AVALON

Chapter 24 - lying in wait

A/N - hey guys this ones a bit of a ... lead up one ;) Hope you like it anyway... vote and comment if you do... any words you guys don't understand comment for my please so I can make a glossary of aussie words for you

Pic of a feral pig caught up North :D

It's dark now, and I'm laying still in the blackness here at Harry's, grateful for the two heads resting on my legs. I pet the dogs as I think back to today.

When I saw that guys eyes, I was instantly reminded of this story Pop used to tell us. 

We all love Pop's stories and there's this one about this crazy guy in his army unit back in his day, Pop always described him as having dead eyes. He reckons you can get dead eyes if something happened really traumatic in your childhood, something that you couldn't cope with.

Pop reckons that people can go one of two ways, fragile and openly hurting and seek help and stuff or they can hold it all in, somehow blaming themselves and focusing on one emotion. And normally that emotion is not a good one.

Those people are like pimples he said, painful and filled with pus and something about them make you keep looking at them. The guy in his unit, Pop always says that he was extremely glad he was on his side because this guy was silent but deadly, we always laughed at that bit. Nathan would make pooo weee hand gestures, Pop end up changing that description to he was a quiet bubbling and bottled volcano that erupted like MountV something, I'm not good at geography. We liked the first description better.

I always had pictured like, a dead animals eyes when I thought about what "Black Jo's" eyes looked like, you know all glazed and stuff like when you come across a carcass or you've just shot something, but when I saw that guy whose car I rode up on I realized why they called him Black Jo.  I mean this guys eyes were the lightest green but there was a kind of blackness within them. An emptiness, except for the end when he was just plain itchin' mad.

Thinking back I have to admit they were really nice coloured eyes, the kind of light green that is at the very bottom of sprouting grass, I love green it's my fave colour. But not when it's attached to someone that obviously didn't realise that he caused what happened today, that his stupid reaction and impatience has consequences. It was all his fault.

A small giggle escapes my mouth as I think what would have happened if Nathan were there too. I mean looking back on it without being so damn angry, his face was pretty funny. When I sent Alby in there to get him out of the car it looked like someone had opened a jar of jumpin' jacks in his undies. (These are ants that bite like... hell). I don't trust him though there was too much anger there for him to just... leave it.

But I'm ready and waiting here because now that I've gotten to know Harry a bit more and the position he is in with this farm, I won't be backing down if that prick comes back here that's for sure. I'll defend Harry with everything I have, and believe me I may not be good at school but I am gifted at other things. Things that he wouldn't suspect a girl would be good at. Lethal things. I will protect Harry and everything he owns like it's my families, because that what I see him as now... my family.

My heart beats weirdly as I think of Harry, he's just like... me, like my Pop, like anyone in my family. We get on so well. Like most of us, sometimes it's hard to ask for help when you have been turned down a lot or when help comes with a catch. Harry's land is worth a fortune he said because of the development value, but this was his parents land before his and he lived on this with his wife and kids. Sometimes memories are worth more than anything else... Pop says sometimes it what drives people to live... or die.

This place has so much potential but what can one guy do? A 78 year old guy at that. He said that no one around here anymore has the skills he needs and because his land is worth so much Harry doesn't even get the pension, Dad always raves on about how crap the government is towards its farmers, that they are breaking our backs. Our station is one of the few big ones left that aren't in foreign ownership, and we vow it never will be... no matter what.