Read Online Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher - Free Book Online

further so I’m half hanging over the rock, my body juddering against it as my heart thuds. One slip and I’d be joining Damon. But I look and look, and there are only rocks below. I stay still, listen. Rain gets in my ears but, even so, I hear him . . . I hear something. It’s a light breathing, like an animal’s. It’s coming from somewhere very close. I grab on to a spindly plant growing in the rock and, pulling against it first to check it’s strong enough to hold my weight, I use it as a kind of anchor so I can lean over the edge. Directly underneath me is an opening, a kind of cave, but it’s too dark to see inside straight away.
    â€˜I told you, I’m It.’ Damon’s voice comes back from the dark. ‘I’m It and you’re chasing.’
    I squint to see Damon’s hunched body. He’s directly underneath me, just a layer of rock between us.
    â€˜What are you waiting for?’ he says. ‘Tag me!’
    In front of the cave’s opening is a tiny dirt ledge, I suppose it would be possible to jump on to it lightly andquickly and then springboard into the cave: if you had guts and weren’t scared of heights, if you had the right sort of balance and had nothing to lose.
    â€˜I thought you were dead,’ I say.
    â€˜Really?’
    This seems to please Damon, and he shuffles closer to where I’m hanging. I grab more of the plant, painfully aware that my life is relying on the strength of a weed’s root system. If this plant uproots, I’m gone. Damon comes so close I see freckles on his nose, millions of them.
    â€˜You’re meant to be chasing me,’ he repeats. He ducks out from the cave, clings to the rock face on the other side. ‘Or don’t you want to play in these woods after what your dad did here?’
    â€˜He didn’t,’ I say. ‘You’re not being fair.’
    He thinks about this. ‘Catch me and I might be. If not . . .’ He breathes out fast. ‘I could make your life hell for you, y’know, hurt you for what your dad did . . .’ He scrambles around the cliff face, arms and legs splayed wide, until he reaches what looks like a small animal path a few metres away. ‘This is your detention, remember?’ he says. ‘So chase me. Do it!’
    He begins to run, down that path that I can now see weaves away from the sharp rocks and heads towards the bottom of the Leap; he’s half out of control. I shouldn’t follow him. I know he’s only trying to get his own back, just like Mina said he would. I can see how full of anger he is. But what’s the alternative? Stay here? Go home and find Mum already half cut on wine, sprawled on the sofa?Damon Hilary telling on me? And then, meeting the Head in his stuffy office with Mum called in. Suspension. Expulsion? Mum in tears. Then someone leaking all this to the papers and them latching on to me as an evil psycho too: like father, like daughter . Then there will be more graffiti on our house. More things muttered at me in supermarkets. More hate.
    Damon’s running faster now, weaving down that tiny path with an ease that surprises me.
    There are things I still want to say to him too.
    Stomach against the rock, I slide feet first over the edge. Using the plant as support, I stretch down until the tips of my trainers touch the dirt ledge below. Then I let go, throw my body towards the cave and away from that drop and those sharp rocks. I turn and see Damon hanging on to a thin tree-trunk halfway down the hill, watching me with a hand held to his eyes. I choose my route, then run – skid – towards him.
    Running down this path feels amazing, even though I could fall and slide in a tangled mess, even though this is one of the most stupid things I’ve ever done. It’s as if my legs are moving without me telling them to, whirring underneath me. It’s much steeper than Damon made it look and I grab on to