The gun was lying on the floor where Annie had dropped it. As the man knocked her mother down again, looming over them both, Layla didn’t hesistate: she snatched it up, and fired.
The shot was deafening in the enclosed space of the bedroom. The intruder cannoned backwards, hitting the wall and then sliding down to the floor. Layla, caught off guard by the weapon’s recoil, staggered backwards, tripping over Annie’s legs. Practically gibbering with fear, she groped her way upward and threw the switch.
Light flooded the master suite.
‘Oh my God,’ she gasped out as she stared at the man lying half in and half out of the doorway. He was dressed all in black, his head covered by a hood with slits for the eyes and mouth. There was a rip in the hood and blood was showing through where Annie had hit him with the gun. And there was a lot more blood, trickling thickly down the wall where he had collided with it when he was shot. A wet stain was spreading across his chest.
‘Oh no,’ said Layla, staring down at him. ‘My God, I shot him,’ she wailed.
Annie was coming to her feet, half-supporting herself against the wall. She felt horribly unsteady. She too was staring at the fallen man, wondering what to do next.
Not a man, she thought. More like a boy.
The body was tall, but now she could see it was slender, too.
Her eyes were caught by the wicked-looking knife lying on the floor near one of the man’s gloved hands.
She swallowed hard, feeling the dry heaves start at the back of her throat. Shakily, she kicked the knife away, in case he should reach out, get hold of it again. He’d come here to kill one or both of them. Her, of course. Layla hadn’t done a thing wrong in her entire life. Whereas she… well, she…
‘Wait,’ she said suddenly.
She was staring at the man.
‘Wait? What do you mean, wait?’ Layla was babbling in panic. ‘For God’s sake, Mum – I’ve shot him.’ Her eyes went down to the gun, still in her hand, and she dropped it with a grimace of disgust.
Annie snatched the gun up and approached the fallen boy. She glanced at Layla, who was deathly pale, her skin coated with a sheen of sweat. She wanted to embrace her daughter, hug her, reassure her, but she stopped herself. Even now she was afraid Layla would only shrug her off, the way she always did.
She knelt at the boy’s shoulder and pressed the muzzle of the gun firmly against the side of his head. Then she reached down with trembling fingers and felt his neck, searching for a pulse.
‘Is he…?’ asked Layla, looking like a ghost, she was so white.