Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller Read Online Free

trickiest bit. I had to choose the right moment.
    I listened. Then I listened some more, craning my head forward in the vain hope of filtering more noises into my ears. I could hear nothing unusual, nothing that should cause me fear. It had to be now. The time was ripe for the final part. I sprinted onto the path and began my frantic clambering, dislodging earth and rocks in my struggle to find purchase with hands and feet. My rifle fell out of my hands, slid down the steep side, the large stick broken from an ash tree finally coming to rest with a clatter against a cluster of rocks. I could only look in dismay. It had my blood on it, I thought. It was more than any old stick now. The blood had made it special. I paused on the slope and toyed with the idea of scrambling back down and retrieving it, but thought better of it and resumed my frantic clawing till I broached the summit.
    I heaved myself over the last few feet and lay on the plateau, gasping for breath, a fire in my throat and chuckling to myself. Lying on my stomach I peered over the edge through the fringe of grass and looked down onto the trees below. From this height the whole scene of my flight could be plotted, from the long silvery line of the railway track beside which I’d hidden, to the places near the towering coal bunker where I’d flattened the grass as I lay - and the clump of briars didn’t look half as intimidating from up on The Mount. The Indians were nowhere to be seen. If there had been guards then they’d given up waiting and were searching elsewhere for me. I’d been patient and that patience had paid off in evading my pursuers. I knew then what the solution to this problem had been. Patience. The others had made the mistakes, not I. I merely waited, bided my time and the opportunities had presented themselves. I didn’t rush things. I thought it out, and I was justifiably proud of myself.
    I rose, strutted to the large red rock in the centre of the plateau and sat on it, rubbing my nettle rash tenderly; only now beginning to feel the pain of a multitude of cuts and bruises. My shirt had a hole by the pocket where a thorn had snagged. I bit at my lower lip. I knew there’d be hell to pay when my mother saw it; it was clean on that morning. But that was for later. Right now I basked in the sunshine and the glory of beating them all. There was a pinkish orange tinge to the sky on the horizon, sitting in thin strips above the rooftops and foretelling of a lustrous crimson sunset to crown my achievements.
    I heard a scrambling up The Mount, accompanied by a smattering of conversation. I stiffened and folded my arms. First their heads appeared as they clambered over, their faces wreathed in disbelief when they saw me sitting there as bold as brass on the rock. Their Chief pushed brusquely between the three Indian braves, his head framed by the reddening sky, his chest heaving; and it wasn’t through pure exertion, I thought. I saw his fist tighten around his sabre – the thick piece of oak he’d plucked from the undergrowth and stripped of leaves and twigs – and he strode with wide purposeful steps towards me. He halted a couple of yards away from me.
    He was a good looking young lad, or at least what I thought to be good looking; he had a dark complexion, as if constantly out in the Sun, piercingly blue eyes and a mess of dark hair; his body was well developed for a ten year old, and the ghost of the man to come was even then visible in the boy. I admit to being envious of him, as we all were. I knew – just knew – I would never develop into the man he would.
    “I beat you,” I said, somewhat breathlessly, and, looking back on it, rather recklessly.
    His face remained cold, eyebrows lowered, his chest heaving, sweat shimmering on his forehead, dirt and dust streaking his cheeks, his neck and shoulders.
    “You cheated,” he accused.
    I rose to it. “I did not! I won fair and square!”
    “I don’t know how you did it, but you