I couldn’t wait for something to happen. I needed tomakesomething happen.
But to leave this cozy little closet, I’d have to pry the door open, or try. It would be noisy, giving away my position, and once I did it, my hiding place couldn’t be barricaded again.
I was nervy, vibrating within my skin. I could feel adrenaline pumping through me like one of those cartoons of the circulatory system, red and blue veins chugging. I itched for freedom. I was so close.
Could I break open the door and make it to the alley? Was there a better plan?
I didn’t know if I could make myself move.
Then I heard footsteps, a voice, and drew myself in, quiet, small.
I wasn’t sure what I’d heard. A voice, the lift of a question, but no voice responding.
The door to the locker rattled and began to open—
I threw myself at the door, hard, fast, and met fleshy resistance and a human gut-groan. I gave an extra shove, darting out and away from a bark of surprise.
Behind the door, Ned held his face, blood gushing from his nose, and yelled something. Mike?
I dove toward the open door to the alley and the sweet stink of garbage and piss.
“Isaid—”
Silent Jim cut off mid-growl as I sprang through the open doorway. He turned his head, his eyes widening in surprise. I skidded, touching a knee to the pavement that I would feel later, palms scraping, then jumped back to my feet and scrabbled back through the door.
Ned was still bent over at the storage locker, blocking my way into the pub. “You bitch! You broke mynose.”
My guitar, my sweet Peggy Lee, sat where I’d left her at the corner near the door. It should have been Oona’s softball bat, but a bad workman blames her tools. I grabbed her by the neck and dashed for the stairs.
And then Ned was behind me and had the back of my sweater bunched in his fist.
“What are you gonna do, huh, Doll?”
Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?
I grabbed the handrail and spun, swinging Peggy Lee as a cudgel and bringing down the wrath of every country music done-her-wrong song ever sung.
Maybe Ned hadn’t expected me to sacrifice my guitar. She hit a discordant note against his bloody teeth and crooked nose that drove his head backward. His hands grabbed for air.
Jim, at the bottom of the stairs, reared aside to avoid Ned as he fell.
Neither of us waited to see which bits of Ned survived. I threw the last of Peggy Lee’s fret board and spun around, clawing at the railing.
I heard Jim coming up behind me, slow, all the time in the world.
“What do you think you’re going to do up there, cowgirl?” Jim said as I reached for the doorknob.
Locked.
Pull, jiggle—
“No landline. Your phone… a brick, you called it? You’re out of friends to call, anyway.”
I swallowed a sob at what that might mean. Alex, unaccounted for, Sicily, Oona, the band. Quin’s element of surprise might not have been enough.
Lift and push.Pop.
I had my hand on the knob—
