Emma pressed her hands over her ears, her whole head still vibrating from the gun shot.
Focus. Center. Her mom’s mantra? Where did that come from? But it didn’t help. Jade sat on the bed in a nest of blankets, blood staining her left pant leg. Her gun sat on the blanket beside her.
“I’m shot.”
Lilli hurried to her side, lifting an old T-shirt from the floor. Her gaze never left Jade’s as she applied pressure with the shirt. Jade grunted but let Lilli apply pressure. The room spun, and Emma place her hand on the wall. She shook her head and stared at the corner, the ceiling, anywhere but Jade’s leg.
“What about him?” Jade’s voice was slow, heavy.
Emma glanced at the floor and leaned against the wall. He lay on his back in a pool of blood, the beaded curtain rested across his belly. Where was his gun? His dirty pants bagged around his legs on one side of the curtain, his torn jacket and spiked hair lay on the other. He was just a kid, her age. His revolver lay by the curled fingers of his left hand. Left-handed? Jinx was someone, or he had been. A pain in her gut shot to her head and blossomed. She held her face in her hands.
Lilli bent down and pressed two fingers to his carotid artery. Jade leaned forward. Lilli shook her head and took Jade in her arms. “Oh, hon.”
Jade’s gritted teeth glowed in the candlelight. Jinx did not stir, and Emma’s tummy lurched.
Jade scratched at her scar until Lilli took her hand with her own. “Hon, leave it be.”
“No.” Jade stared at Jinx’s body.
Lilli took Jade’s face in her hands, turning her away from Jinx. “This was self-defense. You have witnesses.”
“You weren’t down here. It was just me and— Damn it. I need a drink.” Jade sank back into the pillows.
“I need a cigarette.”
“No, you don’t.” Jade grabbed a pen from the drawer in the nightstand, bullets clanking as she shut it. She blanched and dropped the pen. “You’ve chewed through them all but this one.”
Lilli picked up the pen and clamped it between her teeth. Her eyes never left Jade’s. “Emma, two fingers.” Lilli applied pressure to Jade’s leg The whiskey bottle glowed amber on the counter. “Golden Rose” shone on the label. Emma pushed through the beaded curtain. Her hands shook as she grabbed a glass from the cabinet. She dropped the glass. It clattered on the counter but didn’t break.
“Better make it a double.” Lilli held Jade’s hands. Jade squeezed her eyes shut.
“A double?”
“Half full.” Lilli held Jade closer. “Be still, now.”
“Half full, that’s how you see life, isn’t it?” Jade pushed Lilli away. “It looks half empty from where I’m sitting.”
“Oh, hon.” Lilli took the pen from her lips and kissed Jade’s hair.
Emma splashed the whiskey in the glass and handed it through the beads to Lilli who held it to Jade’s lips.
“I killed him.” Jade took the glass, raised it in Jinx’s direction, then tossed back the contents in one swallow. She lifted the gun off the bed with her thumb and forefinger, passed it to Lilli. “I’m a murderer.”
“No, hon.” Lilli placed the gun on the nightstand.
Jade handed the glass back to Emma, and she poured. Lilli took it and sipped.
“He looks pretty dead from where I’m sitting.” Jade crumpled into Lilli’s arms. Lilli held her while she sobbed.
Emma shifted from one foot to the other, not certain what to do. “Lilli’s right. He would have killed you.” The words were out before she could stop them. Jade glared at Emma then sobs shook her shoulders.
Now she’d done it. Emma plopped onto the bottom stair and lowered her head to her knees. She’d set out to save the planet, not sit in a cellar with a dead body. She couldn’t save anything, not even herself.
The room grew quiet, and dust motes hung in the air.
“I’m going to have to see that wound.”
Lilli’s voice startled Emma.
“Of course, you are.” Jade clamped her eyes, her face pinched and white.
Emma’s neck knotted. “Maybe 911 works now?” She checked her phone, still dead.
“Already tried.” Lilli helped Jade ease her jeans over her hips and settled her in the nest of blankets on the bed, while Lilli examined her leg.
The room rotated, and Emma closed her eyes, her woozy head sagging. Jinx lay on the floor. He hadn’t even made it through the beaded curtain before he got shot. Emma jerked a blanket off a chair and threw it over his body. The beaded curtain rattled, and his hazel eye glared at her.
With a shudder, she adjusted the blanket over his face and stepped back. The second dead person she’d seen today, but this one wasn’t going anywhere. If she could drain her throbbing head of all the chaos, maybe she could think. A sob escaped her. She glanced at Lilli, who spoke in hushed whispers to Jade, her face inches from Jade’s thigh. Lilli poked and prodded the wound, and Jade bit into a pillow. Lilli lifted her leg, checking the circumference, and Jade groaned, blood seeping from the wound. Emma covered her eyes and turned her head away.
Lilli brushed her hands together and stood. “The bad news is the bullet ruined your new jeans. The good news is it went all the way through the muscle, thank the goddess.”
“It still hurts like hell. Which goddess did you thank?” Jade asked.
Lilli rolled her eyes to Emma. “I thanked them all, if you must know, and watch your language.”
Emma’s cheeks burned, and she put a hand to her face. “I’ve heard worse.” How old did they think she was? Eight?
Lilli snatched a clean towel off the back of a chair and pressed it to the wound. “Emm, grab me the antiseptic ointment in the cabinet above the sink, along with bandages.”
