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we're coming up on the climax here! who's excited? I'm excited!
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They sat on the edge of the bathtub, Gray staring at the floor, his hands clasped together.
"Tell me what's goin' on," Nash said softly, putting a hand on Gray's knee.
Gray sighed. "Nash, I need to figure this out on my own."
"Please just tell me, kiddo—I know you can do it on your own, but I've gotta know what's goin' on, okay?"
Nash probably would have found out at some point, Gray reasoned. Perhaps it was best that he knew.
"Last night," he started, dragging a hand through his hair. "Avery and I talked on the plane after you and Jamie fell asleep. It wasn't even anything romantic—I told her I was worried about Xan, and somehow we started talking about emotions, and then it just happened…"
"Did you two kiss?" Nash asked.
"No!" Gray yelped, then glanced down. "Well, yes, it turned into that. She kissed me, and I knew I should have pulled away or let go or done something, but…" He sighed again. "Nash, I wanted her to do it."
He kept his gaze resolutely fixed on the tiles. "I think Avery would be happier with Jamie, and I told her that today. I told her that she should stay with Jamie, since he's the father of her baby, but she said—she said she made a mistake when she chose him. Avery said she loved Jamie, but…"
"She still loves you, too," Nash finished. "And you still love her."
"Yeah," Gray mumbled. "I told her we shouldn't be doing this, but it's hypocritical of me—I want it just as much as she does."
He buried his face in his hands. "This is stupid. I'm worrying about my romantic life—which shouldn't even exist—while I should be focusing on rescuing Xan."
"There isn't much we can do right now," Nash pointed out. "We've still got a while until the clock does its thing. But, Gray, you know you're allowed to have a romantic life, right?"
"I suppose so," Gray said reluctantly. "But Avery is not the easiest person to be having it with."
"You're right," Nash agreed. "And you can't keep it secret from Jamie forever. Sooner or later, one of you's gonna hafta talk to him about this—personally, I think it should be Avery, since Jamie ain't gonna beat her up for it."
"But it's Jamie's baby," Gray lamented. "What are we supposed to do with it if its parents have broken up?"
Nash shrugged. "Put it up for adoption—although Xan's so excited about it, maybe we should just give the kid to him."
He let out a short laugh. "I'm pretty sure we can work somethin' out, Gray. We've got about eight or so months to do it. As for the actual relationship thing, I've personally got no clue about the best course of action on that one. But I promise I'll help you figure it out if you want."
Gray cracked a faint smile. "Thank you, Nash."
Nash pulled Gray into a side hug, squeezing tightly for a few seconds, then got up and left the bathroom, grabbing the bottle of Advil and two disposable water bottles on the way out.
Grayson sat there, staring blankly into space, for what felt simultaneously like an eternity and twenty seconds condensed into the same amount of time. Time did seem to be passing at odd intervals during this game—an hour felt like mere minutes, while at certain times, the minutes stretched out into days.
Nash was right, Grayson decided. Someone was going to have to tell Jameson eventually.
But not yet.
For now, there was a game to be played.
At nine-thirty p.m., the four of them went down to the entrance hall, ready to watch the clock.
The Advil had worked, and Grayson was no longer limping, the pain in his ankle alleviated. Jameson could walk independently with the makeshift brace and only needed assistance going down stairs, and, as a result, they moved much faster. Nash had stuffed several rolls of gauze and a tube of bacitracin ointment into his pockets, just in case they needed more first aid supplies, and Grayson felt much more prepared for whatever came next.
"Whaddaya think it's gonna do?" Nash asked as the clock ticked to nine-forty.
"Probably open and reveal a portal to some other dimension," Grayson said dryly.
They didn't dare to speak, afraid to shatter the cavernous silence of the entrance hall. The minute hand of the clock ticked slowly toward forty-seven, closer, closer…
A bell rang out—"Seventeen hours remaining"—and the clock, apparently attached on one side by hinges, slowly swung open.
It did not reveal a portal to some other dimension, but it did reveal a dark hole in the wall, nearly as large as the clock. The only problem was that it was fifteen feet up the wall.
"How long is it gonna stay open?" Nash asked.
"Probably for only one minute," Jameson replied. "It's only nine forty-seven for so long. We've gotta get up there!"
"Nash, you should go up first," Grayson suggested. "Someone will have to pull the rest of us up."
"And how am I supposed to get up there?" Nash asked.
