The storm tore through the streets of Vandby, but the cellar in the Little Shoppe of Colours was protected. Emma glared, unblinking, at Lilli.
“I told you, I don’t want a tattoo.” She slapped at Lilli’s hand.
Lilli hopped back to avoid being hit and released Emma’s sleeve, a grin splitting her elfin face.
“Not even a little butterfly right there on your shoulder?” Lilli leaned in and poked Emma. Her eyes flashed, and she stepped back again.
“No.” Exhaustion hung on Emma like a weighted vest. She wanted to curl in a ball under the blankets and sleep until the storm was over, not spar with Lilli about tattoos.
Lilli chewed her pen, grinning. Emma needed a wall with a door between her and Lilli, a door to slam. She needed her room. What would Megan do?
Stand up to her, but Emma slumped against the pillows. “Where do you get your energy?”
“Welcome to my world, hon.” Jade grinned. Her eyes followed Lilli’s erratic dance around Emma.
“Not even a little flower here?” She poked Emma’s ankle.
Emma pressed her lips together and shook her head. She didn’t want a butterfly or a flower. She wanted a dragon or a constellation of stars, like Lilli and Jade had. The ink marks seemed to whisper an ancient language of protection. She wanted to wear that protection, but Mom, hand on her hips and her flashing eyes, stopped her.
Dad had come home with a tattoo. What a disaster. It was a tiny compass on his ring finger.
“It’s a compass, always pointing to you.” He’d grinned and shrugged, twisting the ring he wore on a chain around his neck.
He said he couldn’t wear his wedding band for two weeks. Mom’s silence had cut through the air and etched that day in her memory.
She had slammed the door to their bedroom so hard it shook the window in Emma’s room. The floorboard in the hall squeaked as he trudged down the hall. He made a bed on the couch and slept there two weeks.
No. Emma was in enough trouble without returning bruised and tattooed.
Lilli flopped on a chair, joining Jade at the kitchen table. “Your loss, hon.”
Emma drew her cell phone from her pocket, caressed the cracked screen. “You are dead, my precious.” She glanced at Jade, who raised her brows, a small grin on her lips.
Of course, she’d read Tolkien. Emma slipped the phone in her pocket, its bulk and Jade’s grin a comfort.
“How long are we going to be stuck down here?” Emma raised her hand and pressed her temple to stop the ringing, but nothing seemed to work. Between the storm and her throbbing head, she would go crazy. She wanted hot cocoa not tea. Mom would make it without even asking.
The storm was still storming. Was this the climate change the flyers warned about? Emma sagged against the pillows. She’d failed before she even began. Was this Mother Nature’s revenge?
She rubbed her eyes. Instead of marches, she should have been learning how to survive. If this was climate change, it sucked. She took her phone out again. She needed to let Mom know she was alive. She held the power button, but her phone didn’t even flicker. She wanted to scream, to punch something. So much for getting home before mom noticed.
Lilli turned in her chair. “Not even a—”
“Leave her be, Lilli.” Jade’s frown could have stopped a bulldozer. She stood and hauled a blanket off the back of her chair and billowed it over Emma. “Sorry, hon. She’s bored.” Jade rolled her eyes. “She’ll chew her own leg off if we don’t get out of here soon.”
“Well, I’m not going home with a tattoo because she’s bored.”
Lilli needed to back off. Emma glanced at her under half closed lids. Lilli acted like Brian, Megan’s cousin, but he was only fifteen. Brian never missed a march and came up with the slogans. His deep voice carried over the heads of marchers, so he was asked to lead them.
Lilli was old, though. She was annoying and funny at the same time. Emma raised her fingers to the throbbing bump on her forehead. Why was she complaining? At least she was safe and inside, which was way better than lying unconscious in an alley behind the Save-a-Dollar.
Jade’s fingers moved to her scar, searching the length and width of the proud flesh. The storm rumbled outside, a white noise to their confinement, but it was having its effect on Jade. Emma wanted to take her hand and tell her everything would be fine. Instead, she sank deeper into the couch.
