Page 3 of Only a Breath Away

CHAPTER 2 - KAITLYN

Icouldn’t turn, I had to sit and wait, every hair on my body bristling. I tensed all my muscles. If I was still enough maybe… whatever it was wouldn’t see us or hear us or sense us. I held my children, who were thankfully quiet, sensing the extreme danger.

Peripherally I could see Emma in Zach’s arms, holding on around her kids, her eyes tightly shut. Zach was quietly patting around for the gun. He was facing whatever was behind me, and going so slow… whatever it was wasmenacing.

The noise moved closer.

Beaty was curled up around her knees, her eyes pressed to her kneecaps.

Then a giant, hairy, beast of a man grabbed me and yanked me by the arms and hair into the underbrush. The kids were shrieking. I held his wrists, trying to keep my hair from pulling from my scalp, the pain of being dragged by it was agonizing. Where was my gun? Why wasn’t I holding my gun? What had I been thinking — whatever that was? It wasnotprotecting the kids.

Why hadn’t Zach been holding his gun? Why had I let mine slide from my lap? I watched the sky, the tops of trees as I was dragged away, then the beast-man picked me up, his hold around my waist knocking the wind from me. I coughed, gasped for air, and struggled, but I was not getting free.

Far far away in the distance I heard my children crying. That was all.

I beat my fists on his arm, but it just went tighter. I had a wee small comfort that I was alone, no one else had been captured.

But why had I been taken?

The dude carrying me smelled horrible, my nose burned from the rancid stench. I shoved at the fur around his neck and struggled again, pointlessly, as he lumbered through the undergrowth with me in his arms, then we left the woods at a wide field and he picked up his pace on a worn path.

I kicked my legs and craned left and right, we were near the castle. It was much smaller than the last time I had been to Stirling; then the castle had been an imposing stone edifice on the top of rocky cliffs. Now there were timber walls, a thick wood gate, grassy slopes down from it. My captor raced along an uphill path. If I was taken into the castle, even with timber walls, it would be so hard to get out.

I had to get away now.

The man carrying me was growing breathless on the steep climb. I would claw his face, bite his arm — two more beast men emerged from the woods and joined my captor. Great.

I struggled, and the man closest hit me in the face. “Sàmhach!”

Below us Quentin and James raced from the woods, chasing us with their guns drawn.

James’s voice yelled, “Hey motherfucker, whatcha doing?”

I tried to go limp to drop through my captor’s arms, but the other man pushed me again, “Ow!”

“Sàmhach!”

Quentin and James were running the high-knee run of football players. I tried to get a foot in between my captor’s legs, hoping to trip him, wrenching my ankle. I burst into tears.

Quentin stopped running to fire. James continued to chase, yelling instructions at me, “Stop struggling! Curl up!”

I bent around my captor’s arm, gripping my legs, shrieking, “Don’t shoot me! Don’t shoot me!”

Bang!

The man holding me stumbled to the ground. My leg tweaked as I hit the dirt.

Quentin yelled, “Let her go, assholes, or I’ll shoot again!”

James got to me, yanked me up, pulled me behind him, and aimed his gun at my captors. “You want to die? I’ll shoot you, give me half a chance, I’ll shoot you so—”

I couldn’t hear James over the sound of my heart clamoring against my chest as I looked up on the walls and saw so many guns pointing down at us. An amplified voice bellowed. “Drop yer weapons.”

James dropped his gun to the ground and put his hands on the back of his head. “Fuck.”

I heard Quentin race away. Gunfire sounded. I shrieked and hunched down as bullets blasted divots in the dirt around us. The noise was terrifying, everything sounded close, all I could do was hold my head and pray.

James, huddled under his arms, yelled over the shooting, “Quentin got away!”