"We can boost you up," Jameson offered. "We'll make a step—here—"
He beckoned to Grayson, who sighed and interlocked his fingers with Jameson's, very conscious of his brother's injured knee and hoping it wouldn't give out. Nash put his hands on their shoulders, his foot on their hands, and stepped up, trying to reach the opening.
"It's not high enough," Avery informed them as Nash jumped back down. "You need something else to stand on."
As Grayson shook out his fingers, wincing, Avery's gaze flicked toward the side table, on which was placed the metal box with their cell phones in it.
"You can't be serious," Grayson complained as he realized what she was thinking.
"Oh yes I can," Avery said, a hint of laughter in her voice. "Help me get the table, Gray—we have to be fast."
Grayson sighed again and followed Avery over to the table. He carefully lifted the box and set it on the ground, hoping Ian wouldn't think they were trying to break the phones out. Then Grayson gripped the top of the table, while Avery took hold of the legs, and they carried it over to the floor underneath the clock.
"Now all three of you get on top of it," Avery instructed. "Do the step thing again and try to boost Nash up."
"Avery." Grayson did a quick mental calculation. "You do realize that we weigh around five hundred pounds combined, right? I don't think the table is going to take that kind of weight."
"We have to try," Avery insisted. "Go on, Gray."
Grayson hesitantly climbed onto the table, followed by Jameson, and then Nash. The legs immediately started to creak as the three Hawthornes struggled to balance on the unstable structure, and Grayson prayed silently that the table wouldn't break.
He and Jameson clasped hands again, and this time, Nash was able to grasp the edge of the hole. Using his brothers' shoulders as support, Nash managed to scramble into the passage, then reached down as the clock began to swing slowly closed.
"C'mon, Jamie!" Nash shouted, grabbing Jameson's wrists and pulling him up into the hole. "Avery, get on the table!"
Avery climbed up beside Grayson as Nash seized Grayson's wrists and yanked him upwards, provoking the momentary swooping sensation of flight before he landed in a crouch on what felt like a floor made of boards, with wide gaps in between them.
Grayson scrambled up and peered over the side of the passage, watching the table disappear as Nash pulled Avery through the rapidly closing gap. Her feet barely cleared the entrance before the clock slammed shut, leaving them all in complete darkness.
Jameson's light clicked on, and the passage was illuminated, causing a shiver to run up Grayson's spine. The floor was made of boards, which appeared to be rotting in some places, and cobwebs were strung between them, as well as dangling from the ceiling.
Nash shuddered. "I hate spiders."
"Don't we all," Grayson deadpanned. "Spiders aside, this is going to be difficult. The boards look like they could collapse at any moment."
"We've only got seventeen hours," Jameson pointed out. "Let's go."
It quickly became clear that navigating the tunnel was even more treacherous than Grayson had previously estimated. Twice, his foot plunged right through the boards, nearly causing Grayson to spiral into oblivion, and Nash, being the tallest, cracked his head on a low-hanging beam in the darkness.
"Ow!" Nash groaned, rubbing his forehead. "Could this get any worse?"
Grayson pulled his foot out from between the boards again, grateful that it hadn't been his injured ankle. "To be honest, Nash, I don't think it could. But we must be careful of saying things like that, because something worse usually follows them."
A snapping noise, followed by a scream, suddenly reverberated through the tunnel, and Grayson nearly lost his balance, catching himself on one of the slanting beams that rested against the dark stone.
The previous sounds were followed by a thunk, and Grayson called, "Avery?"
No response.
Panic shot through his veins. Grayson lunged forward, vaguely aware of Nash and Jamie right behind him, his gaze fixed on the spot where Avery had fallen through.
He moved too fast—apparently, a hundred and fifty pounds of Grayson Hawthorne was too much for the weakening boards to handle, and they snapped.
Grayson tried—and mostly succeeded—not to let a scream escape his lips as he plunged into the darkness, bracing for impact and struggling not to think about how much it was going to hurt when he hit the stone for the second time that day—
But he didn't.
Something in the darkness broke Grayson's fall, something strong and prickly, twining around his limbs, and then he was dangling in midair, the void yawning beneath him.
His fingers grasped a thin, hard tendril, and what felt like a leaf tickled his cheek.
Was this a plant?
Grayson struggled to free himself—after all, there wasn't time to be worrying about a plant when Avery was in danger—but the ivy had wrapped tightly around his appendages, and Grayson only succeeded in entangling himself further.
He was just starting to panic when a hand—it felt like Jameson's—grabbed his own and yanked, snapping the tendrils and causing several planks to fall. Grayson nearly plunged headfirst to the ground, but he grabbed Jamie's shoulders, steadying himself as dust rained down.
