twenty-two

A SHEER DROP DOWN

I scramble to my feet and sprint across the floor to the place where I last saw Callum, shoving past Catriona on my way. It’s take her down or find out what happened to Callum, and that’s no choice at all. I have to see Callum, or what’s left of him—

I pull up short a bare foot before I tumble to my death. Oh my God. I didn’t quite understand why Catriona was telling her brother to jump, because the tower isn’t that high. But this ancient building backs onto the cliffs, and there’s a sheer drop down where the wall has long since fallen away. I’m teetering on the edge, the stone floor crumbling away beneath me, looking at the rocks below and the gray sea pounding them, white frothy foam surging up the sharp teeth of the cliffs.

But what I don’t see is Callum’s body lying down there. My heart is pounding.

And then I hear something, a movement just below my feet. In a flash, I drop to my knees and crane my head over the edge.

Callum’s hanging there, both hands wrapped around a stone block protruding from the wall. His eyes widen as he sees my face appear directly above his.

“Scarlett!” he manages.

“Hang on, Callum!”

I look down. There’s nowhere for him to jump—it’s nothing but bare rock below him. Behind me, I hear the sound of a shotgun being racked up. I swing round.

Catriona’s pointing the gun at me. I’ve never stared down the business end of a shotgun before, let alone when it’s aimed at my chest. The sight of those two shiny black barrels is the most frightening thing I have ever seen in my life.

“You too,” she says, gazing straight into my eyes. “You’re going over the edge as well. Jump.”

I remember lying on Catriona’s bed last night, laughing and joking with her. Thinking how nice she was, how normal. Last night I was almost sure it was Lucy who had killed Dan, for Callum’s sake.

Now I look into Catriona’s slanted gray eyes and I wonder how I could ever have liked her. Because all I see in there is sheer, terrifying madness.

I brace myself. I’m going to hurdle two steps, hit the floor in a roll, and kick her legs away from her. I know I can do it. She won’t expect how fast I can come at her. Nobody who hasn’t seen a gymnast sprinting toward them realizes what a head of speed we can power up from a standing start. I’ll be on her before she knows it, and as soon as I’m in my forward roll, I’ll be below the gun barrels. If they go off, she’ll be firing above my head. And Callum, hanging far below floor level, will be safe from any stray shot.

I switch my weight to my toes, lifting up slightly, poised perfectly to burst into action—

“Scarlett! Help!” Callum yells desperately. And I hear a terrifying slipping sound, like nails sliding down a stone block.

I have no choice. I have to help him. What good will it do me to take down Catriona if Callum’s falling to his death below us?

I drop flat on the ground in a single movement, dragging myself over the edge, dangling my arms over to reach him. One of his hands has slipped over the block and is reaching up, flailing the air, trying to get a grip on something. I grab it and dig my fingers tightly into the muscles of his forearm. His hand closes just as tightly over my arm. Wow, he’s strong. I know I can pull him up, I know I can, if Catriona just leaves us alone.

“Oh, how sweet,” Catriona mocks. “Saw one brother die and now you can’t watch the second one go? Who d’you like more, Scarlett? Dan or Callum? Dan was the charmer, but Callum’s worth twice of him, you know. Just ask anyone.”

To my horror, I see Callum’s face, upturned toward mine, crumple in pain as she taunts me. Tears are welling up in his eyes as Catriona insults Dan. I feel his grip slip a little, his fingers slide down a fraction toward my wrist, and I take a deep, deep breath, grab him even tighter, and haul him up with every atom of strength in my body.

“Hold on!” I yell savagely down at him, right into his face, that handsome face that’s so like Dan’s but so different at the same time, so full of a strength that Dan never cultivated. “I’ve got you! I’m not letting go!” I give another haul, one hand digging into a crack in the stone floor, the other one dragging at Callum’s dead weight, the lats down the side of my arm and back screaming in protest, until suddenly I realize he’s not a dead weight anymore.

Somehow, I’ve lifted him far enough that he’s managed to find a foothold that’s taking a lot of his body weight. The strain on my arm loosens enough that I can afford to reach my other arm down now, not needing to cling to the ground for dear life, and Callum, seeing instantly what I’m doing, lets go of his clutch on the stone block and grabs mine instead.

God, he’s heavy. I grit my teeth and heave him up, clenching my stomach muscles tightly to help my back take the strain. I feel Callum come up higher; I feel him get a better foothold in whatever crevice in the rock below he’s found to grind his boot into, and I have a surge of excitement, knowing I can pull him up. I can save his life when I couldn’t save Dan’s.

“Oh no,” Catriona says above me. “No, no, no! Sorry, but I didn’t come this far to back out now!”

And I feel the barrel of the gun, cold and hard, against my temple.

“Drop him,” she says. “Drop him and I promise I won’t kill you.”

She must think I’m the biggest fool in the world if she even imagines I’d believe her.

But I can scarcely call her bluff.

The barrel presses closer against my temple. I flinch, despite myself, and my grip on Callum loosens for a second.

“Do it,” he calls up to me.

His eyes are looking up directly into mine. Gray and clear and trying to tell me something, frantically, with everything he’s got.

“Do it,” he repeats. “It’s okay.”

He starts to let go his grip on my forearms, and I scream: “No! No! I won’t let go!” and tighten my grasp on him so convulsively that I can feel my whole upper body trembling with the tension.

“Then I’ll make you!”

