by Louisa Luna
She struggled to prop herself up on her elbows, but McKie grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her off the ground.
“Who are you? Who the fuck are you?” he said, spraying spit in her face.
Vega moved her tongue around in her mouth but it felt gigantic. She tried to say what Perry told her to say to every dumbass skip who asked the same thing, but all she could do was grunt. His breath was rotten, and his teeth were uneven like the broken piano keys in a cartoon.
He asked her one more time and then dropped her, the back of her head smacking the floor. Then it was all snowy static as her eyes rolled up behind the lids.
—
Cap led with the Sig held in both hands and turned the corner.
“Dena!” he called.
Dena and Bailey both jumped. Dena raised her gun with a shaky arm, aimed it in Cap’s general direction as her eyes scoured the woods, looking for him. Bailey flipped around so Cap could see her face (scared, thin). Dena’s arm slid around Bailey’s clavicle and clutched her tight.
Cap took a step on the porch, made sure she could see him.
“Dena, it’s okay,” he said, as levelheaded as he could sound. Ready to get the cat out of the tree.
Dena tightened her grip on the pistol and pointed it at him.
“Don’t tell me that when you got a gun on me, mister,” she called, her voice high like a much younger girl’s.
“Fair enough,” said Cap. “I’m going to stay right here, okay? I’m not coming any closer. And I have no plan to use this gun—I only have it for Kylie and Bailey’s protection right now.”
He watched the words coil in Dena’s head. She allowed herself to take a breath and readjusted her arm around Bailey, which was a good sign. It meant that Dena was thinking and not yet locked into anything she saw as inevitable. Bailey stared at Cap with giant exhausted eyes; he couldn’t tell how much she was registering.
“My name’s Max Caplan. Your folks told me where I could find you.”
“I know,” Dena said. “My dad called.”
The old softie, Cap thought with a mix of bitterness and sympathy. Probably paid the phone bill for his little girl and didn’t tell the missus. And totally screwed the ambush factor, but Cap didn’t let the anger in because this was the opening. This was the door.
“I talked to your dad for a long time,” he said. “He’s a real good guy.”
Dena bit her lip.
“He loves you a lot, Dena. I think he’ll do just about anything for you,” said Cap. “I know how he feels—I have a daughter too. She’s sixteen. And she’s everything to me. She’s the reason that I don’t give the hell up and drink beer all day. She’s why I’m alive.”
Cap listened to his words as they trailed out of his mouth, echoing back and forth. He took the smallest step forward.
“I think your dad feels the same way about you.”
Dena scrunched up her nose, trying not to cry. This was good. If he could get her crying, he had this, and no one had to get shot. Cap knew this was the time. Make the jump.
“You have to know, Kylie and Bailey’s mother feels the same way about them. You know that, right?”
He waited. Nobody moved.
Slowly, Dena nodded.
—
Vega woke up in the hallway again. She was on her side now, the blood a steady stream across her forehead. The front of her skull throbbed, and every muscle ached, like she’d just run ten miles without stretching. She opened her eyes just a little and did not see McKie but could hear him in the small bedroom, muttering and moving things around.
She lifted her head, and the pain increased, pounding now, but she pushed, and looked around, didn’t see her Springfield.
Goddammit, Vega, said Perry in her head. You let that redneck grab your dick? Make that shit right quick or you’re dead. Then he would whistle the sound of Pac-Man getting sacked by a ghost, punctuated at the end by a cheerful “Wup Wup.”
She heard thumps from the small bedroom, McKie opening and slamming drawers shut. Vega flipped onto her stomach, the gash above her eyebrow beating like a heart, and she watched blood drip from her head to the floor. She pushed up with her arms and her feet at the same time, her body a plank, and she started to move like that, crawling without her knees touching the ground, close to the wall, until she could just see into the bedroom.
McKie was leaning over the bed, shoving clothes into a cardboard box. He was breathing fast and heavy. Her Springfield stuck out of the back of his jeans. The strip of wood he’d used on Vega was on the floor, a foot from the doorway, two black screws sticking out of the end, dipped in Vega’s blood.
