Gypsy Girl (25 page)

I was a wolf protecting her pack. I had to tend to Gregory, but I couldn’t while Hudson was close. I had to deal with him first. But he was hyped. He was bouncing around. Then he bent down to pick something up off the ground. Something steel? Not the knife, that was far away. A tent peg, a deadly-eight inch spike. His rage was building. But mine was already sky-high. He shouldn’t have told me about the reservoir. When I’m scared, I get mad. He shouldn’t have kicked Gregory. All that did was fuel my hatred of him. I let him see the fury in my eyes. I began taking deep breaths again. I needed oxygen. I needed all my strength.

But before I could strike, something hit my back and clung on. I staggered, before bracing myself. Blood trickled over my shoulder. Milo wasn’t out cold. He was on my back, covering me with blood, breathing like a bulldog through his smashed nose.

“I’m gonna kill you! Bitch!”

He wasn’t a threat. I grabbed his stinking, sweat-covered shirt and pulled him over my shoulder, elbowing his nose again, making him scream as he flew and hit the ground head-first, splattering the grass with blood, and rolling, and lying still.

It had given Hudson time to come at me, though. The steel tent peg caught the last of the light. It was twisted steel, sharpened to a point. He was holding it like a dagger, ready to stab me. Weapons make people feel invincible. They make them careless. People rely on them, but what happens if the weapon is knocked out of their hands, or the gun fails to go off? Hands and feet don’t fail. You can’t drop them somewhere, or get them taken off you.

I jumped, spinning round, and kicked, my foot coming up like a pendulum and smashing the tent peg out of his hands. It went sailing through the air. My blood felt as though it was on fire.

Hudson should’ve stopped there. He should’ve run off, or backed down. He didn’t, because he was filled with uncontrollable rage as well. He roared and came at me. I lunged. We met in the middle. Arms trying to get a stranglehold, hands trying to find eye sockets and mouths, feet trying to trip each other. Stalemate. We were locked together, arms and legs and feet straining. A small moment of equality. Which one of us would give way first?

Once, I’d seen two lizards fighting in a glass cage in a pet shop. They were all about stillness. They’d each got their jaws fixed on the other, their legs braced, tiny muscles stretched to breaking point. And neither would give in. Neither could win. It was stalemate there in the steamy glass cage. Fighting over what? A tasty grasshopper? Or maybe one lizard didn’t think the other lizard had a right to exist, or it didn’t look the right colour or its eyes were the wrong shape, or it didn’t build its nest in the right way. They were like statues as they strained and tried not to be the one that weakened first.

That’s how me and Hudson looked. He knew what I could do. He’d heard Milo’s nose snap like a dry twig. His skin was going slippery with sweat. I could smell the fear coming off him. He was at the limit of his strength, and if he failed today he’d have to face his father, McCloud. But he wasn’t protecting someone. Gregory was lying behind him, and I saw his arm twitch, and then his legs. He was coming round. He rolled over and I saw his face, a pale oval in the growing darkness. He was blinking at us. I had to get rid of Hudson and go and help him. I forced my arms and legs to stay strong, to ignore the burn in their muscles, to push harder.

Hudson twitched first. So had the bigger lizard in the glass cage.

I’d watched those lizards for minutes, but it had ended quickly. The bigger one, with a frill around its neck the colour of emeralds, had twitched one of its claws. A tiny movement. In less than the blink of an eye, the other lizard, which had no bright colours, knew it had won. There was an explosion of teeth and claws – a dance of death – as it brought the emerald-frilled one down and chomped on its head, before lashing its tail in victory.

I had no tail to lash. But I felt Hudson’s biceps weaken for a moment. I moved like a lizard – no thought, just survival in my mind. He knew he’d lost. But he tensed and swung himself away from me, trying to get his balance, trying to make a comeback, and I followed. Our own dance of death. We whirled across the clearing, me a step behind him, trying to get a grip on him. His muscles must’ve been burning after our power struggle. His knees would be beginning to shake as his blood sugar dipped.

It didn’t matter, though. Because he’d got his eyes on the tent peg again. My kick had sent it flying across the clearing. As the sun dropped, a final ray sparkled on it. He threw himself at it. It would give him the advantage again. He didn’t reach it. I didn’t know where Gregory had found the strength – he’d been kicked in the head – but he did.

