the air, gnawing her fist and making a low rattly groan that meant she wanted someone to pick her up and cuddle her back to sleep.
Lizzie had seen everything downstairs. She’d opened the window and considered jumping down and running for help, but she didn’t want to leave Holly and didn’t think she’d be able to jump safely with the baby in her arms.
The Führer stepped over Jordan and raced upstairs as Dante slammed the bedroom door and bought a few seconds by turning the key.
‘Go by the window,’ Lizzie shouted, as she gave Dante a shove, then reached up high and grabbed the front of the double wardrobe.
She tugged with all the strength she could muster and the fragile chipboard and melamine wardrobe creaked and groaned as it crashed down in front of the door. Wire hangers clanked inside and the seldom used suitcases on top puffed clouds of dust.
‘Come out now and I’ll kill you fast,’ the Führer shouted, as a shot skimmed through the top half of the door. Dante and Lizzie ducked and the bullet only hit the wall.
‘What do we do?’ Dante screamed, as the Führer shoulder-charged the door.
‘That time Jordan dared you to jump out of the window and you twisted your ankle,’ Lizzie said rapidly, as the Führer slammed into the door again, popping the lock and shifting the tilted wardrobe several centimetres. ‘Do you think you can do it again without hurting yourself ?’
‘That was two summers ago,’ he nodded. ‘I’m bigger now.’
‘Right,’ Lizzie said. ‘You drop, I’ll lower Holly down to you and I’ll jump last.’
‘OK,’ Dante nodded.
The Führer slammed the door again. The opening was now almost wide enough to squeeze through. Holly hated the banging and started to cry as Dante swung his leg out over the window ledge. He’d noticed his legs feeling warm, but it was only now that he saw the dark green patch around his crotch and realised that he’d pissed himself with fright.
‘Come on,’ Lizzie urged, as Dante stared down. It was a three-metre drop on to a shaggy lawn softened by the recent rain, but his mind flashed back to the previous jump and he hesitated until the Führer slammed into the door again.
A sharp pain went up Dante’s leg as he landed, bare shoulder squelching into the mud. By the time he stood up, Lizzie was leaning out of the window, with Holly dangling off the end of her arm, kicking and screaming.
Dante went on tiptoes and gripped Holly’s chubby ankles.
‘Have you got hold?’ Lizzie shouted.
‘I think so,’ Dante said. He was at full stretch, and wasn’t a hundred per cent sure which way the baby would topple when Lizzie let go.
There was a huge bang behind, indicating that the Führer had triumphed over the wardrobe blocking the door.
Dante stumbled backwards as Holly’s weight transferred into his hands. The baby’s head and body were heavier than her legs and with Dante holding her ankles her body pivoted awkwardly.
Dante gasped in horror as Holly’s skull scraped the pebbledashed wall of the house. She let out a desperate scream, but in a frenzy of flying arms and trying not to fall over Dante saved her from hitting the ground head first, ending up with the baby clamped awkwardly to his waist.
Up above the Führer was in the bedroom. Lizzie couldn’t jump safely until Dante and Holly had moved out of the way and the Führer grabbed her arm before she got a chance.
‘Wish I had more time with a sexy thing like you,’ he laughed as he dragged the teenager away from the window.
Lizzie kicked, spat and elbowed the Führer, but it only delayed the inevitable by a couple of seconds. The last thing she saw was her own nose squished against a cracked mirror as the pistol touched the back of her head.
The shot echoed through the darkness around the farmhouse. Holly wriggled and screamed as Dante tried to run with her. The wind was cold on his chest and his socks slipped on the mud.
Dante dared a backwards glance and saw the Führer aiming his gun through the bedroom window. It was open ground, but it was also dark and the Führer was no marksman. He fired two shots. The first was hopeless, the second close enough for Dante to hear it whistle over his head and lash through branches and leaves at the end of the garden. No more shots came and Dante realised