Vega walked her legs to her hands and squatted, the springs of her hamstrings ready. McKie stopped packing and ran his hands through his hair. Vega pinched two fingers into her pocket and pulled out Evan Marsh’s Zippo. You got spare change, Perry would say. Throw it. Buys you three or four seconds, and that’s all you need.
Time was funny that way when the shit got thick—slow then fast.
Vega threw the lighter so it sailed past McKie’s head before hitting the wall and landing on the bed.
He turned his head to the side as he twisted around and reached for the Springfield in his pants, but Vega was already up on her feet. She grabbed the board with one hand, digging her fingernails into it, the pain in her head revving like a chain saw, and she swung at McKie’s hand just as he touched the gun, putting everything from her upper body into it. The Springfield flew to the floor, where it skidded and spun to the corner, and Vega shut the door with the back of her foot, careful not to slam it. McKie screamed, his mouth the end of a black tunnel, and Vega thought, Ugly, ugly, ugly, as she hit him again across the side of the head. Now he fell and quieted down, stunned, and she brought the board down on his back where it broke, snapped in two, the jagged half twirling up in the air.
“What was the question?” Vega said, sounding genuine.
She stomped his ribs with her heel and kept kicking.
“What was the question?” Vega said, louder. “What was the question?”
McKie screamed again and tried to turn onto his back and cover his abdomen with his bloody hand.
“Who am I, right? Right? Right?”
She held her foot right over his face, let it hover. And then she said what Perry had taught her—someone asks who you are, you tell them the only thing they need to know:
“I’m the motherfucker who gets. Shit. Done.”
Then she kicked him once more in the face, and he was out.
—
The birds got louder, overlapping chirps and squawks that sounded like arguing, but Cap knew that was just him tracing human emotion over it. He thought he heard a thump or two from inside the cabin but couldn’t be sure; it might have been the pounding in his ears.
He had gotten closer, off the porch now, on the ground, level with Dena but still a few yards away. Dena still wasn’t crying yet but was close, her arm loose around Bailey, the hand with the gun wiggly, like the weight would bring it down soon.
“Dena,” Cap said, tried to put on his best Dad voice—firm and kind. “I know this all probably got out of hand very quickly, right?”
She nodded.
“I know, and your dad knows, that you really didn’t have anything to do with this—that John talked you into it, and you did whatever you did because you love him.”
She kept nodding so he kept talking.
“You don’t want anything bad to happen to these little girls. You’re just trying to find a way to fix all this.”
Now the tears came, just some thin trickles, her cheeks pinched.
“So let’s fix it,” Cap said softly. “I can help you. I can talk to the police for you. They’ll listen to me.”
Dena’s jaw jutted out in belligerence.
“How’m I supposed to know that?” she said, her voice tense and muted from her stuffed nose. “Why should I believe you anyway?”
Cap tried to sift out where s
he’d go next. She was damaged enough to have come this far, but how much further could she go, and which way would she break? Was she so desperate she was about to give up, or would she instead take a nosedive into a dry quarry and take whoever she could grab with her? He had to place a bet and pray on that ticket like anyone else.
“Because I’m going to put my gun down. Right here, okay?” he said, gesturing to the ground at his feet. “That is how sure I am that you’ll know what to do next.”
Dena sniffed and her mouth went slack. Cap continued.
“That is how sure I am that your dad was right about you.”
Dena shut her eyes for a short second and wiped them with the top side of her wrist.
Cap started to kneel.
“I’m putting my gun down now,” he announced. “No fast moves.”
He placed the Sig on the patch of wild grass in front of him. Came back up to standing with his hands in the air. Dena watched him, her breath staggered and short. Bailey watched him too and started to move her mouth, trying to talk, but no sound came out. She gripped Dena’s arm like it was a pull-up bar.
“Okay, Dena,” Cap said. “Now it’s really up to you.”
