Joe

As the boot slowly opens, I can’t bear to look. I close my eyes, say a prayer in my head that this will be quick, that I won’t feel anything.

Then I hear a voice. ‘Joe, come on, let’s get you out of there.’

I open my eyes and see Rabbit standing over the boot. A wave of utter relief washes over me. ‘You’re alive,’ I say.

Rabbit doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t smile or nod or anything. He just moves round to the side of the boot, grabs me under the arms and pulls me up. I scream as pain surges through my leg. Rabbit stops for a second and looks at me, still saying nothing, before he pulls me again. I grind my teeth, close my eyes as he drags me out. I try and put the weight on my good leg, put my foot down on the ground.

In a couple of seconds I’m out. Straight away I lie down on the concrete, eyes closed, biting my lip so I don’t scream. I wait a few seconds for the worst of the pain to pass. I sit up.

‘What happened?’ I say. ‘Are you OK? I heard shots.’

Rabbit nods. He looks at my foot, at the jumper covering it. He undoes the knot and examines it. I look away. I don’t want to see what my foot looks like. It feels like it’s pretty messed up. ‘We’re OK,’ he says.

I look around. We’re on a forecourt in the industrial estate, by the look of it. It’s dark. There are street lamps on, casting a kind of dim glow around the place. And then I see Ash, standing a couple of metres from the car, pointing a gun at the two guys who were in the BMW. They’re both lying kind of slumped against each other and Rabbit’s car. There’s blood leaking from them both, forming into glossy pools on the concrete. One of them is saying something to Ash. I can’t hear what, but he looks angry and he keeps grimacing in pain.

Rabbit ties the jumper back around my foot and then stands up. He stares across at Ash, at the two guys, like he can’t believe it either. He looks scared.

‘What happened?’

Rabbit looks at me. His eyes look weird, like he’s not really there. He rubs his face with his hands and gets a smear of my blood on his forehead. ‘Ash did it,’ he says. ‘He shot them.’ Rabbit shakes his head. He paces around for a few seconds. He looks like he doesn’t want to believe what’s happened. ‘Fuck, man. They pulled a gun. They were going to shoot us. He had to shoot them first.’

And we sit on the concrete in silence, in the orange light of the street lamps. The whole time, Rabbit doesn’t look up. I look at Ash pointing the gun at the two guys, ignoring what they’re saying. And I can’t work out whether I feel grateful that he shot the guys or not. Maybe he saved our lives, but maybe he just screwed the rest of our lives up. After a few seconds, though, I have to lie down again. I feel weird, like I’m gonna pass out or something.

‘Rabbit,’ Ash shouts over, ‘you should go. This had nothing to do with you.’

There’s a long pause before Rabbit says, ‘No way. I’m staying till the ambulance gets here.’

And then no one says anything for ages. I close my eyes and try not to think about the pain, about the state of my foot. Nothing happens till I hear a siren out on the main road. It sounds like it’s heading in this direction. I think about sitting up to watch for it. Except when I try to sit up, I physically can’t do it. So I just lie down propped up on my elbow and wait. And in about twenty seconds, the siren gets really close. It sounds like it must be on the industrial estate by now. I open my eyes, look across at Ash. He’s slowly stepping backwards, towards us, keeping the gun trained on the two guys. As he gets over to us, he holds the gun out for Rabbit.

‘I have to go,’ he says. ‘I have to find my mum.’

‘What?’ Rabbit says. He sounds angry. He doesn’t take the gun.

‘I have to.’

‘What about us?’ Rabbit says. ‘You can’t leave us to explain this!’

I think of things that I want to say to Ash, but I can’t open my mouth to say them.

‘Blame it all on me. Tell the police it was all my fault,’ Ash says. ‘Say you didn’t know anything about it.’

Flashing blue light starts to bounce off the walls and pavements of the industrial estate. The sirens are almost deafening now.

Ash drops the gun and runs past the two guys and the car and away towards the wire-mesh fence at the end of the industrial estate. I watch as he climbs over the fence and falls into the field on the other side. He gets up and starts running again.

Seconds later I hear the roar of an engine and then the screech of tyres. I hear a car door open and footsteps on the forecourt. Over in the field, I watch Ash’s back disappear into the darkness. I lie back down, take a deep breath and close my eyes.