"Thanks," Gray rasped. "Where's Avery?"
Jamie's worried face was barely visible in the darkness, illuminated only by the weak beam of his flashlight, in which motes of dust sparkled. "I don't know. I didn't see where she or Nash went."
"You guys!" Nash's voice called from up ahead. "Over here, stat! I've got her!"
Gray and Jamie stumbled over the mess of ivy and broken boards, following Nash's voice. Gray's heart pounded with fear—what if Avery was hurt? What if the fall had harmed her baby?
Nash, his cowboy hat askew and a raw scrape across his cheek, was kneeling underneath the hole Avery had fallen through, cradling her body in his arms. Her eyes were closed, her limp form covered in dust, and a bloody laceration had been slashed across her forehead. The skin around it was rapidly bruising, and Gray sucked in a breath.
"She's pretty beat up," Nash whispered hoarsely, his expression worried. "You two okay?"
"We're fine," Jamie informed him. "Got caught in the ivy on the way down. Nash, what—what happened to Avery?"
"She must've hit her head," Nash replied, brushing Avery's hair away from her face so he could see the wound. "We've gotta clean the blood up—whoa, Gray, what's wrong?"
Gray had stumbled back, pressing a hand to his forehead and sitting down hard on a pile of broken wood. The lightheadedness from earlier had returned in full force, brought back by the sight of blood.
"Just give me a moment," Gray rasped, trying not to look at Avery's forehead. "It's just—the blood—if you could bandage it, Nash, that would be wonderful."
It was rather humiliating, Grayson thought as he sat there with his eyes squeezed shut. Nineteen years old—almost twenty—and still liable to faint at the sight of blood.
It was just that Avery looked so much like Xan had twelve years ago—limp, blood trickling from her forehead, staining Nash's hands and running down her face. But Xan's injury hadn't caused bruising like that, and while he'd had a concussion, he hadn't been knocked unconscious. Avery's injury seemed like a more severe trauma.
"There we go," Nash said, and Gray looked up to see that Avery's forehead had been wrapped in gauze, with no sign of blood soaking through. He stood up cautiously, not trusting his legs to hold him, and approached tentatively, kneeling down next to Nash. He was eternally grateful for his older brother's EMT training—Nash was certified in CPR and first aid, and the skills had saved them more than once.
"Is she going to be okay?" Gray whispered.
Nash nodded. "I think so. But we've gotta wait until she wakes up to know for sure."
"What do we do?" Jamie asked despairingly. "We have to get back up and figure out where this passage comes out, or we're never going to get out of this house in time—but we shouldn't move Avery if she's got a head injury!"
"We need someone to call for help," Nash decided. "Someone's gotta climb outta the tunnel and go find Ian—he said he'd call the authorities if there was an accident."
"I'll go," Jamie volunteered. "I could probably find a way out."
"But your knee's hurt," Nash protested. "Yeah, we splinted it, but it ain't gonna hold up for climbin'. You take Gray with you and try and get him outta here—I'll take care of Avery. Just be careful, okay? I'd go, but…"
"You're the EMT," Gray finished. "It's okay, Nash, we'll go. Just—call us if anything happens."
"I will. Don't do anything stupid, little bros."
Jamie cracked a smile. "We'll see."
As they set off down the tunnel, Gray turned back for one last look at Avery and Nash, huddled in the darkness, and prayed desperately that they'd all make it out of here alive.
They reached the end of the passage as the disembodied voice rang through Vantage, seeming doubly amplified in the tunnel.
"Sixteen hours remaining."
"I can't believe this," Jamie moaned, dragging his hands down his face. "Ian said there wouldn't be anything dangerous if we didn't do anything stupid!"
"There was the ivy underneath the boards," Gray reminded him. "Avery may have simply been unlucky enough to fall through at a thinner patch of it. I will agree that this tunnel is rather dangerous, though."
"I hope Xan is okay," Jamie whispered. "He's either tied to a chair, waiting to be shot and fearing for his life, or lounging around complaining about how long this is taking us—personally, I hope it's the second one."
"Knowing Xan, it may be some combination of the two," Gray said, and Jamie let out a not entirely forced laugh, which was a remarkable accomplishment given the circumstances.
"How do we get up to the exit?" Jamie asked, shining his flashlight up to the door, which was at about the same height as the clock and also perfectly circular. "There's only a bunch of boards and ivy down here."