Lilli cleared her throat, as if Jade suddenly came into view. “So, is anyone keeping count of the days? I think today makes three.”
“It has been seventy-five hours and thirty-three minutes.” Jade glanced at her watch. “This is our third afternoon of storms.”
“She’s my numbers girl, that one,” Lilli said. “Our bookkeeper, CPA, business manager, and marketing guru combined.” Lilli winked at Jade who grinned and let her hands drop to her sides.
“If the Little Shoppe of Colours ain’t open, it ain’t making dough,” Jade said. She raised an eyebrow at Lilli, clasping her hands in her lap.
“No one is making any dough, not even the bank.” Lilli tipped back in her chair.
Crossing the room, Jade wrapped Lilli in a hug. Emma glanced away.
The space around Emma seemed to push into her, the room getting smaller and more confining. She bit her lip.
“Don’t fret, hon. We have insurance to cover the damages and the loss of income.”
They were losing their shop? They had their own problems, and still here she sat, on their couch, in their shop. How did she thank them for saving her?
Emma cleared her throat. “I guess I could get a little tattoo if you need the money?”
“No. Now look what you’ve done, Lil.” Jade perched on the edge of a recliner next to the couch. “You’re a guest, not a customer. Lilli needs to mind her manners.”
“I thought this was like a break room, or something, but you guys live here.” Emma scanned the cellar, took in the couch and TV crammed in beside a small kitchen table and chairs, a bed with patchwork quilts behind a beaded curtain.
“Ha. Break room. Good one. We lost our apartment two months ago.” Lilli perched on the arm of Jade’s recliner.
“Wait. Listen.” Lilli leaped from the recliner and stood at the foot of the stairs.
“What now?” Jade perched on the edge of the chair.
“You’re right. It’s quiet.” Emma pushed the blanket off her legs, swung them to the floor. “The storm is over.” Emma rose from the couch.
Lilli put a foot on the first stair, but Jade held her back. Lilli pushed Jade back and ran up the steps.
“Wait.” Emma pressed her hand to her head to stop the dizzy spell and scrambled after Lilli up the stairs. Lilli pressed her ear to the door, and Emma joined her. She grabbed Lilli’s arm as her vision blurred.
“It’s over,” Lilli whispered.
Emma pressed against Lilli who cracked the door. The sun burst through, hitting Emma’s eyes.
“It’s over.” She blinked as her eyes watered adjusting to the brightness.
Could she finally go home? A bubble of laughter rose in her throat. She swallowed it down.
“It is over,” Lilli said.
Emma squinted and followed Lilli into the shop. The front window was shattered. Broken glass littered the floor. The racks of T-shirts and shelves of lotions and dragon figurines still stood, though.
“No, no, no.” Jade’s voice drifted up the stairs like a moan. The hair on the back of Emma’s neck stood on end. Jade rushed up the steps.
“Bless the goddess.” Lilli floated across the shop, the sun beckoning her.
“Lilli, no.” The tremor in Jade’s voice stopped Emma, but not Lilli.
Jade lunged for her, but Lilli slipped out the door into the street.
The door stood open, sun glinting off the golden lettering, Little Shoppe of Colours. Jade clung to the door frame, and Emma inched in beside her. Jade’s whole body shook, and Emma stepped back. This was bad, but she wasn’t sure why.
Lilli, arms spread eagle in the middle of the street, performed what appeared to be her victory dance. Jade’s body had turned to stone.
A man approached Lilli. He pointed as though asking for directions. Lilli laughed and twirled, pointing toward Johnson Park on the next block. The man staggered off. Then more people appeared in the street. Emma took a step, but Jade clasped her by the shoulders. What was it that she saw that Emma didn’t? Emma grabbed the doorframe as she swayed.
“I better sit down.”
Jade helped her to a chair covered in black leather next to the door. Did this mean she was a customer now? Emma sank into the chair.
