Nate jabs me in my side with his elbow. “See!”
It’s at this point, possibly with the realization we don’t seem to be in any imminent danger, that my brain clocks the fact Nate basically protected me from the gunmen, and I wonder if that means, despite all outward indications to the contrary, that deep in his subconscious, some part of him still likes me.
“Should have been some cordon tape, though, so you couldn’t get down here,” Boots continues.
“Tape?” I say. “Shouldn’t it really be a fence? I dunno, call me Generation Snowflake, but explosions and bullets maybe warrant a little more than—” Nate forces my head into the ground, presumably to shut me up, but I manage a muffled, “Tape!”
Army Boots laughs. “It’s not live ammo, they’re just blanks. And they’re smoke pellets to reduce visibility. There’s actually no risk to anyone. Honestly, you two are hilarious.”
Nate giggles. He actually giggles, which makes me super suspicious, so I wriggle and squirm out from underneath him, sit myself up, and, yep, just as I thought, Army Boots is hot. He must only be a few years older than us, nineteen tops, and apart from his buzz cut, he’s a dead ringer for KJ Apa.
“Ugh,” I groan, “so we go back the way we came, then?”
“Uh-huh,” Army KJ Apa says. “I’ve got a map if you want to check your route.”
We scamper after Army KJ Apa and “check the map” and I may, or may not, act more dozy than I really am about how maps work so that he has to explain a few times and I giggle and bat my eyelashes and say, “Oh, you are clever!” but after we’ve done that, and after he tells me off for hiking in “inappropriate footwear” and I say I’m totally down for whatever punishment the army doles out for such footwear transgression (which he rolls his eyes at!) and after Nate says he’s “thirsty” and he gives us both a drink of water (even though I’m pretty sure Nate didn’t mean that type of thirsty), we’re on our way again.
“Do we need to discuss how you tried to save my life?” I ask Nate, as we clamber over a fence, back into the woods.
“No.”
“How you thought there were actual bullets and how you threw yourself on top of me?”
“No.”
“OK, but that’s what you did, so.”
Nate sniffs. “I threw myself down. You just happened to be there.”
I laugh. “Riiiight.”
“Right. Why would I save your life and sacrifice mine?”
I shrug. “No idea.”
Nate shakes his head and picks up the pace so he’s walking in front of me. He’s acting like he doesn’t care, but as we trudge on, every so often he slightly glances back over his shoulder to check I’m still there, and I can’t help but smile. And I’m thinking, you know what? If the only outcome of this trip turns out to be that Nate and I start talking again, then I reckon that would be good enough for me.
You see, it shouldn’t be as hard as this, because on the map it seemed like a straight line, but somehow we must have gone wrong again, because it’s several hours later and we don’t seem to have found Raven Farm, which is where the cabin is meant to be.
He hasn’t said it explicitly, but it’s clear Nate is blaming me. About an hour ago, he stopped the glancing-over-his-shoulder business and just stomped onwards regardless. Literally, I could have fallen down an old well and he wouldn’t have known. He also ate a Tic Tac about twenty minutes ago, but didn’t offer me one, which makes his feelings very clear.
In worse news, clouds have been gathering for some time, the light is fading, there’s a light drizzle and, honestly, I think this might be the part where we die of exposure and it’s actually The End. The idea of phoning for help did cross my mind, of course, and despite what usually happens in thrillers set in rural locations, there are four bars of full-fat 4G on my phone … or at least there were until my battery died. Meanwhile, Nate doesn’t have any credit and is adamant we can’t call the police because it’s not an emergency, even though I’m adamant that my not having had access to iced coffee for four hours very much does constitute an emergency. Anyway, we’re crossing yet another field, because Nate is convinced he saw a lane up ahead, and suddenly,
MOOOOOOO!
I mean, this cry, this guttural wail, honestly, it’s terrifying. I slowly turn my head, and see this vast beast standing behind us. It’s huge. Surely cows are not this big? Surely this is the product of some genetic mutation that’s escaped from a lab?
MOOOOOOOOO!
I jump, because it’s so loud it vibrates through me. “What does it want?” I whisper to Nate.
“It’s probably just saying hello.”
“Like that?” It seems unlikely. The beast takes a few heavy steps towards us as we back into the hedge. “Offer yourself to it,” I tell Nate, pushing him in front of me.
“Chill, it’s just a cow.”
“It has horns, Nate!”
“Some types of cows do have horns.”
“Uh-huh?” I say. “What, the bull type, you mean?”
MOOOOOOOOO!
“It wants something.” I look around. “What does it seek?” I gasp. “Milk?”
Nate screws his face up. “What?”
“It must want milk!”
“Why would it want milk?”
“It’s a cow! That’s what it drinks!”
“Jack, cows do not drink milk!” he snaps.
MOOOOOOOOOOO!
I scream. “Wahhhh! Ohhh! Nate! You’ve angered it!”
The cow gets closer, flaring its nostrils and licking its chops.
“There’s some chocolate milk in my case,” I whimper.
“You think feeding it the stolen mammary gland secretions of its friends is going to help, do you?”
“Then what, Nate? What? Oh, sweet Jesus, it’s going to gore us on its horns! And my shorts are pink! What if it mistakes them for red?”
But then, up ahead, joy of joys, a battered old Land Rover is coming towards us, so with the chonky boi just metres away, I risk waving
