It is the sound of a footstep scraping against the hallway table – almost inaudible to anyone but a trained spy - that alerts Jasper to the fact there's trouble and he reacts immediately.
"Get under the bed," Jasper hisses an order, pushing her down onto the floor.
Eleanor blinks for two seconds before scrambling under the bed. It is a good thing she is small, otherwise she wouldn't fit under here at all. She looks around and at the far edge of the bed she spies the glimmer of a black shiny object – another of the many guns Jasper the gunslinger from Nevada has left positioned around the place - and leans over to pull it towards her.
Jasper switches off the lights and presses himself behind the door, drawing his gun from his holster.
Underneath the bed Eleanor is thinking about how to fire the gun. She's never handled a revolver but her brother Robert showed her how to fire a rifle, although she was never keen on hunting animals. From under the bed she can see that she's not going to get a shot high enough to do any damage, the angle is all wrong. She slides out from under the bed and crouches down beside the bed, her hands holding the gun resting on the side of the bed.
Jasper sees her movement in the side of his eye. "Get down," he hisses at her urgently.
She ducks her head down as far as it will go while in the dark Jasper stares daggers at her for not following his instructions.
They can hear the footsteps coming up the stairs and Eleanor's breath catches in her throat as she waits for the intruders to appear. She removes the safety catch, her heart pounding as she peers towards the door.
The door creaks open and a tall figure steps into the room. Eleanor doesn't hesitate but fires two shots in quick succession, hitting the man square in the middle of his body. At the same time Jasper fires three shots. In the moonlight Jasper signals with his hands to Eleanor to get down and this time she follows his instructions and presses herself against the floor behind the bed.
The man falls to the floor and Jasper almost jumps round behind him then runs towards the doorway. Eleanor hears another three shots and the sound is completely terrifying.
A minute later Jasper staggers back into the room and switches on the light. "They're dead but we have to go. We have to go NOW."
Eleanor blinks at the bright lights, the two bodies splayed on the floor and looks up at Jasper's figure silhouetted in the doorway.
"You're bleeding," she says, looking at his hand where she can see bright red blood.
"It's just a scratch," Jasper replies, brushing off her comments.
Eleanor is already pulling herself up from the floor and moving towards him. She takes his hand and turns it over. It's not going to be life threatening but his gunshot will need firm binding to stop the bleeding.
She runs to the bathroom and returns with two of the fresh white handtowels. She winds one around his hand, trying to ignore the way the white turns to crimson as the blood soaks into the fabric.
"Trust you to ignore my instructions," Jasper says to her as she does this, eyeballing her crossly. "Don't you know you could have been killed?"
"Always about the control, aren't we Jasper?" Eleanor replies, rolling her eyes. "Bet you didn't know I could fire a gun?"
She looks up at him, a smirk gracing her face. Jasper does not look amused.
"Hold that," she instructs him, placing his other hand on the towel as she moves to the curtains to extract the tie and then wraps it around the towel to hold it in place.
"Right," Jasper replies, electing not to spend any more time arguing with the Princess. "They know where we are which puts you in danger so we've got to go. Get your things."
Jasper grabs his bag and coat and stands waiting in the doorway while Eleanor gets her bag, taking a minute to stuff the few scattered possessions she has left in the room into it.
He starts down the stairs in a run with Eleanor following behind him, for once silent and obedient as she wonders where the hell they are going next.
Thanks for the previous reviews, yeah they are alive, for now anyway!
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