“Lilli,” Jade whispered, her voice hoarse. “Come back, hon. Oh my—she doesn’t see it.”
“What? What doesn’t she see?” Emma lifted one of the blinds covering the window. Nothing that happened outside made sense. The people in the street came into sharp focus, but they seemed confused.
“Shhh.” Jade held a finger to her lips without taking her eyes off Lilli. “Look at ’em.”
“What’s wrong with everyone?” Emma stared at the people. “They look—”
“Like zombies.” Jade’s eyes were glued to Lilli.
Emma’s mom hated zombie movies, so they weren’t allowed, but Megan’s mom was addicted. Emma had seen Zombie Revolution, and Triumph of the Zombies. But these people were not extras in a movie. They did have the vacant stares, disheveled hair, and wrinkled clothes.
“People are running out of water and food. The looting starts now.”
“What?” Nothing Jade said made sense. “But it’s only been three days. You guys have food and water. Doesn’t everybody?” Was this what the flyer meant about disaster preparedness?
The sign for 10th Street stood at the corner, the pole leaning like the Tower of Pisa.
“Lilli,” Jade called, louder this time. “If she’d only think for a second.”
Lilli’s arms swung wide as she danced along 10th Street. She approached a woman who staggered as though she hadn’t slept, showered, or eaten since the storm began. A scream tore through the air, startling Emma.
“Lilli?” Emma jolted forward, but Jade grasped her hoodie and hauled her back into the shop.
“What are you doing?” Emma spun to face Jade. “We need to help her.”
The woman in dirty clothes, the scream, Jade holding her back, none of it made sense.
“That wasn’t Lilli. She never screams. She fights.”
“We need to get her back, right?” Emma pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. Why didn’t Jade help her girlfriend or at least warn her? Jade gripped the scar on her arm.
“It’s too late.” Jade lowered the tattered blinds over the broken window with a shaking hand and peered through the slats, her eyes wide as she scanned the street.
A chill tingled down Emma’s back like ice. She’d stayed with these women for three days, but Jade had never acted like this before. Broken glass crunched under Jade’s boots, and Emma wanted to scream. She cleared her throat.
“I can’t lose Lil.” Jade’s voice warbled as she peered through the blinds.
“She’ll come back,” Emma said.
Lilli had to come back, or Jade was going to…
What was Jade going to do? A cool breeze blew through the broken window, and Emma shivered. She put a hand on Jade’s shoulder to steady herself as much as Jade, but Jade kept scanning the street with wild eyes.
Emma kept watch for Lilli, too, but saw only Zombie-like survivors. Was this “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” like her psych teacher talked about? People didn’t have basic survival stuff, so they acted without thinking, going back to basic instincts, acting primal.
This was survival of the fittest. A river of blank-eyed people stumbled past the Little Shoppe of Colours, and Emma scanned the street for Lilli.
A woman with gray hair stooped to pick through a pile of debris then lurched toward the next pile as more and more people emerged from apartment buildings, condos, and shops. Maybe if she yelled, “Cut!” everyone in the street would stop this chaotic dance and start walking and talking like normal. What was normal anymore?
Three bristle-faced men pushed their way into the grocery store across the street. Its front window had shattered, and a young boy climbed out of it carrying a bag of rice or dried beans. He bumped into an old lady with a cane, who fell onto her hands and knees as he raced away without a backward glance.
Jade scratched her scar until it bled, and Emma slipped her fingers around Jade’s, clasping them to her chest. Jade’s hollow eyes met Emma’s, and Emma hugged her as she gazed out at the street.
Jade gasped and reached out her hand, as though she could help the old woman, or stop a man from hitting a little girl with a broom handle and grabbing the loaf of bread she was clutching to her chest. Emma leaned against the window frame for support and rubbed her eyes, unable to wrap her head around the violence and brutality.
