ground. Not that anybody needed to defend it, but paranoia was part of the package.
“I’m older,” I said. “By twenty minutes. We’re twins.”
“But he’s not here tonight,” Gray said.
“No. He doesn’t know I’m doing it tonight. Turn left up here at the gate.”
He didn’t comment, just did it. My heart was bumping against my chest wall now, beating much too fast, my very own stress-induced version of atrial fibrillation. A few meters on, the asphalt ended, the tires crunching over the metal road. Too loudly, every rotation on the loose cinder sounding like a scatter of birdshot. I sensed rather than saw the white mesh of fencing to my right, and beyond it, the glow that was the yard lighting around the residential compound.
Gray glanced at me. I felt it. He said, “Could be good to tell me the plan, if I’m meant to help.”
“You don’t have to help,” I said. “Seriously. You just have to drive. Slow down to a crawl, though, would you?” We were making too much noise. Somebody was going to hear.
“Oh,” he said, perfectly calmly, “I think I have to help.” He eased up on the gas, though.
“Stop here,” I told him. “We’ll go on foot from here.” We were too close to the compound. I should’ve had him turn off the headlights. I hadn’t thought of that. My accident meant that it was too far past the witching hour, when the circadian rhythms were at their lowest and everyone’s defenses would be down, and I felt exposed. Naked. Vulnerable. “I know you have a torch,” I made myself go on, “because I saw it. I was going to ask to borrow it.”
“It’s got a red mode,” he said. “For hunting. Preserves our night vision, and doesn’t shine as far. Better, if we’re being stealthy. I assume we’re being stealthy.”
I barely heard him, because I’d just realized it. “I’ve forgotten,” I said, my heart giving a dismayed lurch. “I don’t have the stakes. They’re in the boot of my car.”
“The stakes?” He still sounded calm, somehow. “Are these weapons, or …”
“No. Plastic stakes, like you use for a tent. I could use sticks, maybe. We can find sticks somewhere. I’ll make it work. I’m not stopping now.”
“Tell me what the stakes were for,” he said, “and I’ll find something that’ll do.”
“Where?”
“In the toolbox,” he said patiently.
“You don’t have stakes in your toolbox.”
“Well, yeh. I probably do. It’s a big toolbox. Come on. We’ll have a look.” He grabbed the torch and swung out of the ute, and I followed, tripping over the rolled legs of the track pants.
Oh. It was a big toolbox. One of those that go crosswise across the entire bed of a truck. He handed me the flashlight, grabbed the edge of the truck bed, and in a move like a gymnast, heaved himself up, then swung both legs over and landed on his feet with a dull, metallic thud before taking the flashlight from me and opening the box.
I said, “It’s to stake down the electric fence so we can get across. That’s the only way I know to cross it, and we don’t just have to get across ourselves, we have to get the others across, too.” I was talking too much again. I couldn’t help it. Now that we were almost there, I was nearly dancing with the need to move, to get it done and get out of here.
“Right,” he said, then fossicked about in there, the clank of metal loud in the quiet night, while I held my breath. In the distance, a dog barked, a nearly rumbling sound from a very deep chest, and I tensed some more and tried to force my breathing to slow. Finally, though, Gray pulled out a packet, stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans, set the lid of the toolbox down without extra noise, vaulted down the same way he’d come up, like it was no trouble at all, and said, “Good to go.”
“You happened to have tent stakes in your toolbox,” I said.
“No. I happened to have something that’ll work. For landscaping.”
“Are you a landscaper, then?” It would explain the scars on his knuckles, and the absurd level of fitness.
“No,” he said. “Do you want to have a chat about occupations, or do you want to get across that fence? Here. You hold the torch.” He’d switched it to the red setting already, but was grabbing something else out of the truck bed. Something long and heavy.