“Got it.” Emma turned away from Jinx’s form on the floor, but she watched for movement. There was none.
Lilli pressed, and wiped, and wrapped, and kissed, and fussed over Jade, while Emma gathered bloody bandages and threw them in a garbage bag. Lilli had called her “Emm.” No one had ever called her that. She liked it.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Lilli screwed the cap on the ointment. “More whiskey?”
Jade nodded.
Emma took the glass without being asked and poured out a double.
They sat, Jade sipping, Lilli rubbing Jade’s back, Emma waiting.
Emma pictured Mom in the burgundy chair, Sarah cradling Cuddles, Mom reading to her by candlelight. The walls of the cellar came into focus, replacing the warm image of home. The chill of the damp cellar seeped into her bones, and her teeth chattered. She had to go.
“Better?” Lilli asked.
“Better,” Jade said, “but now I’m mad.” Jade glowered at Lilli. “Was that Mikey’s voice I heard?”
“Yep.” Lilli ran her hand along Jade’s scar before she could.
“If he thinks we have cash here, he’ll be back. We gotta get Emma out of the shop, and we gotta get out of Vandby.”
Lilli’s mouth dropped open. “Oh?”
“We need to get Emma home. People are already looting, and that—” Jade nodded at Jinx. “—happened.”
Home. The word enveloped Emma like a warm blanket.
Jade started barking orders, as though someone flipped a switch and she had become the sergeant major.
“We need water. We have a case on the shelves in there. Don’t leave any.” She pointed to a folding door beside the fridge. “Lilli, grab the first aid stuff and all the food we got. We’ll need those puri—”
“Purification tablets?”
“Right. Then we get the hell out.”
Lilli found a tiny bottle of red ink in the cabinet and held it in her hand. “I forgot to put this upstairs.” Her arm dropped to her side, and she glanced at Jade. “I hate to leave all our ink. This shop…” Lilli’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air.
“We can’t stay, hon. I was her age when—” She nodded her head at Emma.
“I know, but—”
“No buts. We’re out of here.” Jade stood, her hands on her hips.
“But help will be here soon.”
“You don’t know that, hon. Now, Emma, where do you live?”
“What?” Emma was dizzy trying to keep up with their conversation. She choked out, “Wilson Street.”
The last three days blurred together, the storm, the looters, the gun, the death, and Lilli’s reluctance to leave her ink, which was her life, behind. Were they making a mistake leaving the cellar for the unknown in the streets? If it weren’t for looters who had guns like Jinx…
Home. She had to get home.
“Wilson? That’s all the way out in northeast?” Lilli planted her hands on her hips.
Emma nodded, her pulse pounding in her ears. “I’ve never walked that far before.”
Jade glared at Lilli before Lilli could speak. “It’s not that far. What do you say, Lill? We have to do this—”
“For Emma.” Lilli shrugged and frowned at Jade. “Fine. I guess we’re hitting the road.”
****
Lilli grabbed packs from coat hooks by the stairs, Emma’s among them. Emma gathered the water bottles and divided them between the packs. Jade tossed the bottle of purification tablets and extra bandages into her pack. Lilli slapped together sandwiches, ripping the bread in her rush. Emma opened a cabinet and found a jar of strawberry jelly.
“Forget something?” She handed it to Lilli who shrugged, the pen bobbing between her lips. She had become part of Lilli and Jade’s world.
What would she say to her mom when she got there? “Sorry?” What would she say to Lilli and Jade for saving her? “Thanks?” Both words seemed inadequate since the storm.
Opening the cabinets, Emma found apples, instant oatmeal, and saltines. None of it looked appetizing, but she divided everything in the bags, anyway. Lilli stuffed two sandwiches in each pack then brushed her hands together.
“That’s it. You ready, babe?” Lilli lifted a pack to her shoulders.
“I was born ready.” Jade wobbled, favoring her left leg.
Lilli took one side and Emma took the other, and they climbed the stairs.
“So, we’re really doing this?” Every muscle Emma had, and a few she didn’t know existed, tensed.
“Don’t jinx it,” Lilli said.
Jade paused, almost toppling Emma, who clutched the railing.
“Sorry. Of course, we’re doing this.” Lilli gripped Jade as she wobbled. “First stop Emma’s, then on to Franklin.”
“Franklin?” Emma stood on a step. “My Gran and Papa live near Cedarville, really close.” She looked from Lilli to Jade. “Maybe I can come visit sometime. If we ever go to Gran’s, that is.”
“Sure, kid.” Lilli helped Jade up another step. “Over the river and through the woods to Gran’s house you go, right?”
Emma shook her head. Sarah’s favorite song, as of two weeks ago, sang in Lilli’s monotone voice sounded wrong. Emma’s foot caught the step, and she grabbed the railing again. Why did everything have to be gray right now? She wanted a rainbow.
“Your folks will be so happy to see me again, won’t they?” Jade’s voice quavered.
Lilli raised her eyebrows and squeezed Jade’s shoulder.
“Who knows, maybe this time will be different?” Lilli said, but her voice rose at the end, like a question. “Emma, you’re leading the way.”
“I am?” Emma jerked her head up. “I mean, okay.”
She rubbed the back of her neck. Easy-peasy, right? At least it would be if she could tell north from south and left from right.