"We could try to build a ladder," Gray suggested, picking up a board. "But it would take a long time, and we have nothing to connect the boards to each other."
"We've got the ivy," Jamie said. "I mean, it held you up, right? Who's to say it can't tie some boards together?"
"It's a good idea," Gray admitted. "But we're attempting to build a fifteen-foot ladder out of that and rotting wood, which then needs to support both of us as we climb up to the most likely very heavy door, which we then need to push open, which also appears to be locked."
"What?" Jamie sounded bewildered. "How do you know?"
"There's a piece of paper nailed to it," Gray informed him, aiming the beam of his flashlight at the door. "I can't tell what it says from here, but clearly, we're not getting out of here that easily."
"Let's try the ivy, then," Jamie suggested. "We can climb it—it's growing all over the walls. Or, well—you can climb it."
Gray glanced up at the ivy, which started about eight feet up the wall and grew up to the boards, then past them to the ceiling. Unfortunately, it looked too high to reach.
"You're going to have to boost me up," Gray sighed. "I can't tell you how much I dislike being short."
Jamie crouched down slightly, allowing Gray to scramble up onto his shoulders. "A lot of women like short kings, Gray. And Xan's got stilts you can borrow if you ever need them."
Gray reached up to the ivy, twining it around his fingers to get a better hold. "Thank you, I suppose."
He soon discovered that climbing up a wall covered in ivy wasn't as easy as it looked. There were virtually no footholds, and Gray's feet kept slipping, threatening to send him plummeting back down. Jamie stood beneath, waiting to catch Gray if he fell, but Gray wasn't excited about the idea of squishing Jamie underneath him twice in one day.
At one point, the ivy broke, and Gray was left clinging to the wall with one hand, which was rapidly slipping. He thrust his free hand back into the tangle of tendrils, finding a stronger one to hold onto as he struggled to calm his racing heart.
"You're doing great, Gray," Jamie called up. "Almost there!"
The climb was only about seven feet, but it felt much longer when Gray was climbing up a completely vertical wall with an entirely flat surface, relying on nothing but a plant to keep him from falling back down to the stone floor. When Gray finally pulled himself onto a board, panting, his deltoids were burning, and he could tell he'd be sore for at least a couple days once they got out of this mess.
"What's the paper say?" Jamie asked once Gray had caught his breath and stood up on the boards.
Gray pointed the beam of his flashlight at it, raking his gaze over the writing and repeating the words to Jamie as he read them.
I am the answer to every question that has ever been asked.
I began eternity and I will finish it.
I broke the stars into pieces and scattered them through the heavens.
I saw the sun and I burned it to the ground.
I am the gap in infinity.
I am the perforation of the sky.
I am the yawning nothingness in the day.
I am the welcoming brightness in the night.
I am all.
I see all.
I end all.
Can you guess the riddle?
And then, under it:
You do not need this answer yet. But you will. Soon.
Choose wisely, Grayson Hawthorne.
Gray's breath hitched in his chest as he stared at the handwriting. The eerily familiar, narrow letters that had appeared on every clue in the game so far.
He ripped the paper off the wall, stuffed it into his pocket, and tried to push the apprehension down. There wasn't time for that.
"I'll see where this comes out," Gray called down to Jamie. "Call me if Avery's condition changes. I'll call you if something goes wrong."
"Be careful," Jamie replied. "It might be a drop—the last thing we need is more head trauma."
Gray nodded and pulled open the door.
The stone circle swung inside to reveal what appeared to be a very tight, dark shaft, carved straight into the stone of the wall behind the door. Gray shone his flashlight into the depths, revealing a sharp slant downward, then a leveling off.
"What is it?" Jamie asked.
"Another passage—it's probably too small for you or Nash," Gray told him. "Once Ian's called for help, we can find a way to get Avery back through the way we came in. Do not try to follow me, Jamie—do you understand? You won't fit."
"Fine," Jamie huffed. "But seriously, if you get stuck, I'm leaving you there while we finish the game. Don't die, Gray, okay?"
Gray smiled faintly. "I'll try."
Holding his walkie-talkie out in front of him, Grayson cautiously maneuvered his head and shoulders into the passage. It was narrow—his shoulders nearly brushed the walls—but manageable. He'd squeezed through tighter spots in his grandfather's games before.
The slant turned out to be the easiest part—all Grayson really had to do was slide downward. It was the long, flat part of the passage that was difficult. The long stretch required Grayson to army crawl for what felt like hours, only increasing the burning in the muscles of his arms.
