The Trouble With Time by Lexi Revellian Page B

she got here, and why was the light all wrong; grey when it should be amber? Perhaps she had been unconscious for hours. She shivered, her clothes offering no protection against the cold rain, and that was wrong too in July.
    Nearby two men were fighting savagely, the man who’d brought her here and another who looked like a tramp. The man slammed the tramp into a headstone and reached under his jacket. The tramp punched him, kneed him in the stomach and knocked his arm away fast and hard, and whatever the man had hold of spun out of his hand. They crashed to the ground grappling, the man’s hand groping about for what he had dropped. It had to be a weapon. Floss leaped forward, saw something black nestling in the wet grass and grabbed just as his fingers touched it.
    Though different from those she had seen in films and on television, this was unmistakably a gun, small and made to fit the contours of a hand, with silver knobs and sliders on one side. Floss had never held a gun before. It felt heavy for its size, and warm. She didn’t know what to do – should she call out, try to stop them fighting? Who were they, anyway?
    The tramp seemed to be winning. His arm went round the other man’s neck, straining, and they both became still for several seconds. Then the tramp got to his feet and walked towards Floss, limping a little.
    He was broad-shouldered and lean, and his clothes – vaguely piratical with fraying braid and a few surviving gold buttons – were worn and discoloured with grease and grime. Lank dark hair curled below his shoulders, and his beard came to his chest. His eyes were bright and impossible to read in a face dark with dirt. He looked her over, breathing hard.
    Floss held out the gun in both hands like she’d seen in the movies, finger on the trigger, pointing at him. “Don’t come any closer!”
    He took a step towards her.
    “I’ll fire!”
    “No, you won’t.” His voice was low, with a rough, husky edge to it, as if he hadn’t used it for a while.
    “I will! Stop there!”
    He took another pace forward. Floss aimed the gun at the sky and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. The man stepped up to her and took the gun out of her hands and put it in his pocket.
    “You didn’t take the safety off. You’d better come back to the house.”
    He turned to the other man, grabbed the back of his collar and began to drag him along the ground. Something about the way his head lolled seemed wrong.
    “Is he . . . all right?”
    He gave a curt laugh. “No. He stopped being all right when I broke his neck.”
    Appalled, Floss watched him walk away, the body trailing after him, then got out her mobile, feeling sick again, shaking with shock and cold. No signal. She hastened off in the opposite direction from the one the man was taking, stumbling over the rough ground. Above the trees, their leaves just beginning to change colour, she could make out the tops of tall buildings. People there would help, take her in and let her use their phone.
    Footsteps made her turn. He’d dropped the body to come after her. “Don’t wander off, you’ll get lost. There’s wolves out there. And the odd lion.”
    Floss stared at him in disbelief. “ Wolves and lions? Where is this?”
    “London. Bunhill Fields. Near Silicon Roundabout.”
    Relief flooded Floss. That was practically home ground. She recognized the old graveyard now, though the last time she’d been there two or three years ago it had been better maintained. They’d really let it go since then. All she had to do was escape from this homicidal maniac. Who now had a gun. Edging away, she attempted a polite smile. “Thank you. Now I know where I am I’ll be off.”
    He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pointed to a small square brick building overgrown with ivy. “That’s where I live, over there, if you need me.”
    He started to move away. Relieved but cautious, Floss managed another insincere smile and turned decisively to go.
    “But