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of
    desire. Who the hell is this guy to make her – his own
    daughter – this scared? I force my anger down and give
    Jessa a smile, and then when that doesn’t work, I wink at
    her, trying to get her to relax. She does. Her breathing set-
    tles and her grip on my arms loosens.
    Keeping as still as I can, I swivel my eyes so I can
    watch her dad. He’s still there, in the doorway, glaring
    out into the blank void of the garden, and it feels as if he’s
    staring right at me, drilling through me with his eyes,
    spitting hatred across the darkness. If he decides to come
    and investigate, we’re fucked. I don’t care so much about
    myself, but I do care about what he might do to Jessa. I
    don’t think he’d hurt her, but man, it won’t be pretty.
    He’ll probably ground her for a century. And there goes
    any chance I might have of seeing her again before I head
    out on my next deployment.
    Just then, Colonel Kingsley Sir takes a step onto the
    veranda, holding the kitchen door open with one hand.
    Shit. There’s only one thing for it. I need to go out there,
    bite the bullet and hope it’s just a metaphorical one. I’ll
    act like I was hanging around waiting for Riley, not want-
    ing to disturb them all by ringing the doorbell. He might
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    Mila Gray
    buy it. Though how I’m going to explain the fact that I’ve
    been sitting in the bushes in their backyard I’m not yet
    sure. Telling him I was relieving myself on his prize
    begonias isn’t going to go down well. Oh well, it’s not
    like it will be the first time I’ve been on the receiving end
    of one of Kingsley’s rages. One time Riley and I burned
    down the garage playing around with some fireworks
    and Kingsley did the best impression I’ve seen of an
    angry person since Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver .
    I prise Jessa’s fingers silently free from my arms. Her
    eyes grow even bigger, the whites so visible they gleam.
    She shakes her head at me, trying to grab for my hands
    to stop me, but I just smile reassuringly at her and then
    point to the tree and nod at her to stay out of sight. She
    glares at me in response.
    But then, just as I’m about to step out of the bushes, my
    hands raised as though I’m surrendering to the enemy,
    Jessa’s dad turns abruptly around and marches back into
    the house. Loud cheering is issuing from a television
    somewhere inside. The game! I close my eyes and say a
    grateful prayer to the gods of baseball for saving my ass.
    I turn around, grinning, and find Jessa staring over my
    shoulder, her face pale and stricken. ‘What?’ I whisper,
    whipping around smartly. Maybe I was mistaken and he
    was actually going for his gun.
    I turn in time to see her dad locking and dead-bolting
    the back door. Uh-oh.
    The sound of the bolt ramming home makes me wince.
    Jessa’s mouth falls open. ‘What am I going to do?’ she
    whispers, panic lacing her voice. ‘I can’t get back in!’
    I look back at the door, checking the windows on either
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    COME BACK TO ME
    side in case any have been left open. Nope. There’s a
    drainpipe that runs down the side of the house right by
    Jessa’s bedroom window, and if it was me I’d probably
    try it, but I’m not sure Jessa’s going to be open to that par-
    ticular idea. Though I would quite like to see her try it in
    those shorts.
    She’s staring up at me half expectantly, half fearfully,
    and it looks like she could be on the verge of tears.
    Damn. This is my fault. I pause to run through the
    options in my head, which only takes about two seconds
    because there aren’t any, besides knocking on the front
    door and making up some lame excuse about sleepwalk-
    ing, that is.
    Jessa hugs herself around the waist and starts shivering
    lightly. I pull her instinctively towards me, wrapping my
    arms around her as though it’s the most natural thing in
    the world to hold her like this,