“Shouldn’t people be helping one another? This is against the law.” Emma’s voice caught in her throat. She patted her fingers over her tangled ponytail. Did she look like them?
A boy her age emerged from the store, his arms filled with milk and bags of oranges. A woman followed behind him, cradling a case of bottled water. Two women with mops attacked a man with two carts of canned beans, carrots, and tuna.
Jade’s finger shook as she pointed. A man lurched by, tears speaking his face, in his arms a small child, maybe three or four. The corners of his mouth drooped as he stumbled along 10th. Emma could not tear her gaze away from the child’s curly blond hair bobbing with each step the man took.
“Is he… “
“Dead.” Jade finished.
Emma couldn’t draw air into her lungs. The man and child disappeared around the corner as Lilli staggered into the shop. She eased the door shut, and Jade wrapped her in a hug, rocking her.
“I swear to all the goddesses,” Jade mumbled between kisses.
“Sorry. I didn’t—”
“Think?” Jade held Lilli at arm’s length. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
“I’m sorry, hon, but the cellar was stifling. I had to get outside, but I had no idea it would be so—people fighting over food—water.”
Emma shuffled her feet while Jade embraced Lilli, patted her arms and legs for broken bones or wounds, then hugged her again.
“You’re bleeding.” Lilli’s fingers stroked Jake’s scar. Jade took her hand and kissed it.
Emma cleared her throat. If she could ignore the fact that she was invisible sometimes with Lilli and Jade, she’d survive.
“What happens now?” Emma glanced at the door as the voices outside grew louder.
“We have to leave this place,” Jade said, her voice husky. She guided Lilli down the stairs and sat her on the bed behind the beaded curtain and plopped beside her. “This is our Michael, our Dorian, our Katrina.”
Emma clung to the railing as she took one step at a time. “Our what? The hurricanes? Didn’t they destroy cities? Kill people?” Tightness rose from her chest and into her throat, her mind racing. Jade wasn’t helping. “We don’t have hurricanes here.”
“Category 5 hurricanes kill people. The ones who are left run out of food and water, then the looting begins, just like now.”
“Is there any good news?”
“Sorry, Emma, but you have to understand. Jade was a kid in New Orleans when Katrina hit. She lost her mother and grandmother on that day.” Lilli wrapped her arms around Jade, who stared into the dark corner as though trying to block out some vision she didn’t want in her mind. “She got her scar when she was swept away in a flood of water.”
“I was hoping to get away from hurricanes. That didn’t work very well, did it?” Jade patted the bed beside her. Emma sat, and Jade put her arm around her, pulling her into a hug. Lilli leaned in on her other side, and Emma sat sandwiched between them.
The front door rattled.
Jade’s body went taut. “Someone’s testing the door to the shop.”
A man’s voice on the street said, “It’s just a tattoo shop, stupid. No food in there.”
“The front window is shattered.” Lilli’s eyes scanned Jade’s face. “They could just climb through.”
A loud bang echoed in the street, and Lilli hugged them into a tighter knot.
“Firecracker?” Emma asked.
“Gun,” Lilli’s voice dropped low, became monotone. “We have one too.”
“We do?” Emma clutched her hands to her middle as bile rose in her throat.
“Yes.” Jade yanked open a drawer in the nightstand and rustled through the drawer. Jade’s shadowed face in the flickering candlelight gave Emma a start.
Lilli stood and brushed aside the beaded curtain to the sleeping alcove. She glanced up the stairs, her face as white as a ghost. Emma followed Lilli’s gaze. The cellar door stood open.
“Lilli? You promised.” Jade reached out but did not stand.
Lilli rushed to the top of the stairs and eased the cellar door shut. She locked it behind her and listened at the door.
Emma stood unsure which way to go, up the stairs or under the bed. Jade sat on the bed, clutching the revolver. Lilli tiptoed step by step until she reached the bottom. Emma’s arms and legs tingled. Was this fight or flight or both?
Jade stood and pointed the gun at the door.
“They’re climbing in.”