He'd turned off the flashlight to save battery—after all, they'd all used their walkie-talkies so much that evening that Grayson wasn't sure how they still worked—so he didn't know he'd reached the end of the passage until he bumped into a rock with his forehead.
"Ow!"
Grayson massaged the sore spot, stiffening as he realized the implications of what had just happened. He'd hit the end of the passage—the end. And it was a dead end. And there really wasn't a way to turn around. And it was going to be extremely difficult to get back up that slant going backwards.
He started hyperventilating, which only made the tunnel feel smaller. Come on, Hawthorne, think. There has to be a way out of here.
Grayson raised his hand and placed it on the stone in front of him, feeling for any grooves or depressions.
And to his great astonishment, it moved.
After that, it was just a matter of frantically (no, very calmly, he told himself) shoving the stone out of the way and dragging himself as fast as he could out of the confined space and coughing on all the ash that got into Grayson's mouth as he did so.
Oh, wonderful.
He'd come out in a fireplace, and Grayson was sure his face was now streaked with soot, as was his shirt, which was also torn across the shoulder, probably from falling through the boards. Grayson decided that he'd better put off cleaning himself up until after this stupid game was over, or he'd just end up doing it about fourteen more times before the day was out.
Standing, Grayson brushed the excess soot off his clothes and scanned the room he was in—large, with windows that had no glass in them and moonlight streaming through an opening at the top. At the far end of the room was a door, which had what appeared to be a sleek black keyboard mounted on it.
Grayson walked over to the door, his footsteps seeming unnaturally loud against the quiet stillness of the Scottish night. He grasped the doorknob and tried to turn it, not really expecting anything to happen—the keypad was obviously there for something.
A loud alarm blared through the room, and Grayson jumped, stumbling backward, away from the door, and nearly falling over.
"You have two minutes to type in the answer to the riddle from the door," said the same disembodied voice that counted the hours down, and a timer appeared in the upper right corner of the keyboard.
Grayson's brain zoomed into overdrive, pulling apart the riddle, analyzing it.
I began eternity—
God?
But that wouldn't fit with the "gap in infinity," because God was infinite—
I broke the stars into pieces—
Space?
But again, that gap, it didn't make sense—
And how could the answer be so many things at the same time?
I will finish it—
It was finishing him, that was what it was doing—
"I want to ask my question!"
One minute left.
"I need to talk to my brother," Grayson requested. "I must ask that you allow me to speak to Alexander Blackwood Hawthorne."
"You didn't have to use my full name," came Xan's voice over the speakers. "It sounds so weird when being applied to me. Anyway, what's up, Gray?"
"I need you to help me answer the riddle," Grayson said, trying to keep the plea out of his voice. "I can't do it in two minutes, Xan—here—"
He fished the paper out of his pocket with trembling hands and read off the whole thing, though he left off the last two lines. Xan only needed the riddle.
Forty seconds.
"Ian didn't give me the answers to the riddles," Xan said. "But you're in luck, Gray—I'm pretty sure I've got it."
"Hurry, Xan."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"That's the answer."
Grayson stared, dumbfounded, at the ceiling, which was where Xan's voice appeared to be coming from.
"See, it asked you if you could guess the riddle," Xan explained. "And I don't think it has an answer. You can't guess it. So the answer is just no."
Twenty-five seconds.
"Are you sure?" Grayson asked, his hands shaking as he moved his finger over the keypad.
"Yep!"
"Absolutely certain?"
"Positive, Gray! Just type it in! The room might blow up if you don't!"
Grayson typed NO into the keyboard, and light burst out of it, nearly blinding him, as he threw up a hand to shield his eyes and this time did end up falling backward, landing unceremoniously on his backside.
He squinted through the light, which finally dimmed, and the lock clicked.
Grayson scrambled up and burst through the door, gasping to the security camera on the other side, "Ian—we need your help."
—XANDER—
Xander breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the lock click open. It had been fascinating to see—well, hear, as the blindfold was unfortunately still a thing—Gray being flustered. That was a rare occurrence, and one that should be exploited when it happened.
But Gray's next words quickly sucked the relief out of Xander. "Ian—we need your help."
"Why?" Ian inquired, a note of annoyance in his tone. "You seem to be doing well enough without my help."
"Avery's hurt," Gray said, and Xander could hear the plea in his voice. "We suspect a serious head injury, and she and my brothers are still in the tunnel. We can't move Avery without exacerbating the injury—we need professional medical help. The rest of us will continue to play your game, but we need to get Avery out of here."
