Rowan's face appears, bloody, eyes wide. I wonder for a moment if they tossed a grenade into the bathroom, too, but realize she wouldn't be alive if they had. I feel Tilda and Reba's small hands slide under my shoulders and push. I sit up.
For a moment nothing happens. I know we ought to do something, but my brain is a little fuzzy about what that might be.
Rowan's legs appear. I follow them up, see the handgun she's got in one hand and the automatic rifle she's got in the other. She seems a lot sexier at the moment, her pale blue blouse patterned with flecks of blood, her hair disheveled in that way I like, with wisps coming out of her braid like contrails or flames. I realize she's trying to talk to me. I gesture at my ears and shrug. She points to my leg. I look down and realize I'm bleeding pretty badly.
"I'll stop the bleeding," I say in what I hope is a normal tone of voice, "You shoot anything that moves."
We're in a more exposed location than I'd like, with the back door gaping open on one side and the doorless entryway to the kitchen next to it, but the dead and wounded in the kitchen are sure to slow down anyone coming from that direction, and we do have a corner to our backs and we are right next to the laundry area, with cabinets full of what I'm sure are ugly sheets or towels I can use to staunch the wound.
I pull out the ironing board from between the washer and dryer and push the girls toward that cramped little space. They're crying again, though of course I can't hear it. I tell them not to cry, otherwise the big, bad monster will find them and eat them. They'll live if they just shut the fuck up.
Once they're in, scrunched up with their butts on the floor, their knees up and their elbows on their knees, I lean the ironing board against the front of their hiding spot, butt-down. The feet of the ironing board span the hole, but the board itself doesn't, it leans in toward the girls and the feet at the top of the board rest against the wall beyond.
"It's like a tent," I whisper, at least, I hope it's a whisper, "like camping in the house."
I ransack the cupboards for something for my wound. I feel, rather than hear, gunshots. I turn toward Rowan and see that, past her, there are two men on the ground, just outside the doorway. I am starting to respect this woman. I'm also starting to think the gun collection isn't Ben's.
The sheets don't rip as easily as they do in movies. It pisses me off. I'm an assassin, for fuck's sake, not a survivalist; I don't carry knives and shit. The blood isn't stopping and I'm starting to feel the pain now.
"I need to get a knife from the counter," I say to Rowan, looking at her. "I need you to cover me when I pass the entryway to the hall and the living room."
She's scanning from kitchen area to kitchen window to back entry and back again but she nods that she's heard me and she holds up her free hand, three fingers up. Then two. Then one. Then she shifts her hips and swings her stance so she's facing nearly the opposite direction, able to see around the corner. Two fingers together, she cocks her left hand toward the knives in the block on the countertop across the kitchen, indicating I'm clear to go. Now I'm certain she's FBI, or some sort of professional something.
I crouch to get under her line of fire and the pain in my leg gets worse. I have to crawl over bodies to get to the knives. I get the smallest one and hustle back, then take a moment to catch my breath, trying to get the pain under control.
Now, with the knife, it's relatively easy to tie off above the wound. I inspect it and find it's slightly worse than a graze, but not nearly as bad as it could be. I'm feeling light-headed, though.
"Car?" I ask, looking at Rowan. She's still hyper-vigilant, won't bother looking at me, but she nods and starts the sign-language thing again. With two fingers she taps her own shoulder then points out the back door.
"Do you want me to confirm what you're telling me?" I ask. She shakes her head, no. I realize she thinks there are more men out there. She makes the same gestures again. I nod to myself and fetch a fresh rifle from the nearest body.
"Okay," I say, standing, "I'm ready when you are."
Her fingers say three, two, one, then point at the back door and I limp ahead of her with the rifle ready, feeling myself off-balance but still capable. I sweep from left to right, then back again, then step back to let Rowan out. She runs, body held low, swerves around the shallow dish of first exposed by the grenade. I step out again and try to look everywhere at once: the oak tree, the garage, the corners of the house to either side. It all feels too open, too many opportunities.
But then she disappears into the garage. I back up to the laundry corner and wait. I'm trying to scan, to be alert, but I can feel my responses slowing down, my body taking its injuries into account.
The whole day I've been worried about Lucy and now, here I am, the injured one. Maybe she can rescue me, I joke to myself. I'm not sure if I said that aloud or not.
Rowan's car comes toward me, front and rear windshields missing. I drop my weapon and pull the ironing board off the girls. She swings wide once she's past the tree, disappears from view for a moment before coming to a stop, parallel to the back door, back passenger door more or less aligned. I yank the girls out from their hiding place. They might be screaming, I'm not sure, but I drag one and push the other towards the car.
Rowan has a hand gun in her right hand, her left on the steering wheel. She doesn't look at us as I open the car door and shove the girls in.
"Stay on the floor of the car," I tell them, "Should I go back for a weapon?" I ask Rowan. She shakes her head no. I get in and she's hit the accelerator before I've closed the door.
I lie down on the back seat, on my side so my knees aren't in the air. The engine feels real. It's good to feel its vibrations. The wind is rushing and circling and blowing my short hair and Rowan's long hair. I can barely see her profile from where I lie. I see glimpses of the barrel of her handgun when it tips up after she pulls a shot.
My body pulls right as she turns left, then left as she turns right. I'm trying to pay attention, trying to get a sense of where we are. Soon enough she accelerates on a flat, open road. I don't know where she's taking us.
She must have said something, because the girls slowly uncurl from their roly-poly bug positions and raise their heads. They aren't crying anymore. Reba was wearing a dress with short sleeves; I can see bruises on her upper arm where I held her when I was pushing her toward the car. Tilda's hair is like her mom's, escaping wildly from her braids, dancing in the fresh, warm air.
I start laughing. I almost say we should go back and mop up the last few men, but Rowan turns her head so I can see her lips, mostly. I raise my head to see better. She says something.
"Still can't hear," I yell. Reba winces. Her ear was right next to my mouth. "Sorry," I say. But I don't feel sorry. I feel invincible.
Rowan's grinning. I wish I knew what she was saying. She uses the two-finger gesture to point at me, then makes the international sign for "crazy."
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