One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,34

the noise. ‘Didier?’ he shouted. ‘Is that you back there?’

Rosie studied the trap anxiously. The snare had been anchored to a nearby bush and the trailing wire was pulled tight. She took out a pocket knife, but the flat blade skidded over the wire.

‘What have we got here?’ Jean asked, as he moved around the side of the hut, while hurriedly pushing his bits back inside his trousers.

As Didier came around the other side of the hut, Rosie pulled her sleeve over her hand then wound the wire around and ripped it away from the bush. This left her ankle in the wire loop with a metre of wire trailing freely behind.

‘This is better than catching a rabbit!’ Didier said, as he grinned foolishly.

Rosie felt a little scared with two drunken lads coming towards her from either end of the hut.

Jean saw less of the funny side and barked, ‘Who are you? Why are you snooping around here?’

Justin ran out of the bushes waving his arms. ‘Don’t hurt her. She’s with me.’

Jean glowered at Justin. ‘Did you follow us from the butcher’s shop? How dare you follow us, you little brat.’

Justin dived for cover as Jean chased him into the bushes.

‘Hey, you big bully,’ Rosie shouted.

Justin kicked and spat as Jean carried him out of the bushes, then plonked him on his feet and knocked him back hard against the wooden hut.

‘I told you to stop,’ Rosie shouted. ‘He’s just a kid. I asked him to help me find you.’

Didier moved closer to Rosie. Apparently toothbrushing facilities out here weren’t great because his breath was rank.

‘How did you manage to follow us?’ Didier demanded.

Rosie laughed. ‘You’re amateurs. You don’t double back on yourselves, you get drunk, you walk slowly. And this hut is surrounded by blood and cinders.’

‘We’ve survived out here long enough,’ Jean said, as he gave Justin a little slap across the cheek.

‘The only reason you’ve survived is that nobody’s been out here looking,’ Rosie said. ‘And if you touch him again …’

‘I think we should forget all about this,’ Didier said, slurring his words as he closed right up to Rosie and cupped his hand around her breast. ‘You’re really pretty, aren’t you?’

Rosie glowered. ‘You have three seconds to take that hand off my tit.’

‘Or what, darling?’ Didier snorted.

‘Two,’ Rosie said.

Justin looked really worried. ‘She’s got friends,’ he blurted. ‘If you hurt us they’ll come and find you.’

‘One.’

‘Oh, I’m scared, Justin,’ Jean said. ‘Cocky little shit-pants.’

‘Zero,’ Rosie said, as Jean gave Justin a harder slap on the cheek. ‘I told you to leave Justin alone.’

Rosie grabbed two handfuls of Didier’s shirt and gave him a powerful head-butt across the bridge of his nose. As he stumbled back, she kicked him in the guts and he landed on his bum before tilting backwards into a tangle of branches.

Jean could have backed away, but he didn’t think Rosie was a threat, so he was still rooted to the spot as she launched a high back kick. Her muddy heel hit the squat teenager square on the lips.

As he teetered, Rosie went into a boxing stance and went for the gut, winding Jean with three hard punches before getting a hand behind his neck and bashing his head into the side of the hut.

‘Bloody hell!’ Justin shouted, scrambling away as Didier crawled out of the bushes with a bloody nose and thorns bedded in his arms.

Didier didn’t have the appetite for an attack on Rosie, but Jean was more aggressive. He came at her like a wild thing with thick arms swinging. Rosie stuck her hand into a small shoulder bag and ripped out an automatic pistol as she took half a step back.

‘Do you want your head splattered up the side of this cowshed?’ she shouted, as she clicked off the safety. ‘Put your fat little hands in the air.’

As a gawping Jean did what he’d been told, Rosie swung the gun around so that Didier got a good look down the barrel.

‘Don’t shoot me,’ he begged, as he threw up his hands.

Rosie looked at Justin. ‘Are you OK, mate?’

He nodded, but was shocked and awed by what he’d seen Rosie do.

‘Since you two have behaved like pigs, I’ll treat you like pigs,’ Rosie said. ‘Get down on your hands and knees, and crawl back into the shed.’

Justin stifled a smile as the two lads crawled through the bushes, around a corner, past the cinders from the fire and through a cracked wooden door into their den.

‘You don’t move