Page 116 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

Heart trying to sledgehammer out of my chest.

Lungs ripped raw, working triple-time, every breath knifing my side as it tries to hack its way in.

Brain broken. Not caught up.

Still in pieces. Too much happening. Too many decisions, not enough me to make them. To hold it together.

Only fragments.

Need to put the babies in the sling. Carry them to safety. Nowhere’s safe. They’re crying. Noise will bring the strangers. Can’t shush them. Need to get my bow, but it’s outside in the cart. Stay hidden. Quiet babies.

Cat, I hissed, keep them quiet, they’ll give us away!

I ran into the book maze.

I’m getting the gun, I say. We might need it.

I don’t have time to serpentine back and forth, so I tumble the walls and bull straight over the book rubble, heading for the room at the centre. The gun is in the bag under the bed.

Babies still crying. But quieter now.

Cat! I shout. Good job, shush them, I’m coming.

I grab the gun, slide it out of the bag and turn to run back. It fits my hand in the good-bad way it did when I first picked it up back outside the Bunker. For a second the heft of it is the still point in a world pinwheeling out of control, so solid, so meant for the hand, for my hand that it’s like it’s saying hello. Intimately. Calmly. Steadyingly.

Even the babies stop wailing.

But I’m still on that losing streak and sliding hard, because that’s when it hits me. No dog. Digger’s outside.

Shit, I say. Cat, don’t open the door!

Brain back in fragments at my feet, treacherous as the tumbled books I’m turning and slipping on. But still the one weasel-memory crowbars in. Like it’s just been sitting there, calm as the gun, waiting for its moment.

Freya looking at me with disgust.

You’re soft, she says. That dog will betray you.

The memory fragment shatters and I’m back in the now with a bitter taste of her words in my mouth.

Don’t open the door, I say again. She’ll have brought them right to us. Cat—

My foot skites out from under me as I try to run back to them, the cover detaching from the book I’m treading on and I slam down into the welter of books I crashed through to get the gun. Good news is I don’t land on the ribs I think must be broken. Bad news is the impact winds me. Worse news is the gun bounces out of my hand and skitters across the floor towards the others.

I don’t have time to be winded. I claw up off the floor and stumble over. I pick up the babies.

Bring the gun, I say to Cat. We need to get away from here. Deeper.

I turn to run, and then look back. The gun is still on the floor.

Pick it up! I say. Shit, Cat, just pick it up! We’ve got to go!

It’s like she can’t understand the urgency, what I’m saying, why I’m saying it.

Cat! I hiss. Today’s closed! We have to get in the basement!

Digger barks and scratches at the door.

The baby girl squirms in my arm hold and giggles.