There’s hoofbeats on the road, distant but approaching at full gallop.

“Someone from Brockley Hills?” Viola says, hope and doubt both in her voice.

“Brockley Falls,” I say, standing. “We need to hide.”

We repack our bags in a hurry. It’s a narrow strip of trees we’ve managed to get ourselves stuck in twixt the road and the river. We daren’t cross the road and with the river at our backs, a fallen log is the best we’re gonna get. We gather the last of our things and crouch down behind it, Manchee held twixt my knees, rain splashing everywhere.

I take out my knife.

The hoofbeats keep coming, louder and louder.

“Only one horse,” Viola whispers. “It’s not the army.”

“Yeah,” I say, “but listen how fast he’s riding.”

Thump budda-thump budda-thump we hear. Thru the trees we can see the dot of him approaching. He’s coming full out down the road, even tho it’s raining and night’s falling. No one’d ride like that with good news, would they?

Viola looks behind us at the river. “Can you swim?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” she says. “Because I can’t.”

Thump budda-thump budda-thump.

I can hear the buzz of the rider’s Noise starting but for a time the galloping is louder and I can’t hear it clearly.

“Horse,” Manchee says from down below.

It’s there. Static twixt the hoofbeats. Flashes of it. Parts of words caught. Rid– and Pa– and Dark– and Stup– and more and more.

I clench the knife harder. Viola’s not saying nothing now.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump budda–

Faster and Nightfall and Shot and Whatever it–

And he’s coming down the road, round a little curve we took just a hundred metres back, leaning forward–

Thump budda–

The knife turns in my hand cuz–

Shot ’em all and She was tasty and Dark here–

Thump BUDDA–

I think I reckernize–

THUMP BUDDA-THUMP BUDDA–

And he’s nearer and nearer till he’s almost–

And then Todd Hewitt? rings out as clear as day thru the rain and the galloping and the river.

Viola gasps.

And I can see who it is.

“Junior,” Manchee barks.

It’s Mr Prentiss Jr.

We try to duck down farther below the log but it ain’t no use cuz we already see him pulling back hard on the reins to stop his horse, causing it to rear up and nearly throw him.

But only nearly.

And not enough to make him drop the rifle he’s got under one arm.

Todd BLOODY HEWITT! screams his Noise.

“Oh, shit,” I hear Viola say and I know what she means.

“Well, HOOO-EEE!” Mr Prentiss Jr yells and we’re close enough to see the smile on his face and hear amazement in his voice. “Yer taking the ROAD?! You ain’t even going OFF TRAIL?!”

My eyes meet Viola’s. What choice did we have?

“I been hearing yer Noise for almost yer whole stupid life, boy!” He turns his horse this way and that, trying to find where exactly we are in our little strip of woods. “You think I’m not gonna hear it if ya just HIDE?”

There’s joy in his Noise. Real joy, like he can’t believe his luck.

“And wait a minute,” he says and we can hear him edging his horse off the road and into the woods. “Wait just a minute. What’s that beside you? That empty space of nothing.”

He says it so nasty Viola flinches. I got the knife in my hand but he’s on horseback and we know he’s got a gun.

“Too effing right I’ve got a gun, Todd boy,” he calls, no longer searching round but coming straight for us, getting his horse to step over bushes and round trees. “And I got another gun, too, another one special, just for yer little lady there, Todd.”

I look at Viola. I know she sees what he’s thinking, what’s in his Noise, the pictures that ooze out of it. I know she does cuz I can see her face closing right up. I bump her arm and I flash my eyes over to our right, just about the only possibility we have for an escape.

“Oh, please run, boy,” Mr Prentiss Jr calls. “Please give me a reason to hurt you.”

The horse is so close we can hear its Noise, too, jittery and crazy.

There’s no farther down we can crouch.

He’s nearly on top of us.

I grip the knife and squeeze Viola’s hand once, hard, for luck.

It’s now or never.

And–

“NOW!” I yell.

We jump up and a gun blast rings out, splintering the branches over our heads, but we run anyway.

“GET!” Mr Prentiss Jr shouts to his horse and here they come.

In two bounds, his horse turns and jumps back to the road, following along it as we run. The strip twixt the road and the river ain’t getting any thicker and we can see each other as we go. Branches snap and puddles splash and feet slip and he pounds along the road matching our every step.

We ain’t gonna get away from him. We just ain’t.

But we try, each of us taking a twisty path up and over logs and thru bushes and Manchee’s panting and barking at our heels and the rain’s splashing down on us and the road’s getting closer and then it suddenly veers sharply towards the river and we got no choice but to cross it in front of him to get to the deeper woods on the other side and I can see Viola leaping over the boundary and onto the road with her arms pumping and Mr Prentiss Jr rounding the bend and he’s twirling something in his hand and we make a dash for the other side but the horse is roaring down on us and suddenly I feel something grab my legs, binding ’em so fast and so tight I fall right off my feet.

“Aaagh!” I yell and I hit my face into muck and fallen leaves and the rucksack goes over my head and nearly rips my arms off as it flies off my back and Viola sees me fall and she’s nearly cross the road but I see mud curling up from where her feet are digging in to stop herself and I shout, “NO! RUN! RUN!” and she locks my eyes and I see something change on her face but who knows what it means and as the horse bears down she turns and disappears into the woods and Manchee runs back to me and barks “Todd! Todd!” and I’m caught I’m caught I’m caught.

