Headshots

A gunshot made her nearly jump out of her skin. John took a step forward. And despite the fact it wasn't raining, a warm dappling of moisture settled on Avery's scalp, face, ears, and shoulders.

Snowdrop's too- a mist of blood.

Avery caught John, as did Snowdrop, helping him balance.

The gunshot wound was small, but it had gone in and out. Through the back of the head and out the front. With the direction John was facing, the direction of the mist-

Avery grabbed Snowdrop, pulling, and used John to block the view. She used the black rope to hop to the back of the strip mall, where garbage cans were sitting by back doors, and where air conditioners hummed.

They gathered there, leaving John where he was, backs to the wall.

Cleo shouted something.

She hadn't actually gone that far. She'd just… gotten in position and put a bullet in the biggest threat.

We can't afford to get wrapped up in this, Avery thought. There's already too much to do.

It felt like she'd betrayed John, not being more on guard. It felt like she'd betrayed herself, arguing earlier that they shouldn't compromise or reach out to people who weren't reaching back. Charles, in that case, but she'd…

She'd really, deep in her heart, wanted Raquel to reach back. Not out of any crush or love or anything. There was barely anything she even liked about Raquel. But she'd thought it made sense that Raquel might accept a reaching hand, and it hurt doubly that the girl had slapped it away as fiercely as she had.

John started to rise to his feet. There was another gunshot, and he fell again.

They couldn't leave John or the Witch Hunter might do something to make the next death permanent.

"Immortal!?" Cleo called out.

Avery wanted to respond but couldn't. She had a sense of where Cleo was, on the far end of the strip mall, just going by the direction of her voice and the sound of the gunshot.

That shooting might attract police attention soon. Avery wasn't sure what would happen then, but the fact that Cleo wasn't worried made her worried.

If she could draw Cleo away, then maybe John would be able to get up.

She looked up, grabbed Snowdrop's hand, and black-roped her way up to the roof again.

She advanced along the roof, trying to make a bit of noise, zig-zagging and keeping the noise to the left side, to try to pull Cleo in that direction. She was aware that if she went too far left and was visible at the roof's edge from the ground, a camera flash could put her in Cleo's grip.

Snowdrop went small and began pushing and throwing cans off the edge.

Cleo had gone silent. No more taunting calls, no more threats, no more gunshots.

The lack of knowledge scared her.

Avery crouched down, eyes scanning the roof's edges in case that grappling hook Cleo had had in her bag made a reapparance, and pulled out her phone. She texted Lucy. 'Gate earng'.

She began to text clarification, because she'd rushed the message, but Lucy's response came back. A single letter.

She went to Snowdrop, and flipped through her phone to find the reference image.

"Keep eyes out."

Snow nodded, and turned her head and Avery moved her face and chin to the side. Avery began to draw on Snow's ear. The gate of horn and antler. It was meant to connect Sight, but for the ear…

Snow jumped a bit, then looked around, pointing, finger moving, presumably, as Cleo circled around, then circled back, to watch John.

John wasn't reviving that fast, or he was biding time to build strength.

Snowdrop took the pen and phone and Avery sat while Snowdrop drew the image on her left ear.

It took a few seconds, but the sharpened sound came through. It came and went a bit.

"Thanks, Lucy," Avery murmured.

That thought alone seemed to clarify it.

What a mess this is, she thought. And that seemed to hurt the enhanced sound.

They were probably burning through a lot of power this way.

"Fuck."

John.

Avery looked. She could also place Cleo's general location.

Careful, wary, she grabbed a can, found a bit of broken roof-edge, and grabbed that too.

Snow helped.

Together, they hurled things over the edge. Cans, trash, bits of broken concrete, a fistful of gravel.

Cleo ran, and they aimed accordingly.

The clatter of cans was apparently audible to John, because he got to his feet and he broke into a run, running closer to them and the building.

Cleo was on the front-facing side of the building, and there was a huff of breath, a grunt.

Climbing.

Cleo scaled the front of the building using security bars and signage. Her hands gripped the edge and Avery wasn't in a great position to punt her off.

John shot again, past them, at Cleo. It wasn't a good angle, even with John approaching by running down the hill's base, where things sloped a bit, giving him a somewhat high vantage point. He missed, and Cleo ducked, running for cover behind a roof-mounted air conditioning unit.

- False Moves 12.8