"Alright," Ian agreed. "As long as the game continues."
Gray started to speak again, but then Xander heard a swift movement as someone stepped across the floor, then the click of a button, and the gun at his temple shifted slightly. Gray's voice was abruptly cut off.
"Hey!" said Ian's bewildered voice. "Give me my phone! I have to call for help!"
"No one is calling for help," said Xander's captor, who presumably had Ian's phone. "I have the girl right where I want her, and the boys are all ready to be used as leverage. We are going to finish this here and now."
"Look, old man," Ian said angrily. "I laid out the rules for them. I told them I'd get help if there was an emergency, and that's what I intend to do."
"I told you," came the voice of Tobias Hawthorne. "I'm not letting Ms. Grambs get away without giving me what I want. This will make it easier for all of us, I assure you."
"I don't care what you want, Hawthorne! Give me the phone!"
The gun was pulled away from Xander's head, and he heard a sharp crack, then a muffled thud.
"That's him taken care of," drawled the old man's voice. "Come along, Xander. We don't want to keep your brothers waiting."
Xander slowly stood up as the cold metal touched his skin again, and a vice grip tightened on his elbow, steering him toward what felt like a table when his hand touched it.
"I'm going to turn the microphone on," Xander's grandfather said. "You will tell Grayson that the front doors are open and to meet us outside. There is a ladder in the supply closet off the entrance hall, and he can have no qualms about breaking the clock. Do not reveal my identity, or you know what will happen."
Xander nodded as a button clicked and the gun jabbed harder into his temple, signaling that he should begin speaking. Or it could have been a threat, or maybe a slip of his grandfather's hand, but Xander had no other cues, so he started.
"Um—hi, Gray. It's Xan. Listen, the game's being stopped, because someone stopped Ian from calling for help, and this someone is now requesting that we all meet outside on the cliff. H—they say the front doors are unlocked and that there's a ladder in the supply closet in the entrance hall. Oh, and you're supposed to break the clock to get into the passage. Also, be prepared to have your mind blown when you see who this is."
"Xan, what's going—"
The button clicked off, and Gray's voice was silenced.
For the second time that day, the old man's hand landed on Xander's cheek with a stinging pain and a loud slap, and Xander tried to hold back a whimper. Of all his brothers, he'd usually been the most affected when their grandfather used force.
"What was that for?" Xander complained. "They're all going to see you anyway!"
"The element of surprise is very important, Xander. You have now greatly lessened my chances of surprising anyone."
"Personally, I don't think anyone is gonna be very surprised, since you wrote all the clues and they've been staring at your handwriting for like eight hours now."
A sigh. "Come with me, Xander. No struggling and no calling for help—do you understand?"
"Fine. Yeah, I understand. I've only had a gun held to my head for hours, you know."
"Insolent brat," Tobias Hawthorne muttered as he steered Xander out the door.
They walked down what Xander decided was a carpeted hall, since their footsteps were muffled, and then turned down a large staircase. Xander struggled to keep his balance as they descended—he was pretty sure the old man had taken the railing side.
Finally, Xander's feet touched what sounded like marble, and they walked across a large room. Xander concluded that it was the entrance hall when they stopped, and the gun was removed from his head as he heard the scrape of a key in the lock.
This was his chance.
He'd never been trained in martial arts like Jamie or Gray, but Xander knew how to take out an opponent if he needed to.
He swung out a leg and knocked the old man's feet from under him, then ripped off the blindfold as his grandfather hit the floor with a shout. The rifle—oh, gosh, it was a rifle—clattered to the floor, and Xander kicked it away, sending it spinning across the marble as he vaulted over the old man, wrenched the door open, and sprinted out into the rain.
Xander almost fell headfirst down the slick stone steps, his foot slipping, but he righted himself and made for the field of poppies, looking for a place to hide.
Thunder seemed to explode through the sky, and then Xander did slip, losing his footing in the wet grass. He crashed down into the poppies, his shoulder hitting the soaked ground, and rolled, his body flipping over a small outcropping before slamming into more grass.
"Ow!" Xander whimpered, his shoulder throbbing—it would bruise later. "Stupid grass!"
But it was a hiding place, and probably as good as he was going to get—if Xander went into a cave, he'd just be trapping himself, and if he went anywhere near the cliff, he'd probably end up being pushed off.
Xander curled into a ball, pushing his body up against the outcrop and hoping the rocks would hide him.
It was only his grandfather, but Xander felt like death was stalking him.