Catriona’s voice rises to a high-pitched, insane-sounding scream. She drags the shotgun barrel from my forehead. The relief of having it gone is intense, but it’s instantly replaced by fear of what she’ll do next. Though I can barely lift my head with the strain of holding Callum, I crane my neck back just enough to see her from underneath. Looming over me, her shadow falling over us, she reverses the shotgun, holding it by the barrels, and lifts it above the edge of the abyss, about to bring the stock down on my and Callum’s clasped hands.

I close my eyes and hold on to him with every atom of strength I have left, though I know it will do no good. We’re completely vulnerable.

I glance down at Callum again, and he stares up at me. He’s stopped trying to let go of me now. And somehow, we’re gazing at each other, and all I can see is Callum’s gray eyes, thickly fringed with silky dark lashes, wide-set under his strong dark brows. I notice for the first time that he has speckles of gold-green in his gray irises, like mica chips that catch the light, and a moment of utter calm passes between us, and I stop panicking. For that moment, that long moment, I don’t think about anything but looking down into Callum’s eyes.

I wait for Catriona’s blow to come, and hold on as tight as I can to him.

Suddenly Callum’s face below me lightens—but not in expression. The shadow over us has lifted. Catriona’s moved. And in that second, something falls heavily across my foot, and I hear signs of a struggle, a shotgun barrel hitting stone, gasps and grunts and fists landing on flesh.

I have no time to look round, no time to do anything but concentrate, fiercely, on dragging Callum up. I lock my back and curl up my abdominals, and, with everything I’ve got and more I don’t, I haul away at Callum’s arms in a series of long, miraculously powerful pulls that run right down my shoulders, into my back and my hamstrings, as my toes dig desperately into the stone floor scrabbling for a toehold, forcing me to stay there and not be pulled over the edge.

I can feel the cords in my neck standing out with the terrible effort, my teeth locking together in a grimace. Callum’s face below mine is strained into a rictus of concentration as he swings his body up and walks up the wall, using my hands to steady him, higher and higher till he’s got high enough to grab the edge of the floor and use his powerful arms and shoulders to heave himself over—

The shotgun goes off behind me.

I scream, though I’m so exhausted with the strain of pulling Callum to safety that all that comes out is a dry little croak.

Callum drags himself onto the floor beside me, panting as if he’s run an obstacle course. He grabs hold of me, patting his hands up and down my body, his eyes wild.

“Scarlett! Are you all right? Scarlett!”

I nod mutely. My entire body is burning with the agony of straining my muscles way beyond their natural limits, but I think I’d know if I’d been shot.

Or would I? With the amount of adrenaline pumping through me, would I really know? And would Callum know if he’d been shot? The thought scares me so much I sit up and scan him with equal, wild-eyed panic. I can’t see any blood on him, thank God.  .  .  .

It sounds mad, but we’re so intensely focused on each other, after what we’ve just been through, that it’s not until we’ve ensured that we’re both unharmed that we even think to look around us. Catriona’s sprawled on the floor, facedown, several feet from us. The shotgun barrel is just visible below her. And across the room, body at a weird angle against the wall, head twisted round, is—

“Taylor!”

I jump to my feet, all pain forgotten, and race across the room. If Taylor’s been hurt saving our lives, I’ll never forgive myself.

“Taylor!” I kneel down beside her. “Taylor, are you okay? Taylor!”

I take her head between my hands and turn it gently, my heart pounding with fear. Please, please tell me she hasn’t broken her neck.

Taylor’s eyes snap open like someone in a horror film coming back to life. I scream again, something I’m doing much too much this afternoon, but again, all I produce is a hoarse croak.

“Ow!” she says crossly. “Stop twisting me!” She gets her hands under her and lifts herself up. “My back hurts really bad,” she complains.

But suddenly there’s a howl from Callum, so raw and wounded that I spin round, terrified that somehow he’s realized that, after all, he’s been shot.

He’s kneeling beside his sister’s body. He’s turned her over, and she’s lying in his arms, her head flopping back over his arm at an angle just as odd as Taylor’s was. But Taylor didn’t have a huge red stain on her chest, a stain that looks as if it’s spreading out even as I stare, horrified, at Callum. He puts one hand against her neck, looking for a pulse. And I see from his expression, simultaneously horrified and also, awfully, relieved, that he can’t find one.

Catriona is dead.

I get up and walk slowly toward Callum, as slow as if I were walking through water, because my entire body is screaming with pain. And when I reach him, I kneel down beside him and put my arm around him. I don’t know what I’m expecting, but he turns to me, and awkwardly, over Catriona’s body, he leans into me and puts both his arms around me. His head sinks till it’s resting on my shoulder. With my other hand, I stroke his hair, his poignantly short stubbly hair, and I take the weight of him on me, holding him as he sobs against me, his tears wetting my sweater as I burst into tears myself. The relief of finally letting my guard down, sobbing my heart out, while Callum and I hold each other, is unbelievable.

Taylor is as white as a sheet as she looks at Catriona’s body.

“I grabbed her, and she tried to hit me with the gun. I ducked and she tripped and sent me flying  .  .  . ,” she says. “I tried to get the gun away from her, but she wouldn’t let go, and then she fell against it and it went off. I didn’t mean  .  .  .”

“It wasn’t your fault, Taylor,” I manage to say to her. “You saved our lives. It wasn’t your fault.”

I take my hand from Callum’s head and hold it out to her. Wincing, she makes her way across to us and kneels down beside us, looking at Catriona, holding my hand.

I can’t be sure, because I know how much Taylor would hate it if I ever caught her crying. So, deliberately, I look away.

But I’m pretty sure that tears are pouring down her face too.