I had no choice! She was pointing her bow with a notched arrow at me. The woman was going to kill me. I swear, I didn’t want to hurt her. The shotgun just went off on instinct. Scrambling over to her limp body I looked for a wound. But there was no blood, no marks on her perfect ebony skin. 

She let out a groan and brought a hand to her head. 

“Careful, take it slow.”

The woman opened her eyes and looked at me. “You shot me?”

“Yeah, about that…”

“YOU SHOT ME!” She pushed herself to a sitting position and shoved me.

I stammered to find my words, “Yes but… I… I missed”

“Like heck you missed, that hurt.” She rubbed her stomach, the movement had my anxiety resurfacing. Maybe she was injured. 

She struggled to get on her feet, immediately I was by her side, “Here, let me help you.”

With a smack to my hand, she forced herself up on her own. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough Joshua?”

“How do you know my name?” I’d never seen her before. With her sass I can guarantee she would have been pretty unforgettable. 

Fear flashed across her face for a moment but quickly faded. “My friend mentioned you. Said you were the king of the idiots. Of course I didn’t expect they’d give shotguns to idiots so freely.”

Dipping my head under her arm I let her lean on me as I led her to the barn. “Let’s get you inside.” I wasn’t about to drag a half shot woman into my father’s house, the barn would give us some privacy. Hopefully she didn’t need an ambulance or doctor. I looked behind us as we walked, still no blood anywhere. 

Inside I set her on a hay bale and ran to the tack room for the emergency vet kit. Coming back I saw her rubbing her scalp. 

“Did you hit your head in the fall?”

“No I’ve always had this goose egg, it’s one of the best fashion choices of the century. You should really try it.”

I grabbed a pack of ice from the mini fridge where we kept special medications and made my way back over to her. She snatched the ice pack from me with a glare. 

Once again I looked over her stomach, still no bleeding. “Did any of the shotgun pellets hit you?”

A sigh left her and she followed my gaze before rolling her eyes, “No. It must have startled me. I fell out of the tree, but I’m fine.”

“What were you doing in that tree anyway?”

She met my eye, “Most people don’t see me.”

“So you like spying on people?”

“No, of course not.” She shook her head and brought a hand to the bridge of her nose. “How do I explain this?” With a pause she looked me over. “My name is Amora. Amora Lovemore. In your country they call me Cupid.”

“Cupid? Like the winged baby who shoots heart arrows and makes people fall in love?”

Her face turns an ashen faded brown. “Where’d my bow and arrows go?” 

“You mean the bow and arrow you aimed at me with?”

“This is serious. Where are they?”

“I left them by the tree, I figured making sure you weren’t dying was the best choice.”

She stood and swayed, still holding the ice against her head. “I need to get them.”

I blocked her path, “I’ll get them. You sit. Please.” I couldn’t keep the strained worry out of my voice. It must have put her at ease, because she sat back down and motioned to the door. 

The sun was dropping when I got back to the tree, making the search for her bow nearly impossible. After crawling on my hands and knees for what seemed like half an hour, I gave up. There would be no finding it in the dark. Back in the barn, Amora had fallen asleep, the ice pack was on the floor. Grabbing a blanket from storage I draped it over her. Clearly she’d rattled her thoughts from the fall. Obviously she wasn’t the Cupid, the fairy tale for hopeless romantics. 

As she pulled the blanket close and nestled into the hay bales, something fluttered to the ground. Bending down, I picked the feather up to inspect it. We’d not had chickens on the farm for years. This feather was longer than any chicken feather I’d seen. It was downy soft but didn’t bend or break. 

Strange… 

Oh no… What if I did shoot Cupid???

NO AI was used in the writing of this story post.