Second Shot by Zoe Sharp

put them into the dustbin later. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t my job, but it needed doing and I wasn’t about to stand on ceremony. The blinds were still drawn and I had the lights on, making it hard to tell that it was still morning.
    “How’s Ella?” I asked, getting to my feet.
    Simone hovered in the doorway, looking tired and strained. “OK, I guess,” she said. She paused, more of a hesitation. “She wants to see you.”
    “Ella?” I said, surprised.
    Simone nodded and stepped back into the hallway, taking it for granted that I’d follow
    I dumped the wrapped-up package of glass onto the kitchen worktop and went after her, aware of a prickle of nerves. I had almost no experience with children of Ella’s age. I had no real experience with children of any age, for that matter. She’d been through traumas over the past two days that no four-year-old should have to endure and I had no idea how to counsel or comfort her, if that was what was required. Hell, I couldn’t even do that for myself.
    I opened my mouth to ask Simone why Ella was demanding an audience, but she was already halfway up the stairs and I had to hurry to catch up. By the time I reached the landing she was waiting for me by one of the bedroom doorways, beckoning me on.
    My immediate impression of Ella’s bedroom was that it was overwhelmingly pink. Pink carpet, pink curtains, pink quilt cover with pink unicorns on it. Even as a small child I remember disliking the color and my mother would have died rather than decorate so heavy-handedly. She wouldn’t even buy anything other than plain-colored lavatory paper.
    Ella was sitting up in bed with the covers banked protectively round her. She was cuddling the battered Eeyore tightly against her chest and absently chewing on one of his ears. From the state of the animal, I gathered this was something of a regular habit. Those violet eyes regarded me, wide and unwavering.
    Simone went over to her and perched on the edge of the single bed. Ella tugged on her mother’s sleeve until their heads were together, then whispered something into Simone’s ear, hiding her lips behind her cupped hand. And all the time, her eyes never left me.
    I tried to keep my expression bland, but I never did like being talked about behind my back. Even by a four-year-old.
    Now Simone was looking at me, too, her cheeks flared pink to match the bedroom decor.
    “Urn, she wants to know what happened to your neck,” Simone said.
    “My neck?” I repeated, dumbly Automatically, my hand went up to my shirt collar, checking it was in place. It was. For a moment I couldn’t work out when Ella might have caught a glimpse of my scar, but then I realized she must have done so when her mother was wrestling her away from me in the hallway
    Simone’s gaze met mine and I saw shock in her eyes. I think for the first time it really came home to her what it meant to be a bodyguard. And what it might mean to need one.
    The scar was a thin line that ran round the base of my throat from my voice box to just below my right ear, crossed by fading stitch lines like something from a horror flick. Too uneven to be surgical, too precise to be accidental, it looked like what it was. An attempt to murder me that had very nearly succeeded.
    Simone nodded, just a single jerk of her head, still looking embarrassed. ‘And she wants to know if it hurts,” she said, speaking like her lips were numb.
    I shook my head. “Not really,” I said. “It happened a long time ago.”
Not quite two years, but to Ella that would be half a lifetime.
    Ella whispered again. Simone’s discomfort deepened. Ella tugged insistently She was hiding her face behind her hair now, peeping out at me from underneath it.
    “She wants to know if she can kiss it better,” Simone said, flushing. There was a pleading message in her eyes, but I couldn’t tell if she was desperate for me to refuse or comply.
    Ella snuck another coy glance through her lashes and suddenly I