Lucas tried his best to take charge and protect me. It would have been sweet if it hadn’t been so dumb. He put a firm hand on my arm and shoved me forward into the walk-in closet, pulled the door closed behind us.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
“Shhh!”
“You’ve trapped us.” I wanted to curse, to call him a fucking idiot, but my mouth refused to form the words. No, swearing would be rude and my new self didn’t do rude. Fuck the new me. Sometimes a good fucking fuck is the only fucking thing that fucking helps.
Outside the closet door, with no locks mind you, we heard Sam’s foot crash through the flimsy lock on the bedroom. Behind me, Lucas shoved deeper into the hanging rows of clothes like he was trying to tunnel his way out. In the darkness I shut my eyes to see if I could get a brief glimpse of what she saw.
His little plan worked somewhat. I saw her sweep her head back and forth, land on the closed bathroom door and walk forward. If she went in there we would have maybe a second or two to make a run for it, but if she caught us inside the closet we had no chance.
“Lucas, we gotta go.”
Lucas emerged from the back of the closet and shoved something into my hand. I looked down at the heavy object, knowing we were losing our window.
My gun. The .38 snub-nose I kept at home and hadn’t fired in over six years. I didn’t even know he knew where I kept it.
Now, you might think it less than manly of him to shove a gun in my hand and ask me, the woman, to defend him. Really, it makes sense. Lucas is a lawyer. I don’t think he’s ever shot a gun in his life. I had military training and then DEA training including the same firearms course the FBI takes and six sharpshooter medals in a box somewhere else in this closet. So, yeah, I was the right choice to hold the gun.
Except my body wouldn’t let me use it.
The closet door tore open. Sam stood there with Gustavo’s big semi-auto held out in front of her. Lucas reacted on pure instinct and threw a punch. The adrenalin blasting through him must have really been working overtime because he threw a hell of a sock to the face.
I know because I felt it.
She went flailing back, dropping Gustavo’s gun as she did. I grabbed my jaw, feeling a pain I figured to be about half of what she felt. This whole mess got curiouser and curiouser.
So we could see for each other and feel each other. Good to know.
When I looked back up I saw Lucas looking down at the face of the person he’d just punched. He turned back to me. His face trembled. Lightning flashes of fear and confusion burst across his face like flashbulb pops.
“Go, Lucas. Now. I’ll explain later.”
He didn’t move.
“Run!” I screamed.
She grabbed his ankle. Her hand, emptied of the gun, now clamped above where his shoe would have been if he’d listened to me and gotten ready faster. He kicked and jerked his leg like a snake attached itself to him, and he wasn’t far off.
She let go and slid up to her knees and made a lunge for the gun. I came out of the closet, my own gun in my hand, but I held it like a wet rag. I stepped close to her, not sure what my body would allow me to do. Could I hit her to save Lucas? Could I even shoot her to save someone else?
The gun wouldn’t raise in my hand. That was out. I willed my arm to lift but it stayed by my side as if tied there with a rope.
She fired. Lucas yelped and slapped a hand over the meat of his upper arm below the shoulder. I knew the shot wasn’t life threatening. I hoped maybe the very real pain would finally convince him I was telling the truth.
Sam got up off the carpet and I stepped right next to her. “Stop it!” I yelled. Wow. Real convincing. That ought to do the job, no problem. Even British police carry nightsticks.
She turned and slapped the gun across my face. The metal stung as she pistol whipped me and I felt the skin over my cheek bone tear. As my head snapped to the side I could see Lucas breaking for the door. I also saw her put a hand up to her cheek, reeling at the pain she’d inflicted on me.
We both righted ourselves like two mirror images, neither one sure which was real and which the reflection.
She took a single step back as she straightened her arm and raised the gun to my nose.
“Wait,” I said, putting my hands up like a mugging victim. “What happens if you kill me?”
She paused.
“You felt that, right?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“And I felt it earlier when he hit you. If we feel each other’s pain, what happens if you shoot me?”
She readjusted her grip on the gun, the dark circle of the barrel staring me down.
“If I die, you die.” At least I was pretty sure that’s what would happen. “I think,” my mouth added involuntarily.
She held the gun to my face a few seconds more, the smell of the recently fired shot stinging my nose. “Fuck,” she said and lowered the gun. I was jealous of her vocabulary.
CLEANING UP AFTER THE PARTY
She turned and walked out of the bedroom. I heard the house rattling sound of the garage door opening and the uncharacteristic sound of Lucas revving the engine on his Audi. A brief chirp of tires and he disappeared down the street.
I followed her out into the hall in time to see her duck into Lucas’ home office at the end of the hallway.
I walked down to the open door and looked in. She tore through the papers on his desk, opened drawers and removed files. Lucas did a fair amount of work from home after hours but I knew, and therefore so did she, he kept all his work files at the DA’s office and only occasionally brought duplicates home.
“There’s nothing here,” I said.
She stopped ransacking, knowing I was right. She stood and headed for the door. When she got to me she punched me in the gut. I doubled over and she winced but kept walking. She prepared herself for the shot before she threw it. Smart.
I curled on the floor in the fetal position clutching my stomach like I was having labor pains. My God, I hoped Lucas had gone someplace safe. I couldn’t help running over all the possible places in my mind. I knew she would be doing the same thing.
I got to my hands and knees and took a moment to regroup. I tasted blood. The cut on my cheek ran a long line down my face and, bent forward like I was, blood dripped into the corner of my mouth. I wanted to spit but apparently that would have been rude to spit onto the rug because I couldn’t. I held the raw metallic taste in my mouth as I found a box of tissues on Lucas’ desk and spit into that.
I made my way back through the blown open front door and could hear her in the garage. I hated feeling so helpless. I should be trying to stop her, trying to kill her for taking a shot at my man. I couldn’t. And she knew it. She searched the house with impunity. And she would continue to hunt for Lucas. Nothing I could do to stop her.
She emerged from the garage carrying a garden hose and a pair of hedge clippers. She let the hose unroll and took a length of a few feet and bent a kink in it. She slid the clippers into the bend and snapped them shut, snipping off the length of green hose. She picked up a red plastic gas can and started walking down the driveway.