Nevertheless, they were edging closer to the woman, who backed away from them calmly. Hilton barely glimpsed Mr. Stiles’ body being taken up and drawn carefully away by a couple of the people, most of whom looked like Jamaicans.
The woman threatened them as she stepped confidently backwards, seeming to have a full awareness of what was behind her.
There seemed to be some nervousness, however, on the faces of the authorities that were slowly advancing toward her, the leader of whom was trying to negotiate with her to stand down, but to no avail. Hilton saw that she was even smiling once she had backed nearly past him.
Hilton startled when she surged suddenly toward him, wrapping her left arm around his throat and pressing the gun against his upper temple.
“Don’t take another step!” the woman snapped almost triumphantly. “Or the boy dies.”
One of the smallest rises of resentment Hilton had ever felt surged up within him at being called a boy, and he felt it was kept small by the tsunami of fear that rose in him at the same time. He could feel his heart racing. He didn’t want to die when someone else was making the rules of how it would happen.
The authorities looked concerned, while a glance toward Meinwen showed she had opened her eyes and was looking at him with terror. She would be alone without him. She could be the woman’s next victim. Meinwen needed him.
“Let him go,” one of the authorities said quietly.
“This gun is not empty,” the woman replied. “I could kill him and half of you lot before I’d have to worry about it being empty.”
Hilton wanted to whimper, but, at the same time, didn’t dare reveal his fear. He needed to be strong for Meinwen, notwithstanding the gun barrel being driven into his head, and the warm, bare, upper arm flesh preventing him from being able to relieve the pressure.
Suddenly a thought came to Hilton. He ran his tongue over the pointed tip of his upper left canine.
Shifting his head slightly, he bared his teeth before clamping them onto the woman’s arm.
She screamed and swore. He felt the pressure of the gun release. A clatter. He didn’t let go. The metallic taste of blood reached his tongue.
Trying to pull her arm out of his hold, the woman made Hilton’s head turn as far to the left as it could go. He then had to tilt it fully back and pivot it from left to right before he was forced to let her arm go as his mind recoiled at the thought of having raw human flesh in his mouth.
The woman looked at him with savage hatred, her right hand clinging to her inner left arm, blood oozing between her fingers.
She swore shrilly at him as authorities surged in and apprehended her.
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