Now that we're on the highway, what had been a refreshing breeze is now a gale, it finds all the cuts and scrapes I didn't know I had. It takes my mind of my leg, at least.
I notice Rowan gesturing, "phone," and then the two-finger point at me. I give her my phone. She throws it out the window. I'm annoyed but not surprised; she's just getting rid of possible ways for them to track us. I watch her throw her own phone out, not the one with the Loop, but her personal one.
"What about the other phone?" I yell over the wind. She winces. I must have yelled too loudly.
She shakes her head. Either that means she doesn't have it, or it doesn't have gps, or she doesn't feel like telling me with sign language. Whichever reason it is, I just have to trust that she knows what she's doing. I realize I do trust her.
Before today, I had thought it luck, or just plain paranoia on her part, that gave her the upper hand when I was planning to kill her. Now I think she's not stupid. That the ugly country house and the two kids and the bean-counting husband are all a front for a very smart person. For some reason that makes me slightly less pissed to be under her control.
Rowan takes the next exit and takes turn after turn until I'm completely lost and we're on a little two-track under a tunnel of trees. When she cuts the engine I feel even more lost. I still can't hear.
She says something to her kids then gets out of the car. She gestures for me to get out, too.
I follow her around to the back of the car, limping slightly. I don't really feel the pain anymore.
Rowan pops open the trunk. Inside, there's a cache of weapons. Outside of the shooting range, I've never seen so many guns in one place. And not just guns: grenades, explosives, zip ties, rope, knives. These things are neatly layered on top of each other in shallow black trays, easy to slide, easy to lift out of the truck.
There must be an astonished look on my face when I turn to Rowan because she's grinning. I grin back. She says something, clasps her hand on my shoulder. I don't flinch. She has lead me to a treasure.
She rummages through to find a pad of paper and a pencil tucked between a box of medical supplies and a box of food.
She writes, "B & I thought we'd need 2 go in. FBI wouldn't approve. Got this stuff over the last 6 months, including map of dairy."
"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"
"Best 2 use legal routes 1st. Reynolds made 1st illegal move w/ Williams. Now we finish it," she writes. "They didn't let B go; plan changes."
I snort. This whole thing, from the moment I first broke into her house, has been a series of plan changes.
She reaches in, shuffles a few more things around, comes up with wireless speakers. She points to them, then writes, "I help u set up speakers. U wait till I'm gone then play Loop. U can't hear. U walk in, walk out with B, L, & what honey pots U can find. Shoot if must. No legal prob 4 U. Hospital after."
My heart is racing with both fear and excitement.
"Okay," I manage. I kind of want to jump up and down like a little kid, but I play it cool. Besides, I'd probably just lose my balance and fall.
"U choose," she writes, gesturing toward the trunk, "U carry. We find new car," she pauses, scratches out "car" and writes, "van & go straight there, OK?"
"Okay," I say.
"5 min's."
"To choose the stuff?" I ask. Rowan nods. I stare at the trunk's contents as she disappears to do something with the kids.
First I strap on the holsters -- two shoulder, two waist -- then I load and pack the handguns that go with them. They're not as nice as the Ed Brown. I put clips in front and back pockets, then fill a fanny pack with more clips and strap it across my chest. The pack part lies against my side, just above the gun on my left. I try not to think about how ridiculous it must look.
I find a nylon windbreaker and put it on the ground. It's too hot to wear it now but, when we get closer to finding and stealing a vehicle, I'll wear it to hide the fact that I'm a walking gun cabinet.
I empty out the food kit -- dried peas, pasta, dried fruit -- saving only eight bars and four waters. We're not going to need to bivouac, but a little snack on the way to the nearest van would probably help the girls be quiet. I pop open one of the two cans of Red Bull I found in there and take a sip while I think on what I'd like to carry besides food and guns.
I fill up the remaining space with zip ties, a knife, a baggie of bandaids and a tube of ointment. I have no idea what I'll find in the dairy, but visions of naked women strapped to gurneys, with IV drips and cords winding into their brains fill my head and I at least want some bandaids.
Rowan touches my shoulder. I turn to look at her and she gestures for me to follow. She points to the car seat and I sit, legs still out of the car. She squats to examine my leg, I examine it, too. It's starting to look purple.
She disappears for a moment, comes back with the first aid kit. She unties the sheet I knotted just below my knee, and starts to massage my calf. I clench my jaw as feeling starts to come back. It really fucking hurts. My hands curl into fists and I press them into my thighs.
"What are you going to do?" I manage to utter. She shrugs, pauses from cleaning the wound out to look over her shoulder. Reba comes running up. The girl makes a face at my leg before picking up the pad of paper and the pencil.
