The older girl backed up against her mother. There was something about the girl’s expression. She was scared, but also tensed. Eyes wide.

‘Hello, Rose,’ Grin said.

Rose did not answer. She watched Grin appraising the situation – the rifles on the lawn, Rose’s injured arm, Chris’s face, their empty hands. She seemed almost satisfied.

Rose took a small step to the right, just enough to attract Grin’s attention, make her alert. The bitch watched her intently.

As she stepped out from behind her hostages and lifted her rifle towards Rose, Grin tried to put them at ease. ‘Okay then, now we can all—’

‘Safety catch,’ Chris said.

Grin paused, smiled. She didn’t look down at her weapon, because she was too much of a professional for that, and knew that the catch was not on.

But she did lift her head just slightly as she laughed.

Chris’s eldest daughter pivoted on her left foot, swung her right arm around, and slammed her bloodied fist into the side of Grin’s head. It wasn’t a hard impact. But Grin’s eyes went wide, and even from twenty feet away Rose saw the woman’s eye flood red.

The girl pushed her mother and sister to the ground.

Rose fell to the side as Chris reached into his waistband, pulled out the pistol, and fired.

Grin’s rifle fired as well. Rose gasped, ready for the impact, ready for the shock of white-hot pain to rush in. Perhaps there would simply be darkness.

Another shot from the pistol, someone hit the ground, then another impact from closer by. She rolled, cried out as her arm was trapped beneath her, then knelt up.

Chris was on his side, arm stretched out, hand still clasping the pistol. He was bleeding from somewhere else, but Rose couldn’t see where.

Grin was down. Squirming, trying to sit up and lift the rifle again.

Chris’s family ran to him. They dropped to their knees, the wife leaning over and pressing her face to his chest, hands still tied behind her back. The older girl pulled their gags off and the sisters fell upon their parents, seeking succour and an escape from this hell. She glanced across at Rose. Rose tried to smile, but the girl looked away, burying her face against the side of her father’s neck. Perhaps she was telling him how much she loved him.

Rose struggled to her feet. She’d been shot through the hip, but her leg still supported her weight. The pain was remote, belonging to someone she’d left behind.

Because
this
Rose now had Grin.

The Trail woman had been shot once in the right shoulder. She also had a nail protruding from her face an inch behind her left eye, and the orbit leaked blood and viscous fluid. Chris’s daughter had done that. Good girl.