Banished

Then he shot at me.

I waited for a jolt of pain that didn’t come, but there was a crash from the bookshelves behind me.

“Down,” Prairie screamed, and pushed me away from her, but I stood my ground as she raced for the kitchen and jerked open a drawer and pawed frantically through the contents.

“Rascal!” I screamed, and he appeared in the hall, looking uninterested. “Sic him, boy!”

The change in Rascal was astonishing. In a flash he went from standing still to snarling and hurling himself at Rattler, teeth bared. He clamped down hard on Rattler’s shin, and the sound coming from his throat was guttural and feral. Rattler yelled in pain. As he brought his gun hand down on Rascal’s skull, the gun went off again and Prairie stumbled against me. She didn’t say a word, just made a sound like “unh.”

“Are you-”

“I’m fine,” Prairie said, yanking on my hand and pulling me toward the door.

“Rascal, come on!” I yelled, and we ran as Rattler hopped back, clutching his leg where Rascal had attacked him.

When we reached the porch, Prairie stumbled and barely caught herself.

“You’re not fine,” I said, heart pounding. “Did he shoot you?”

I saw the spreading damp of her blood and the jagged tear in her sweater, the awkward angle at which she was holding her arm.

“Ahh,” she said, breathing hard. “All right, I’m hit. But we have to get out of here. It’s not just Rattler, Hailey. There were lights on in my house that weren’t on before. Didn’t you see? Bryce’s men are over there, and they must have heard something going on.”

“But-”

“They’ll come here, Hailey. To see what happened.”

And then they’d come after us.

Again.

“How-What can I-”

“Just help me run. We can get to a pay phone, there’s one a couple of blocks back.”

I remembered her cell phone, crushed under the Buick’s tire.

If there was a moment for me to be strong, this was it. Prairie had taken the lead since the moment we’d met, and I’d followed. Not always willingly, and I hadn’t always believed or trusted her, but I followed.

Now, though, she needed me. And I had to set aside my doubts, my questions, my fear. I set Chub down, yanked my old shirt out of the backpack and tied the sleeves tightly around her arm, above the bullet wound, to slow the blood flow. She stood still and pale, biting her lip but not making any sound.

I held Chub’s hand and supported Prairie with my other arm, half dragging her, retracing our steps down the alley toward town. Rascal followed, docile again. Any traces of the vicious attack dog he’d been moments ago were gone. I listened for footsteps behind us, the sound of tires on gravel, but there was nothing.

We reached a shuttered drugstore and I could see the pay phone in a pool of light at the edge of the parking lot. I hesitated-we’d be a visible target for anyone who came along.

A taxi cruised slowly by.

I jumped into the street. I’d never hailed a cab in my life, but I held my hand high and waved it hard. For a moment I thought the cab was going to pass us by, but at the last minute it slowed.

“I can’t-my arm,” Prairie said.

“We can cover it-”

Prairie shook her head. “No. It’s too dangerous. If he sees blood, he might insist on taking us somewhere. A police station, or a hospital.”

“Would that be so bad? Come on, Prairie, you’re shot. You need a doctor.”

She shook her head hard. “No. You don’t understand. Bryce is connected. In more ways than you can imagine. I’m sure he’s got people covering the police scanners, the highway patrol-if we end up with the authorities, we’re as good as dead. Besides, we can’t take Rascal.”

“But-”

The cabbie rolled down his window. “Excuse me, miss. You coming?” he asked in a thick accent.

Prairie shook her head again. I made a split-second decision. “I just need to use your cell phone, sir. Please. We’ll pay.”

The cabbie narrowed his eyes and frowned. “No ride?”

“No, I’m sorry, I just really need to use your phone.”

He muttered something I couldn’t understand and started to roll up his window.

“No! Please!” Frantically I gestured for Prairie to give me some money. She dug in her pocket and handed me a roll of bills. I peeled off three twenties. “Here. Just for a few minutes. I promise we’ll give it right back.”

The cabbie hesitated, then sighed and reached into the pocket of his coat. He handed me his phone and I passed him the money. “You stay right here,” he said, stabbing a finger at me.

“Yes, okay.”

I handed the phone to Prairie. She stepped back into the shadows while I waited next to the cab, Rascal sitting calmly at my side. Chub watched the transaction closely from my arms, his eyes wide and worried. “Phone,” he said. “Prairie call.”

“That’s right, Chub. We borrowed the nice man’s phone so Prairie could make a call.” I glanced at the man, hoping his expression would soften when he saw how sweet Chub was, but he stared stonily ahead, arms crossed.

It didn’t take long. Prairie shuffled back and handed me the phone. She was trembling. “Thank you,” I said as I gave the phone back to the driver. He didn’t respond but took off, wiping the phone on his shirt.

“I talked to Anna,” Prairie said. She had started to shiver all over. “She’s coming. We need to stay out of sight. I told her we’d be in that first yard.”

She pointed back the way we’d come. A compact bungalow was separated from the street by a row of mature trees and a thick hedge. With luck, the trees would keep us hidden.

Before I could reply, Prairie started to sway. I grabbed her good arm and steadied her, then half dragged, half carried her. Chub walked behind us, hanging on to my jeans belt loop.

A low stone retaining wall ran along the side of the yard. There were no lights on in the house. I prayed that the people who lived there were heavy sleepers. Once I got Prairie settled on the stone ledge, I looked at her arm again. I couldn’t tell in the dark whether it was still bleeding, but the makeshift tourniquet was wet with blood.

“Isn’t there something I can do?” I asked. “You know… heal it?”

Prairie shook her head. “Healers can’t help each other, Hailey.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just how it’s always been. But we’re strong. Stronger than most. I’m going to be fine.”

Her shivering eased as we waited, but the stone was freezing beneath us and the night seemed to be getting colder with each passing moment. Chub burrowed against my knees. “Sleepy,” he murmured, and I ran my fingers through his hair, over and over, the way he liked.

The minutes ticked by, the occasional car passing just a few yards away. Finally, a car pulled along the curb. It was small, and in the light of the streetlamps I could see that it was old and dented. The man who got out of the driver’s seat was tall and broad-shouldered.

He stood silhouetted against the streetlight, fists clenched at his sides as he looked around. I couldn’t see his face-he had a hood pulled up over his head-but something stirred inside me, the deep, intense feeling I sometimes got around the Morries, of longing and loss and connection and fear all run together. Could it be one of the other Banished men? How could he have gotten here so fast?

Prairie saw the man too, and I could hear her surprised murmur. Terror shot through my veins when I saw that he’d spotted us. I got ready to run, even though I’d never be able to move fast enough, not with Prairie and Chub.

But Prairie put her hand on my arm to stop me.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s Kaz. Anna’s son.”