Cuz Mr Prentiss Jr is standing over me, breathing hard, high on his white horse, rifle cocked and pointed. I know what’s happened. He’s thrown a rope with weights at either end right at my legs and they’ve twisted round and caught me, expert, just like a hunter after swamp deer. I’m stuck down here in the mud on my belly, caught like an animal.

“My pa sure is gonna be glad to see you,” he says, his horse nervy and stepping side to side. Rain, I can hear it thinking, and Is it a snake?

“I was just sposed to see if there were rumours of you on the road ahead,” Mr Prentiss Jr sneers, “but here you are, in the real honest-to-God flesh.”

“Eff you,” I say and do you think I say eff?

I’ve still got the knife in my hand.

“And it sure is making me quake with fear,” he says, moving the rifle so I’m looking right down the barrel. “Drop it.”

I hold my arm out away from me and drop the knife. It splashes in the mud and I’m still on my belly.

“Yer little lady sure didn’t show you no loyalty, now did she?” he says, hopping off his horse, calming it with his free hand. Manchee growls at him but Mr Prentiss Jr just laughs. “What happened to its tail?”

Manchee jumps, his teeth bared, but Mr Prentiss Jr is faster, kicking him away with a vicious boot to the face. Manchee yelps and cowers into the bushes.

“Friends abandoning you right and left, Todd.” He walks over to me. “But that’s the lesson you learn, eh? Dogs is dogs and women turn out to be dogs, too.”

“You shut up,” I say, clenching my teeth.

His Noise goes all fake sympathy and triumph. “Poor, poor Toddy. All this time travelling with a woman and I’m guessing you never figured out what to do with one.”

“You stop talking bout her,” I spit. I’m still on my belly and my legs are still tied.

But I find I can bend my knees.

His Noise gets uglier, louder, but his face is all blank like a terror from a dream. “What you do, Todd,” he says, squatting down to get closer to me, “is you keep the ones that’re whores and you shoot the ones that’re not.”

He leans even closer. I can see the pathetic hairs on his upper lip, not even made darker by the rain coming down. He’s only two years older than me. Only two years bigger.

Snake? thinks the horse.

I put my hands slowly down on the ground.

I push a little into the mud.

“After I tie you up,” he says, turning it into a whispering taunt, “I’ll go find yer little lady and let you know which kind she is.”

Which is when I jump.

I push up with my hands and kick forward hard with my legs, launching myself right at his face. The top of my head hits his nose with a crunch and he falls backwards, me coming down right on top of him. I hit him hard in the face with each fist while he’s still too surprised to react and then ram my knee into the man’s place twixt his legs.

He curls up like a bug and lets out a low, angry moan and I roll off him back over to my knife, picking it up and getting to my feet and I kick the gun away and I jump in front of the horse screaming “Snake! Snake!” and waving my arms which does the trick instantly and it turns and runs back down the road with a terrified whinny, riderless into the rain.

I look round and BAM! Mr Prentiss Jr hits me across the bridge of the nose with his fist but I don’t fall and he yells “You piece of–” and I swing my arm out with the knife in it and I make him jump back and I swing it again, water pouring outta my eyes from both the punch and the rain and he steps away from me, looking for his gun and limping a little and he sees it in the mud and he turns his body to fetch it and I’m not thinking at all and I jump on him, knocking him back down and he hits me with his elbow but I don’t fall off and my Noise is screaming and his Noise is screaming.

And I don’t even know how but I’ve got him on his back and the point of my knife held up under his chin.

We both stop struggling.

“Why are you after us?!” I shout into his face. “Why are you chasing us?!”

And him and his stupid pathetic non-moustache smile.

I knee him again twixt his legs.

He groans again and spits at me but I’ve still got the knife which has now made a little cut.

“My father wants you,” he finally says.

“Why?” I say. “Why does he want us?”

“Us?” His eyes go wide. “There’s no effing us. He wants you, Todd. Just you.”

I can’t believe this. “What?” I say. “Why?”

But he’s not answering. He’s looking into my Noise. He’s looking and searching.

“Hey!” I say, slapping him cross the face with the back of my hand. “Hey! I’m asking you an asking!”

But the smile’s back. I can’t effing believe it but the smile’s back.

“You know what my father always says, Todd Hewitt?” he leers up at me. “He says a knife is only as good as the one who wields it.”

“Shut up,” I say.

“Yer a fighter, I’ll give you that.” Still smiling, still bleeding a little below his chin. “But you ain’t no killer.”

“Shut up!” I yell but I know he can see in my Noise that I heard those exact words from Aaron.

“Oh, yeah?” he says. “Whaddya gonna do about it? Kill me?”

“I WILL,” I shout. “I’ll KILL you!”

He just licks some rain from his lips and laughs. I have him pinned to the ground with a knife up under his chin and he’s laughing.

“STOP IT!” I scream at him and I raise the knife.

He keeps on laughing and then he looks at me and he says–

He says–

He says this–

“You wanna hear how Ben and Cillian screamed for mercy before I shot ’em twixt the eyes?”

And my Noise buzzes red.

And I clench the knife to strike at him.

And I’m going to kill him.

I’m going to kill him.

And–

And–

And–

And right at the top of my swing–

Right at the moment when I start to bring it down–

Right at the moment when the power is mine to command and do with as I please–

I hesitate–

Again–

I hesitate–

Only for a second–

But goddam me–

Goddam me forever and forever–

Cuz in that second he kicks up his legs, throws me off him and elbows me in the throat. I lean over choking and I can only feel his hand wrench the knife away from my own.

As easy as candy from a baby.

“Now, Todd,” he says, standing over me, “let me show you a thing or two about wielding.”