His hand reached out as Hudson scrambled past him. He grabbed Hudson’s ankle, and yanked. Hudson fell, his fingers grasping for the tent peg as Gregory hauled him back. I thought for a moment that Hudson had managed to grab it, but he hadn’t, because he squirmed round and did a feeble punch to Gregory’s ribs instead. My muscles were still burning from the fight, my knees shaking, but I ran over, my foot lifting for a kick to Hudson’s solar plexus.

I didn’t get the chance. Gregory was up on his knees, his fist swinging back. He let fly. It was the punch to beat all punches, revenge for being jumped and thumped and threatened with death. His fist blurred as it smacked on the bone and flesh of Hudson’s chin, sending him flying backwards to join Milo, out cold on the ground.

“You did it!” I ran to Gregory. He was still on his knees, swaying. I held out my hand. I pulled him up. Our eyes met, our arms went around each other. He leaned against me.

“Now who’s the fighter,” I said. I couldn’t work out whether I wanted to cry or laugh.

Gregory let out a big breath. “Did I really just knock Hudson out?”

I laughed, and he joined in, but only for a moment. Suddenly his face changed. He winced, puzzled, and staggered back, his arms dropping away from me. He put his hands to his ribs. He looked down as he staggered again. “What the hell—?”

Blood was seeping out from between his fingers. I knocked his hands away and pulled up his shirt. A tiny, round wound. And on the ground beside Hudson’s hand, the tent peg, slender as a stiletto. Deadly and glistening with blood. I was wrong. Not a feeble punch to Gregory’s ribs. A stab with a deadly weapon.

Gregory gave a strange half laugh. “The bastard. He got me.”

I ripped a bit more off the bottom of my destroyed dress, and bundled up the fine silk and pressed it to the wound.

“Don’t worry. We’re free now. I’ll drive.”

“You can drive?”

“My daddy taught me when I was thirteen.”

I put my arm around him and turned towards the car. But it was never going to be that simple. A car was approaching at speed, a big one, the engine droning and echoing through the trees, getting louder and louder. I looked around, trying to keep Gregory standing.

“More of them?” he groaned.

I dragged him along. “Don’t worry. We just have to get out of here.”

But the Jeep was in sight now, raising dust clouds, power-sliding round the corner and gunning towards us.

“No, no, no.”

“Shush.”

He was going limp, but I hoisted him up, using all my strength. I glimpsed Pony’s face through the windscreen. No way were we going to die by his hands. We were so close to the Fiat. The driver’s and back doors were still open. I half carried Gregory towards the car. He helped, moving his feet, holding his breath against the pain.

“Nearly there.”

But so was the Jeep. It came skidding into the clearing, pebbles flying, brakes squealing as it stopped inches from the Fiat. The driver’s door flew open as Pony threw himself out. Two more steps – that was all I needed, and I could push Gregory in the back, throw myself in the driver’s seat and get the hell out of there. Pony was coming towards us, but he was hobbling where I’d smashed his foot. Two steps, that was all, but I never made them. It turned out it didn’t matter that he couldn’t run at us and stop us.

“Don’t move,” he said.

It looked small in his big hand. The barrel was pointed straight at me. Pony had the gun now.

The light was fading fast. The setting sun had given the air a rosy glow, and the little campsite was bathed in pink. It shone on Pony’s silvery hair, but it couldn’t make his hate-filled face look any better.

“Let your boyfriend go,” he said, twitching the gun.

I couldn’t be bothered to tell him he was wrong to call Gregory that. I liked the sound of it, and anyway it wouldn’t matter soon. It seems that me plus Gregory equals death – however hard we fight. His daddy had been right to warn him away from me.

“I said, let him go.”

I took my arms from around Gregory and edged away from him. He sank to his knees, blood oozing through his fingers as he clutched his ribs. I made myself stare at the blood and think hard, because Gregory would die if I didn’t get the gun out of Pony’s hands. I was guessing he wouldn’t shoot, not unless he had to. Bullets would give the game away. Hudson wanted it to look like the two of us had died as the Fiat ran over the edge and crashed into the water. Pony would probably try something similar.

Pony glanced over to Hudson and Milo. His eyes lingered on Hudson’s sprawled body, and he almost smiled. Maybe seeing the boss’s son get flattened pleased him. Maybe he was sick of that permanent smile as well.

