Dammit.
I’m crying again.
I hate crying.
No one takes you seriously when you’re crying.
“Hold on for a ride. I’m going after the raccoons,” Giselle says.
I look at Peggy, then at Davis, whose hair looks weird in the light, almost like it’s glowing, and then at Giselle.
And then I shriek again.
Giselle vaults up the camper steps, and now she’s swinging herself up onto the camper roof while the entire vehicle shakes. “That’s right, you little fucknuggets, who looks bigger now?”
“Peggy. Don’t run away. Sweet kitty, don’t run away,” I sob as I peer under the camper again.
My cat stares back at me, frightened and frozen.
Three screeches and a whole bunch of chittering reverberate from the top of the camper, and then there’s silence.
Peggy keeps staring at me.
I keep staring back. “It’s okay, love, Mama’s here, don’t run away.”
“I’ll get her,” Davis says quietly next to me.
And that’s when I smell it.
Burning hair.
I sit straight and feel my own head, then look at his, and?—
“Oh my god, your bun’s on fire!”
There’s a thump next to him.
I scream and blindly swing at it, but Giselle catches my arm, squeezes a pressure point just enough to make me yelp, drops my arm, spins somewhere else, and a moment later, the smolderingthingis out.
Because Davis is covered in water.
Giselle tosses the bucket aside, drops to her belly, aims her flashlight under the camper, and rises again. “Keep talking to the cat.”
I stare at Davis.
Who’s staring back at me, soaked.
Something weird is clumped on top of his hair.
Which isn’t in the full manbun it was before.
And not because of the water.
“Peggy,” I croak out.
“Keep calling for her,” Giselle says.
Peggy.