"Sew," she writes. "Mom has topical ana-" she scrunches her nose and writes very slowly, "analgeezic." She means analgesic. I'm in too much pain to laugh at or correct her spelling.
"There's nothing to sew," I say through clenched teeth, "The bullet took out a good chunk. You sew it, my leg'll be too tight and in too much pain to do your plan."
Rowan looks up at me, her face like, What's your suggestion, then?
"Dump some iodine on the wound, pack it with cotton, then dump some analgesic on that," I say, "Wind that cotton tape stuff around it, then a layer of adhesive tape. Depending on how far I have to walk, we might need to change the dressing at some point."
Rowan shrugs but she follows my suggestion. The analgesic does help a little but my whole leg hurts like hell, feels bruised and weak.
"5 min ETD," she writes. I spend my five minutes lying in the back seat, studying the layout of the dairy. I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that Rowan and Ben were thinking of storming the place all on their own. They were that disgruntled with the whole process; that pissed off about the fact that all the honey pots they brought to the dairy never saw freedom.
Well, they shouldn't have been that surprised, I don't think, since Ray, with my help and the help of a lot of other people, destroyed what lives they had prior to becoming honey pots. I'd say maybe half of them had family to go home to, the rest would have to start from scratch. Maybe that would be too daunting. Maybe a honey pot might choose to stay with the devil she knew, considering how many worse devils there are out in the world, waiting to use you. Maybe the idea of supporting the troops in such a concrete fashion was appealing, especially if Reynolds framed it right. Or maybe Reynolds never gave them a choice.
The place was an actual, working dairy. The large tank trucks coming and going made it easy to get Reynolds' people and equipment in and out. According to Rowan's map, the last bay of the loading dock was reserved for Reynolds, which meant, if there was a truck parked there, I could just pile everyone into the modified tank in the back. Considering how things keep changing around me, I decide to think of that as a backup plan, though I'd need a truck driver.
From the bay there's a set of stairs leading to an underground corridor, guard booth first, on the right, across from a closet, then medical rooms off either side, bathrooms last, then another set of stairs leading up to what's labeled Recovery, a small, rectangular building with bedrooms, surrounded by privacy fencing enclosing small yards on either side. Again, a central corridor, guard booth and closet first, bathrooms at the far end.
The layout is simple, straightforward, and full of doors I'd have to open, confirming each room clear, before moving on to the next. It would be excruciatingly slow. It would be easier to just shoot everyone. Rowan had written, "shoot if must," and I give myself permission to interpret that liberally.
I count the doors then multiply that by ten seconds per room. Two hundred twenty seconds -- about four minutes -- assuming Reynolds and his people don't slow me down, just to clear everything, then I'd have eleven minutes left to get Ben, Lucy and any honey pots out before the Loop ended. Seems like enough, until I remember my aching leg and the fact that Williams' men were all wearing headphones when they stormed Rowan's house. It's not going to be that fast or that easy.
"Rowan?" I ask, sitting up. She gets up from where she's sitting with Tilda and Reba, her back against a tree trunk, eating an energy bar.
She arches an eyebrow at me as she walks over.
"Can we put the Loop on a loop, replay it, so I've got more than fifteen minutes?" I ask.
She shakes her head and starts writing, "Hurts the brain. 15 min max. Also, yr hearing might come back. Bad if U get stuck in looping Loop. Not so bad if Loop stops."
"Don't we have headphones in the trunk of the car?" I ask, "I could wear those."
She nods and gets them for me. I hang them around my neck.
"I'll carry the phone & speakers," she writes, "U ready?"
"Yes," I say, and I stand up. Then I fall down. Rowan helps me up again.
"Maybe best if I find veh. & come back for U," she writes. I shake my head.
"You told me my first job was to protect your kids," I say, "They're safer if we stay together."
She looks up at me and our eyes meet. For the first time, I understand, really understand, that my mother was not a typical mother. I've told myself that over and over, even tracked down statistics to prove it to myself, but Rowan's the first woman to prove it to me with her actions. Something loosens in my chest. I look away.
"Kids stay w/ U," she writes, "I'll take chance & drive car to find new vehicle. If I'm not back in an hr walk ahead to nearest farmhouse. Get yourself to ER."
"Okay," I say. She helps me sit on the ground, where she had been, my back against a tree trunk, the windbreaker under my ass. I watch Rowan talking to her daughters. I can't hear but I can tell the girls are not happy with the new plan. Tilda starts crying. Rowan's down on one knee, giving them hugs. I look down and fiddle with the zipper on the fanny pack. The fucking thing is bright orange. Who the fuck thinks bright orange fanny packs are a good idea?
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