I wanted to spit in his couldn’t-care-less face. I let the fury rise in me. He’d picked the wrong person. I was a fighter. I wasn’t going to let him point his stupid gun at me and pull the trigger. I thought of all the Smiths down through the ages, all the Samsons. I imagined them lined up, watching me. Arms folded, muscles bulging, wild-haired, fearless.

You’re a Smith. You’re one of them, I told myself. OK, they’d be a bit amazed that I was a girl, but it had to happen sometime. They’d understand there was no way I was going into that deep water, or taking a bullet. And there was no way Gregory was going to die before I told him I loved him.

Pony was hobbling closer to me, keeping the gun aimed but staying out of my reach. He wasn’t Milo, he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t Hudson, thinking he was God’s gift. I concentrated on working out the distance between us. Near enough to jump and kick him? Near enough to do a hand strike, if I lunged forward?

“Put the gun away,” I said. “Let’s fight.”

He looked me up and down. “Got to admit, I never came across a girl like you before. They’re normally snivelling by now.”

So he beat up girls, or worse. Good, I was glad he said that, because it made the fury rise even faster inside me.

He signalled with the gun. “Get in your car.” It was behind us, still with the doors open.

“You’re joking. So you can knock me out and push it into the water.”

His mouth curled up on one side. “You’re going in there, even if I have to shoot you.” He looked over my shoulder into the back of the car. “And if I do, the phones stay with me. They’ll show your last location to be far from here. Your families will never look here for your bodies.”

I had to keep him talking, while I found a way out of this. But delaying meant that Hudson would wake at some point. As soon as I thought that, there was a groan. Even with concussion and a headache, Hudson could be dangerous.

It didn’t matter. What Pony didn’t realize was that there was no way I was going in that water.

If I could kick the gun out of his hands, I could beat him, but he was too wary. In a fight you always have to look for a way to turn things to your advantage. His eyes were on me. I’d made sure of that because it meant he’d forgotten about Gregory. I hadn’t.

I could see him out of the corner of my eye. He was still on his knees, one hand holding his ribs, looking like he was going to throw up. He was trying to tell me something. Then I saw. His free hand was swinging up. It was holding a stone he’d found on the ground. He let me see it and then he threw it at Pony.

It missed. It would never have hurt him. But it didn’t need to. It gave me the chance I needed. As it sailed past him, Pony glanced round, only for a split second, but it was enough. I took my chance. I leaped for him, striking out with the side of my hand. It hit home, sending the gun flying out of his hand and out of danger. But his finger had already tightened on the trigger. There was a muffled bang. The gun went flying, glinting in the twilight. I saw Pony’s arm recoil, and he staggered back, tripping and falling.

But I was falling, too. A force had got hold of me and was spinning me round. My arm flew out and a pain started up in my left shoulder. It felt like someone had hit me with a cricket bat. A dull thud that burned like fire, and froze like ice. It nearly threw me to my knees, but I couldn’t stop to think what had happened yet.

The gun was spinning over and over as it fell to the ground. I threw myself after it, but Pony was doing the same, howling with pain from his injured hand, and holding it close to his body as he dived and reached with his good hand. He was too big, too hefty. I could move faster.

The gun hit the grass and bounced, and I was right after it. Pony got my ankle and pulled, but my fingers touched the gun. He scrabbled madly for it, all his cool lost. My hand closed around the handle, but he was inches behind. I had no time to aim. I’d never handled a gun. I threw it. It went up in a sparkling arch and hit the undergrowth beyond the trees. He would never find it in there. Now we were equal. He gave a roar of pure fury, and launched himself at me. I kicked out and hit him on the chin, knocking him back.

But something was wrong with me.

My left arm was useless. The pain in my shoulder was getting worse. It was throbbing madly. I went scrabbling back, using one arm, and managed to get to my feet, pulling up the hem of my dress to wipe the blood from my face. My knees were wobbling. I could feel all the power leeching out of my muscles and limbs. He’d shot me in the shoulder. I was losing blood, and I was going to pass out soon.

But not yet, please not yet.

Pony was on his feet, shaking his injured hand, swearing, cursing, limping. Granny Kate was right. He was a zombie, shambling towards me, his good hand outstretched and reaching for my neck. He could snap it in a second; he had that strength. And I could do nothing about it. The weakness was creeping through my veins and sinews.