“Everybody out! Go to Mrs. Agosta’s.” Harper screamed, as his thick leg swung over the sill. Glass crunched under his boots.
Lola growled low at her side, her fur bristling into a mohawk down her back.
“Well, look who’s home.” His eyes were unusually bright.
Harper backed up a step and prayed that the girls made it out through the backyard.
“Gloria’s gone. She’s safe and calling the cops right now.”
“I’m not here for her.” He reached behind him and pulled out a hunting knife. The light from the kitchen glinted off of the four-inch blade. Glenn took another step toward her, and Lola’s growl became a snarl.
“Aren’t you gonna run?” He licked his lips, and Harper’s stomach churned.
“If I run, my dog is going to rip your face off, and I really like this rug.”
As if in slow motion, Harper watched Glenn lunge forward. He grabbed her arm in his meaty fist as Lola coiled and sprang, closing her jaws around the forearm of his knife wielding hand.
He shrieked and the knife clattered to the floor. Glenn flung Lola off of him into the wall. She landed with a sick thud and a yelp. Harper screamed and launched herself at him. Her fingernails raked his face.
He grabbed for her again, catching her by the ponytail and they crashed to the floor. Harper scrambled forward on her hands and knees reaching for the knife, but he caught her by the ankle and yanked her back. His body ranged over hers, crushing her to the floor, and she saw his hand close around the handle of the knife.
She heard more screams and barely recognized that they were coming from her own throat. She wasn’t scared. She was enraged.
Harper threw an elbow over her shoulder that connected with his face, but he didn’t drop the knife.
Suddenly it seemed like every light in the house came on and Sophie and Hannah barreled in from the hallway. Sophie was wielding a baseball bat. Harper couldn’t see where the first blow landed, but the satisfying crunch told her it was somewhere crucial.
Glenn howled like a feral animal and brought the knife to Harper’s face. She froze. The tip of the blade trailed down her cheek. It scratched a shallow path in her jaw before coming to rest against the delicate skin of her throat.
She felt her blood pumping through her system. Saw Lola try to right herself. Heard Glenn’s snarl in her ear. Felt the blade prick her skin. This couldn’t be how it ended.
Then bare feet were sailing over the hardwood past her and there was a clanging crunch. Glenn’s weight went limp on top of her.
Everyone was screaming at once.
“Get him off me!” Harper groaned. “He’s crushing me.”
Lola crawled over to Harper and licked her nose. “My sweet girl,” Harper whispered. Lola’s rear end wiggled.
Gloria and Hannah shoved Glenn’s dead weight off of her and Harper could breathe again. She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling as Lola nuzzled her ear.
“Tape him up!” Sophie ordered. Hannah straddled Glenn and wrapped camo duct tape around his wrists.
“Get it up higher into his arm hair,” Gloria suggested, her breath coming in short gasps.
Harper rolled to face her. Gloria was leaning against the staircase in her plaid pajama shorts clutching Luke’s cast iron skillet.
The first giggle slipped out and there was no stopping it.
It was contagious. Her friends slid to the floor in a loose pile, shaking with laughter and adrenaline.
Lola limped over, pausing to lick each one, reassuring herself that they were all okay.
The front door exploded off of its hinges and crashed to the floor, narrowly missing Sophie. Ty and Aldo tumbled through the opening. Ty’s gun was drawn and Aldo had blood in his eye.
“You could have come in through the window,” Harper said.
It was silent for exactly two seconds before the girls exploded in peals of hysterics again.
