better than winning

16 | composure

Unlike the first symbol we had found, these letters were not smooth and even. The carving had not been done with a steady hand. The name looked as if it had been scratched into the wood by a child.

"The Is at the end are Roman numerals," Jameson said unnecessarily, his voice electric. "Tobias Hawthorne the second."

Toby, I thought, and then I heard a bang. A deafening echo followed and the world exploded around me.

"Sniper!" Nayla yelled trying to drag us down, tugging at our clothes.

Bits of bark flew through the air. My body was thrown backwards.

"Down!" Jameson yelled.

I could barely hear them. My brain couldn't comprehend what I was hearing... what had just happened. I'm bleeding.

Pain.

Jameson grabbed me and pulled me to the ground. Before I knew what was happening, his body was on top of mine and a second bang echoed.

A shot. Someone is shooting at us. There was a sharp pain in my chest.

I'd been shot.

I heard footsteps thundering across the forest floor, then Oren yelling, "Stay down!" With his gun drawn, my bodyguard stood between us and the shooter.

A small eternity passed.

Oren dashed off in the direction the shots had come from, but I knew from a premonition I couldn't quite explain that the shooter was gone.

Naylas face was washed with guilt, "Fuck, fuck, fuck.", her voice full of panic, she examined my body trying not to move me too much.

"Are you okay, Avery?" Oren came back. "Jameson, is she okay?"

"She's bleeding." It was Jameson. He had pulled away from my body and was looking down at me.

I felt a throbbing pain in my chest, just below my collarbone, where I had been hit.

"Your face." Jameson's touch was very gentle on my skin. But the moment his fingertips gently brushed my cheekbone, it was as if they were tearing open my nerve endings.

That pain

"Did they get me twice?" I asked, dazed. "The attacker didn't hit you." Oren hurried to push Jameson aside and ran his hands over my body in a routine manner, checking for injuries.

"She was hit by a few pieces of bark." Nayla says a little calmer this time, "Collarbone."

He felt the wound under my collarbone. "The other cut is just a scratch, but the bark has penetrated deep here. We'll leave it there until we can patch you up."

My ears were ringing.

"Patch me up."

I didn't want to just repeat what he said, but my mouth was not capable of anything more.

"You were lucky." Oren stood up and quickly inspected the tree where the bullet had struck. "A few inches to the right and we'd have to remove a bullet, not tree bark."

My bodyguard strode from the bullet hole to another tree behind us.

With a quick movement, he pulled a knife from his belt and rammed it into the tree trunk.

It took me a moment to realize he was pulling out a bullet.

"Whoever fired that one is long gone," he said, wrapping the bullet in a handkerchief. "But maybe it's possible to trace this one."