One by One Read Online Free PDF Page A

we’ll lock the place up and work out our next move, and remember: whoever’s doing this can’t touch us if we all stick together.’
    The wind was picking up now and the earlier blue sky was all but gone, replaced by a swathe of grey-white cloud. I looked up at the ominous wall of pine trees that led back to the house, and I felt the fear kick in again. Somewhere in those trees was a man waiting for his opportunity to pick us off one by one. Right now, we were still four and, as Crispin had pointed out, there was comfort in numbers.
    But if we started losing more…
    We walked two abreast along the narrow path, each person no more than a yard from the trees that rose up on either side of us, shutting out the sky. Although they’d been planted in careful rows, tangled bushes and clumps of ferns and heathers had grown up in the gaps, offering numerous places to hide, and we all scoured the surroundings with an intensity born of fear, keeping close together. Marla had somehow managed to make sure she was the one leading the way with Crispin, while Luke and I brought up the rear.
    I asked Luke if he was all right. He was still very quiet, although thankfully he seemed to have shaken himself out of his earlier catatonic state.
    â€˜I’m fine,’ he whispered tightly, without taking his eyes off the wood. ‘Concentrate on keeping watch. He could be right on us.’
    I narrowed my eyes, keeping focused, my hand gripping the knife so tightly it felt numb, wondering if, even now, we were being watched by an unseen killer. I prayed that we’d make it back to the house safely. That whoever it was had decided against killing the rest of us, and had already left the island.
    Something moved.
    Behind one of the trees, maybe twenty yards in, partly obscured by a thick holly bush.
    And then, without warning, a hooded figure – his face obscured – appeared, holding something out in front of him. It was a crossbow and it was aimed right at us.
    â€˜Run!’ I yelled, immediately bolting in the other direction, my head down low as I knocked into Luke. I heard something whistle past my head; heard a scream; and then I was gone, into the trees away from our attacker, running for my life. I pulled off the backpack containing my stuff, not wanting to slow myself down, and threw it into some bushes. I zigzagged between the trees, charged straight through undergrowth, never once looking behind me. Even when I stumbled and fell, dropping my knife in the process, I was back on my feet and moving in an instant, picking it up as I sprung away, all the while ignoring the terrible burning in my lungs.
    I don’t know how long I ran for but it was probably no more than three or four minutes and then the woods ended abruptly, to be replaced by a wall of rock a good thirty feet high and, at least at the point I was looking at it, totally insurmountable. I ran down alongside the rock wall for about thirty yards as it tapered off before finally giving way to a short but sheer cliff that looked down on the rock-strewn, bubbling sea below.
    I thought about following the cliff round until I eventually came back to the beach, but decided against it. There was no shelter for me there, plus the killer might expect me to go that way. I stopped and crouched low behind one of the last of the trees, and forced myself to look back.
    There was no one there. I couldn’t hear anything either.
    I crouched there, panting for a few minutes while I got my breath back, wondering if the others were all right. It wasn’t a surprise I couldn’t hear them. Like me, they’d be trying to keep as quiet as possible. But I remembered hearing a scream so it was possible one of them had been hit. It had sounded like it had come from a man and, with a jolt of fear, I wondered if it was Crispin. That would be the worst blow. Of all of us, he was showing the most resilience.
    I continued to scan the trees, thinking about