He stops. Stares at me.
And I know he’s thinking, watching, working me out. It’s like he can see right into me.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” I whisper. “I’m just trying to help your foot, that’s all.”
He blinks and his eyes are so black.
“I just want to help,” I tell him. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
I’m so pleased when he doesn’t fly off again. It’s pure instinct to step up onto the sofa and balance myself on the back cushions.
I can almost reach him here. He shuffles along the frame but he doesn’t fly away.
“I’m a friend,” I say. I’m so gentle as I stretch out and reach for him, I really am.
I’m close. So close. Moving so slowly I daren’t even breathe in case I startle him.
My heart is beating fast, a big smile on my face as I realise he’s really going to let me catch him.
And then there’s a bang.
The loud fucking bang of the front door being barged open.
The crow freaks out and takes off, and he craps again on his way. He’s flapping around the room, knocking fucking ornaments from the mantelpiece in his frantic flight, causing a real fucking commotion because some dumbfuck thumped the fucking door wide open.
I hear footsteps in the hall, and I’m raging. I’m fucking raging.
I know it must be Michael, because who fucking else would it be?
I know it’s his heavy fucking footsteps clumping through the hall, oblivious to the fact he’s just fucked my perfect fucking crow-bonding effort.
“You’re a noisy sonofabitch,” I hiss as I try to head the bird into the corner. “Next time, try to swing the front fucking door right off its hinges, why don’t you?!”
My stomach tips right over itself when it’s not Michael’s voice that answers me.
Chapter Nine
Jack
Carrie Wells is in my fucking living room. Large as fucking life.
Her piercing eyes are as wide as fucking saucers, her pretty mouth flapping harder than the bird flapping around the ceiling.
My eyes don’t know where to look first, at her, at the crow in my fucking house, or at the state of the place around her. My white carpet is filthy with muddy boot prints. The cushions on my perfect white sofa have been trampled, and they’re covered in mud too. There’s bird shit splattered over the front of my TV, my mantelpiece is in fucking disarray with several of my picture frames smashed on the top.
And her, covered in shit, mud and feathers, a picture of horror as she stares right back at me.
“The door!” she yells, but I’m too fucking dumbstruck to move. The crow flaps straight over my head and out. She races after it, and I hear her angry wail before I find her in the open front doorway. Her eyes are wild as she glares at me. “You let him out! He needed his foot taking care of and you let him out!”
When my voice comes back it comes back hard.
“What the holy living fuck is going on here?! What the fuck are you doing in my fucking house?!”
I know as soon as I’ve said it. Of course I fucking know.
I dig my mobile from my pocket and thumb straight through to Mike’s number.
The girl takes one last look at the sky and groans as she accepts defeat. She closes the door behind her and heads back in like she owns the fucking place.
“If he dies, it’s your fault,” she snaps.
I’ve got the call connecting tone in my ear even as she says it. “My fucking fault?!”
“He was tangled in your crappy fucking fence!”
I hold up a hand to signal her to shut the fuck up, and she folds her arms as she waits. Her muddy boot taps on the floor, and it really shouldn’t be a pleasure to watch her red mist fade away, but it is. There’s a beautiful trepidation in her eyes as she soaks in the mess. I watch her gaze travel over the trail of boot prints to end with a long hard look at her boots. She lifts up the soles as if the mud needs explanation, and when her eyes meet mine again they are full of nerves at odds with her cocky stance.
Mike’s phone rings to voicemail. I take a breath before I unleash my fury down the line.
“You’d better get here. Now. I’m in my fucking living room with your missing fucking person. Get here, Mike, before I call the fucking police.”
Carrie Wells is a sight to behold as the colour drains from her cheeks. “You gonna call the cops?” she asks, and her whole body tenses, as though she’s about to make a dash for it.
I hang up the call. “I should. It looks like the place has been fucking ransacked.”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t taken anything.”
I gesture around me. “My house is fucking destroyed. Why the fuck are you even in here?”