“Maybe it’s because you’ve never given me a chance to grow up!”
“You will be quiet, or you will be punished.”
That was it. I’d had enough. I grabbed the shotgun and pointed it at my father. My father went wide-eyed and then laughed at me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Lilly?” he said.
“You will get as many of our men in here as possible.”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me with air?”
I bit my lip, but there was no reason to try and maintain the façade of certainty. I didn’t know if these guns were already loaded, and my father’s words gave me no faith that they secretly were.
“Put the goddamn gun down, Lilly. I know this is a lot to take in and you have plenty of reasons to hate my guts. But we can fight as much as you want when we get to Oregon. Right now, you need to shut the fuck up and stay alive.”
I shook my head, but I knew this was pointless.
And then I got an idea.
I lowered the gun and made toward putting it back where I had found it. My father turned momentarily, seemingly trying to jigger some of the settings in the room. It was all the opening I needed.
I didn’t have time to think about if this failed. I didn’t have time to think. I just lunged forward, raised the shotgun, and struck my father across the back of the skull with the butt of the gun like it was a club.
The first hit dropped him to his knees. The second knocked him out.
“Holy shit,” I said.
I just... I just knocked out my father.
Now what?
I pulled his body back to the corner, amazed at how heavy he was. When I had enough space, I went over to where he had hunched over, looking at a keypad with no instructions whatsoever. I might as well have been tasked with decrypting hieroglyphics.
I just pressed individual numbers at first, but after punching in “4” I got a loud buzzing sound, followed by a screen with four spaces. I prayed this meant it was a four-digit password. Figuring it had to be a year of some kind, I typed in the year that my parents had gotten married. That wasn’t it. I typed in the year I thought my father said he was born. I typed in my own birth year.
It worked. And next thing I knew, the door was sliding open.
I felt... touched was not the right word, but I felt something knowing that my father had chosen my birth year as the code. I knew he’d never bluffed his way into caring about me, but there was something about knowing even in privacy…
I stepped out and continued to hear gunfire.
“Hey!” I shouted, but it was drowned out by gunfire. I had to get... I had to get closer to the action to drag the Saints in to safety. I went to the main atrium just as... as Lane appeared in the doorway, rifle cocked.
“Cole! We’re coming in!”
I raised my hand.
“Stop!”
Lane hesitated for a second. I could hear men moving behind me. I turned around.
“Don’t, don’t—”
And then the gunfire erupted all around me. Something struck my shoulder. It burned.
I collapsed to the ground.
I began to feel lightheaded.
I began... I began to feel…
“Lilly!” a familiar voice shouted from far away. “I’m coming!”
Nothing…
