Goddammit, Vega, said Perry in her head. You let that redneck grab your dick? Make that shit right quick or you’re dead. Then he would whistle the sound of Pac-Man getting sacked by a ghost, punctuated at the end by a cheerful “Wup Wup.”
She heard thumps from the small bedroom, McKie opening and slamming drawers shut. Vega flipped onto her stomach, the gash above her eyebrow beating like a heart, and she watched blood drip from her head to the floor. She pushed up with her arms and her feet at the same time, her body a plank, and she started to move like that, crawling without her knees touching the ground, close to the wall, until she could just see into the bedroom.
McKie was leaning over the bed, shoving clothes into a cardboard box. He was breathing fast and heavy. Her Springfield stuck out of the back of his jeans. The strip of wood he’d used on Vega was on the floor, a foot from the doorway, two black screws sticking out of the end, dipped in Vega’s blood.
Vega walked her legs to her hands and squatted, the springs of her hamstrings ready. McKie stopped packing and ran his hands through his hair. Vega pinched two fingers into her pocket and pulled out Evan Marsh’s Zippo. You got spare change, Perry would say. Throw it. Buys you three or four seconds, and that’s all you need.
Time was funny that way when the shit got thick—slow then fast.
Vega threw the lighter so it sailed past McKie’s head before hitting the wall and landing on the bed.
He turned his head to the side as he twisted around and reached for the Springfield in his pants, but Vega was already up on her feet. She grabbed the board with one hand, digging her fingernails into it, the pain in her head revving like a chain saw, and she swung at McKie’s hand just as he touched the gun, putting everything from her upper body into it. The Springfield flew to the floor, where it skidded and spun to the corner, and Vega shut the door with the back of her foot, careful not to slam it. McKie screamed, his mouth the end of a black tunnel, and Vega thought, Ugly, ugly, ugly, as she hit him again across the side of the head. Now he fell and quieted down, stunned, and she brought the board down on his back where it broke, snapped in two, the jagged half twirling up in the air.
“What was the question?” Vega said, sounding genuine.
She stomped his ribs with her heel and kept kicking.
“What was the question?” Vega said, louder. “What was the question?”
McKie screamed again and tried to turn onto his back and cover his abdomen with his bloody hand.
“Who am I, right? Right? Right?”
She held her foot right over his face, let it hover. And then she said what Perry had taught her—someone asks who you are, you tell them the only thing they need to know:
“I’m the motherfucker who gets. Shit. Done.”
Then she kicked him once more in the face, and he was out.
—
The birds got louder, overlapping chirps and squawks that sounded like arguing, but Cap knew that was just him tracing human emotion over it. He thought he heard a thump or two from inside the cabin but couldn’t be sure; it might have been the pounding in his ears.
He had gotten closer, off the porch now, on the ground, level with Dena but still a few yards away. Dena still wasn’t crying yet but was close, her arm loose around Bailey, the hand with the gun wiggly, like the weight would bring it down soon.
“Dena,” Cap said, tried to put on his best Dad voice—firm and kind. “I know this all probably got out of hand very quickly, right?”
She nodded.
“I know, and your dad knows, that you really didn’t have anything to do with this—that John talked you into it, and you did whatever you did because you love him.”
She kept nodding so he kept talking.
“You don’t want anything bad to happen to these little girls. You’re just trying to find a way to fix all this.”
Now the tears came, just some thin trickles, her cheeks pinched.
“So let’s fix it,” Cap said softly. “I can help you. I can talk to the police for you. They’ll listen to me.”
Dena’s jaw jutted out in belligerence.
“How’m I supposed to know that?” she said, her voice tense and muted from her stuffed nose. “Why should I believe you anyway?”
Cap tried to sift out where she’d go next. She was damaged enough to have come this far, but how much further could she go, and which way would she break? Was she so desperate she was about to give up, or would she instead take a nosedive into a dry quarry and take whoever she could grab with her? He had to place a bet and pray on that ticket like anyone else.
“Because I’m going to put my gun down. Right here, okay?” he said, gesturing to the ground at his feet. “That is how sure I am that you’ll know what to do next.”
Dena sniffed and her mouth went slack. Cap continued.
“That is how sure I am that your dad was right about you.”
Dena shut her eyes for a short second and wiped them with the top side of her wrist.
Cap started to kneel.
“I’m putting my gun down now,” he announced. “No fast moves.”
He placed the Sig on the patch of wild grass in front of him. Came back up to standing with his hands in the air. Dena watched him, her breath staggered and short. Bailey watched him too and started to move her mouth, trying to talk, but no sound came out. She gripped Dena’s arm like it was a pull-up bar.
“Okay, Dena,” Cap said. “Now it’s really up to you.”
The moments that followed stretched long, each one packed full. Acid swirled in Cap’s stomach, coffee surging in his throat. Dena kept her gun pointed at Cap, her hand still shaking. Cap reminded himself to breathe slowly, drops of sweat running from his underarm down to his ribs.
Then Dena began to unlock her arm from Bailey, slowly at first, Bailey still hanging on. Dena moved quicker then, shaking Bailey off and putting her free hand on the gun. Bailey stood motionless, arms at her sides but fingers extended, tense. She was looking at the ground, but her eyes moved all around, to her feet, Cap’s feet, the porch. Cap thought she looked possessed.
His mouth was dry but he swallowed anyway. He had to keep talking but not patronize her. She still had the gun.
So all he said, all that was in his head, was the simplest thing he could think of.
“Thanks, Dena. Thank you.”
Then he shifted his gaze down, to Bailey.
“Bailey?” he said.
Bailey made little fists. Her arms were impossibly thin. Pretzel sticks. The pink dress hung off her, too big. She didn’t look up, but blinked. Cap knew it was good to get any kind of reaction because it meant that even if she was out of it she was not in shock.
“I know your mom,” he said.
Bailey looked at him like he was speaking a language she understood only a few words of.
Dena breathed hard through her nose and pointed the gun at Bailey for a second, only to nudge her.
“Go,” Dena said. “Go with the man.”