Crossing Over

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Two more gunshots went off passing dangerously close to our heads before we could get out of the tree. As soon as I had finished my sentence Col had the tree branch lift us down no questions asked.

Being on the ground seemed like a good I idea when we were getting shot at in a tree. But the reason those bullets hadn’t actually hit us was because there was tons of branches around us to take the hits. Now being on the ground all that we had changed was that we could walk around without falling and we had a greater chance at getting shot. Which meant we were pretty much screwed.

At least a million strategies of how to get out of this situation by either making it to the car without being hit, knock out the shooter or even turning the gun back on him or her, ran through my mind. But all the possible scenarios ended up with at least one or two innocents injured. And that was definitely a bad plan.

At that moment I remembered the short bladed knife I had put in the waist band of my jeans this morning. It wasn’t exactly your everyday kitchen knife, more like a dagger you would find in the armoury of a medieval castle. It wasn’t about to crumble to pieces in my hand but still had a vintage feel to it.

I had debated bringing it to school with me the night before. Being caught with a weapon on your first day of school was exactly the best way to go unnoticed, but being without some form of protection just didn’t feel right after what happened to Indie.

I managed to pull the knife from the waist band of my jeans with dropping it, which sad to say happened often. Cols reaction was much calmer than I had expected. His eyes widened with surprise, more like ‘I didn’t know you could use a weapon’ instead of ‘what freak are you’. Maybe he had a few more secrets up his sleeve that I was dying to find out as soon as everyone in this park was safe.

Now that I had a weapon I just had to find a way to get close to the shooter. He was too far away to for me to get an accurate hit by throwing the knife and I didn’t exactly want to throw away my only form of defence.

From what I could see from my awkward position behind the oak tree was the shooter held a 45 semi-automatic, it wasn’t the best gun for long distance shooting but the person behind the gun clearly had a pretty accurate aim which was just as lethal. But reloading could give me a big enough opportunity to get us all out of this situation limbs intact and physically unscathed. 

I leaned in closer to Col so I could talk directly into his ear. “I have a… kind of plan.” The gun could hold eight bullets at a time and could only shot one bullet for every shot. He had fired off four shots now leaving him with another four bullets until he had to reload. “The shooter has already used up half of his bullets meaning he has four shots left. If we can get him to use them up I might be able to get to that tree while he is reloading.”  

“Are you crazy? You could get shot.”

“What? And the better alternative is calling the police? All they will do is have a shootout. And one of them,” I pointed to the children over at the playground, shaking under their mothers arms. “Is bound to get shot in the crossfire.”

I pulled my hand back towards my chest before the shooter decided to use it as target practice. I might have dealt with pain before but I would prefer to keep my hand intact. Col seemed to be warming up to the idea of my plan once I had mentioned the kids.

“Fine Trixie, but if you don’t mind why don’t I go instead.”

“Ahh, hello I’m the one with the knife,” I spun it around in my fingers.” Let go of your stereotype and let a girl take charge for a change.”