The moments that followed stretched long, each one packed full. Acid swirled in Cap’s stomach, coffee surging in his throat. Dena kept her gun pointed at Cap, her hand still shaking. Cap reminded himself to breathe slowly, drops of sweat running from his underarm down to his ribs.
Then Dena began to unlock her arm from Bailey, slowly at first, Bailey still hanging on. Dena moved quicker then, shaking Bailey off and putting her free hand on the gun. Bailey stood motionless, arms at her sides but fingers extended, tense. She was looking at the ground, but her eyes moved all around, to her feet, Cap’s feet, the porch. Cap thought she looked possessed.
His mouth was dry but he swallowed anyway. He had to keep talking but not patronize her. She still had the gun.
So all he said, all that was in his head, was the simplest thing he could think of.
“Thanks, Dena. Thank you.”
Then he shifted his gaze down, to Bailey.
“Bailey?” he said.
Bailey made little fists. Her arms were impossibly thin. Pretzel sticks. The pink dress hung off her, too big. She didn’t look up, but blinked. Cap knew it was good to get any kind of reaction because it meant that even if she was out of it she was not in shock.
“I know your mom,” he said.
Bailey looked at him like he was speaking a language she understood only a few words of.
Dena breathed hard through her nose and pointed the gun at Bailey for a second, only to nudge her.
“Go,” Dena said. “Go with the man.”
Something about Dena’s delivery wasn’t convincing, a singsong bounce in her voice, her eyes skimming from Bailey to Cap and back. Cap glanced at his gun, thought about how long it would take to grab it, just in case she was having second thoughts about where this was going.
Bailey took a couple of steps and then stopped, arms still pinned to her sides. Cap kept his hands raised slightly above his head but watched Dena move from side to side, like a catcher settling in his spot.
“Come on,” Cap said to Bailey, just above a whisper.
Bailey started moving forward again and was almost to him. Sweat streamed down his temples. He could hear nothing—no birds, no breeze, just the sound of Bailey’s small feet shuffling through the dirt.
And then the front door slammed open and there was Vega, half her face covered in blood, aiming her pistol at Dena.
Dena fired at Vega, missing, hitting the door and shattering the frame, splinters falling on the porch in a cloud.
Bailey froze and screamed, a foot away from Cap, and Cap yelled, “Vega, don’t!”
But Vega wasn’t hearing him.
Cap threw his body over Bailey, nesting-doll style, as Vega started to shoot. Shot one was at Dena’s hands before she could fire again; the gun flew to the ground and Dena let out a piercing scream that sounded like a birdcall, blood spraying. She fell back against the car, hands curled into her chest, and howled, started to slide down but didn’t get far.
Vega came down the stairs of the porch, loose-limbed and wobbling like Dorothy’s Scarecrow, and shot again, hitting Dena’s right shoulder. Then one knee, then the other. Four shots. Dena was on the ground now, convulsing, vomit bubbling from her mouth.
Cap pushed Bailey’s face into his shoulder so she wouldn’t see. Vega staggered toward Dena.
“Vega!” Cap called, trying to wake her up.
She turned to him and lowered the gun. He got a better look at her face now, the blood coming from someplace on her forehead that was distended and starting to swell. She regarded him with her non-bloodied eye, but Cap knew she couldn’t see him—the eye was rolling and squinting, her head starting to droop and then snap back up, like someone falling asleep on a plane.
“Where’s Kylie?” she said.
She fell to her knees, then forward, and passed out, dirt swirling around the outline of her body.
Cap wanted to go to her but didn’t want to let go of Bailey, who was gripping his sleeves. She pulled her head away from him gently and looked up at him, whispered with her puppy breath, “Kylie’s not here. Evan took her.”
15
Vega was fully clothed on the beach, and it was hot and bright. She tried standing, but it was a lot of work, first to get to her knees, then upright. Was it the Pacific, that little beach near Monterey, darker as it got deeper, whirlpools spinning in the distance? But the sand was different here than she remembered, muddy, her feet in her boots sinking and sticking every time she took a step.
