Jade stood at the foot of the stairs, the gun clutched in her hand.
“What are you doing?” Emma flipped the tip of her ponytail in her mouth. Her lips trembled. The candle on the table cast shadows on the wall, like this year’s haunted house, but this was worse.
Jade jerked around, bumping into Lilli, who drew Jade into a hug, trapping both her arms. She somehow got the gun from Jade’s hand. Glass crunched on the floor above them, and Jade stepped back, her hand flying to her scar. Using two hands, Lilli pointed the gun barrel at the cellar door.
“Not the cash register, Bubba.” Lilli ground her words between clenched teeth.
Did whoever was up there have a gun too? Emma pulled her hood over her head.
Footsteps thudded across the floor in the shop. Every hair on Emma’s arms stood on end. The shaking in her lips had moved to her hands, and she clamped her eyes shut to stop the spinning. She clung to the back of Jade’s shirt. The man carrying the small, limp body looped through her mind like a horror film. She pressed her free hand against her middle.
“Not the ink cabinet.” Lilli swung the gun across the ceiling, following the sound of the footsteps.
A loud crash shook the walls. Jade raised her hands as if in prayer. “Not the dragon figurines.”
Emma clamped her hand over her mouth to stop her scream. The footsteps clumped toward the door. A slam shook the beaded curtain. Emma sagged to the floor, her knees quaking. Lilli kept the revolver trained on the cellar door.
Jade placed her hand on Lilli’s forearm. “They’re gone, hon.”
Lilli lowered the gun to her side and bent over her hands on her knees, her chest heaving as though she’d sprinted a mile. “Thank all the goddesses they’re gone. I need a drink.”
“I’m on it.” Jade rustled through a cabinet and grabbed a bottle, like Grandpa’s special Christmas whiskey. She lifted a glass from the cupboard and splashed amber liquid into it.
“How will that help?” Emma winced. The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and heat rose from her chest to her eyebrows. Why did she always ask the dumb question?
“Takes the edge off.” Jade handed the glass to Lilli. “For clients who love tats but not needles so much.”
Lilli took a sip and scrunched her eyes. “Yowzah.”
Jade chuckled and rubbed Lilli’s back. Emma shuffled from foot to foot. Lilli and Jade focused on each other, and she was invisible, once again.
“Here.” Lilli handed the glass to Jade who finished it in one gulp.
“That’ll cure what ails ya,” Jade said, her voice husky. She glanced at Emma. “Sip?”
“What? No.” Emma shook her head. Did they think she was a nerd? She didn’t care. She preferred nerd to this foreign world of tattoos and whiskey.
“We need a plan before I actually have to use this thing.” Lilli waved the gun, and Emma ducked.
Lilli’s actions grated on every nerve Emma had. She wanted to go home, not plan. Her vision blurred, and she swayed.
“It’s been a long year, today,” Jade said.
She led Emma to the couch. Emma plopped into the cushions, but sleep was the last thing on her mind. Why hadn’t mom just locked her in her room? The fighting and looting in the streets, the gun in Lilli’s hand, the curly headed child, is this what standing up for yourself got you? If so, she didn’t want it. Who were Lilli and Jade, really?
****
Emma cracked her eyes open, but she wasn’t in her bed. She pushed herself up and fell back, her head woozy. She was in the Little Shoppe of Colours. How did she fall asleep? Two figures sat at a table. Lilli and Jade, it was coming back to her. They must be making that plan Jade talked about. Emma yawned and rubbed her eyes.
“Wakey, wakey,” Lilli said.
Emma put her ponytail into her mouth, then spit it out and folded her hands in her lap, unsure where to put them as Jade moved to the couch to sit next to her.
“The storm’s over. I need to get home,” she said.
“That’s what…” Jade tilted her head, a frown forming on her smooth brow.
Emma didn’t wait for Jade to finish. She pushed the blanket to the floor and marched to the steps. Jade reached for her, but she pushed her hand away.
“I’m going, and that’s that.”
“Emma, wait.” Jade held her arm.
“No.” Emma yanked away and ran up the stairs. She yanked the door open before Jade could stop her.
“Looters,” Lilli hissed from the foot of the stairs.
Emma froze her hand on the cellar door. She dropped to the floor, putting a hand to her head. What had she done? The pounding in her head caught up to her feet, and she wobbled.
“Well, what do we have here?”
A man stood behind the counter. Blood rushed from her head, and the room spun. This was it. This was how she was going to die. She scrambled on hands and knees behind a rack of T-shirts lying on its side. She glanced behind her. Lilli peered out at her and blinked once. Was that a sign not to move or run for it? She gripped the cool metal bar of the rack and scrunched lower. Lilli held a finger to her lips.
The man behind the counter rustled through another drawer. Emma’s thigh muscle cramped. She dug her fingers into her leg and rolled onto her side. This was it. She was going to die lying under a rack of Harley Davidson T-shirts.
“Whatcha got, Mikey?” one of the men asked.
Were they blind? Emma pushed the T-shirts aside, revealing a man behind the counter holding something in the air.
“A puka shell necklace. I got one of these from Gina Zombarski my senior year.”
How had they not spotted her? Thank all the goddesses. She scrunched farther under the T-shirts, clenching her teeth to stop the groan. Her thigh muscle spasmed. She glanced back to the cellar door, but Lilli was gone.
“Jinx, you and Gus, check the cellar. The cash box might be down there. I’ll check the rest of these drawers. This register is empty.”
“Empty? Mikey, you said—”
“Just hit the cellar,” Mikey growled.
The sound of shoes on broken glass sent shivers up her spine, and she lowered her face to the floor, her breath quick and shallow. Three men: Mikey, Jinx, and Gus, and they all had guns. Someone had torn the blinds out of their brackets, and the shop window let in full sunlight. She’d be spotted for sure. She scanned the shop for a better hiding spot. A curtain hung separating a chair at a workstation from the rest of the room. Could she make it?
No.
The wall on her left was plastered with posters of tattoos from around the world. She curled into the smallest ball she could and covered her head and shoulders with T-shirts. Gus and Jinx walked around two other racks still standing and stopped at a cabinet right beside her. She chewed her fingernail, tasted blood.
Lilli’s face appeared behind the rack of dragon figurines. Emma gasped. Lilli held her finger to her lips. Emma nodded.
“Jade?” Emma mouthed.
Lilli pointed to the cellar door.
A drawer screeched as it was opened, and Emma gritted her teeth.
“Careful,” Mikey called. “Those bitches are crazy.”
“The cash better be down there,” one of the other men said.
They tromped past Emma, to the cellar door and down the steps. Emma’s pulse pounded in her ears. Jade had the gun, but she was alone.
The clatter of booted feet on the steps was interrupted by a blast like a shock wave hitting her brain. Two more shots followed.
“Jade.” Her voice echoed inside her skull.
One set of footsteps pounded up the stairs. Emma hunched in the T-shirts, her lips and fingers numb. A figure emerged from the cellar.
“Jinx is down.” Gus ran past Emma. “You didn’t say she had a gun!”
“I told you they were crazy!” Mikey gave the box a final shake before throwing it across the shop, shattering a mirror. Glass sprayed over Emma, and she crouched lower, pressing her eyes closed.
Boots crunched over broken glass, and she followed Mikey’s form as he ran after Gus, slamming the door behind him. The patter of their footsteps faded down the street, and Emma sat on the floor, rubbing her thigh.
“That rat, Mikey. I’ll slaughter that guy!” Lilli scurried to the cellar door.
Emma sprinted after her. “You know those guys?”
“Mikey owes us money.” Lilli disappeared down the steps. “Jade!”