That’s because you’re dreaming, asshole. She tried to take off her dream clothes, but they were heavy, draped around her like towels, each second that passed making her hotter and hotter, blood roiling and bones rattling in her torso as she made her way to the water.
Then she was in, her head under, but still she was breathing, taking water into her nose and mouth and throat and lungs, and then she heard the voice of the boy in the tank.
“Can you hear me?”
That brought her back to Hyacinth Avenue, in the neighborhood where all the streets were named for flowers. It was a cute little town, except for all the meth. Trees and fences and pinwheels in the breeze.
Was it that day again? This is death, then, she thought. Reliving all the big days.
It had been three months since Perry had died, and Vega was working freelance for a couple of different bail bondsmen, guys you wouldn’t necessarily cross the street to avoid but not people she would call friends or even business partners.
She’d stopped drinking for the most part, had started and quit yoga, ran five miles every morning and did pull-ups on a bar in her closet. She’d mostly stopped talking. Ordered what she could online so she wouldn’t have to speak to people: protein bars, toilet paper, mags for her firearms. She’d started carrying a Springfield in a shoulder holster instead of the Browning rifle on jobs, kept the out-the-front knife strapped to her calf.
The neighborhood was quiet, people at school or work or locked inside watching talk shows, lifting shaking spoons of cereal to their mouths. She found the block, then the house. Not the nicest of either. She opened the gate, went up the path, and not up the porch steps but around the side. Looked in the windows but couldn’t see anything—blinds shut, frames locked.
Then a back door. She opened the screen door, doorknob jammed. Push-button lock. Took a minute or two with a paper clip. Click, then open. She drew the Springfield, held it with both hands.
She stepped into a moderately messy kitchen and smelled cigarette smoke, bacon, sweat. She could hear the television coming from another room and stepped around the table, got close to the doorway and took a little look.
There was her skip, Quincy-Ray Day, lying on the couch smoking a pipe with a girl asleep on his lap. She did not have to look at her phone to make sure it was him. Tiny brass-snap eye
s, cheeks red with acne and scars, oily ginger hair. She didn’t see a gun anywhere near him, which meant a little. Could be one between the couch cushions, under the girl, stuck in the back of his pants. But if it was not immediately visible, then it was also not immediately accessible. Add that to both his hands being occupied, one with the pipe, one with the lighter, and that gave Vega a nice fat set of seconds.
She moved quickly into the living room toward Quincy-Ray, pointing the Springfield right at him. She watched his fuzzy eyes focus on her, making sure she wasn’t a hallucination, and then when he realized it, he dropped the pipe and jumped off the couch, the girl falling hard to the floor, screaming. And Quincy-Ray scrambled to his feet and raced for the door.
Oh, Jesus, thought Vega. You dumbass saltine motherfucker.
“What the fuck, what the fuck?!” yelled the girl.
Vega glanced at her, saw no features except brown teeth and a white tongue lolling around like a piece of fish.
Vega took one more step and pressed the Springfield into the back of Quincy-Ray’s neck.
“Stop,” she said. “Stay on your knees.”
He stopped and stayed. The girl kept chattering but Vega ignored her.
“Reggie Guff’s looking for you, Quincy-Ray,” she said. “Put your hands behind your back.”
Vega took one hand off the gun and reached for her belt where her cuffs were hanging. She knew a second before it happened—he was taking too long to bring his left arm back.
Vega turned around just in time. The girl was lifting a bowl, about ten inches in diameter, and had started to bring it down on Vega’s head.
Vega blocked it with one arm and dropped the cuffs but not the gun. She hit the girl in the mouth with it, while Quincy-Ray tackled her. They both fell to the ground then. He was on top of Vega for only a second. His weight was soft and heavy in a somnambulant way, and he tried to grab her gun but ignored her left hand, so she hit him in the nose with the heel of her hand, and he rolled off her. She grabbed his hair and yanked his head off the ground, blood starting to run from his nostrils, and turned him over. He flailed and she sat on top of him, gun to the back of the neck again.