Instead, I found myself shunted, no place to go but the nearest reflection, a live incendiary grenade in one hand and a body made largely of wood and feathers.
I didn’t let myself experience paralyzing fear or panic. I hurled the grenade into the great expanse of darkness between patches of light. It found a patch of light far away from Hillsglade House, instead, skipping across darkness much as I might have.
I headed back upstairs.
I’d expected to see her taking Peter to pieces. Instead, she was kneeling by her brother. Peter was limp on the ground.
“I hear you,” she said, without looking my way.
“Hi Eva.”
“Survived? Damn.”
“Survived.”
The fury had gone quiet again.
What was going through her head?
“There goes my trump card,” she said. “Other trump card didn’t do much.”
“Other?”
She held up the green orb as her answer.
“Can I ask?” I asked.
Her voice was low, almost menacing. “You can ask, I’m not saying. I’m going to give it back to the owner on my way to the hospital. I’m proposing an exchange of prisoners. I walk out with my brother, you look after your… numerous wounded.”
I didn’t answer.
“Right,” she said. “Taking that as a yes.”
“Eva,” I told her. “The claymore or whatever by the back door, the bombs on the windows, the bomb on the front door… double edged sword right now.”
“Seems like one edge,” she replied.
“If you try to leave,” I told her, “I’ll throw something at those bombs. At the door, the claymore, whichever. I’ll take out you and your brother.”
“Not smart,” she said.
“Doing what I have to,” I replied.
“Your beaten up buddy there-”
“Isn’t a buddy. But if you go after him, I’ll fight you. We can continue to lock horns until the sun goes down.”
“Ahhh. That’s your plan.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t expect me to help.”
“I expect you to try to survive the night,” I said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what’s coming is pretty damn indiscriminate, isn’t it?”
“Nah,” she said. She smiled at me. “You’re pretty boned.”
I stared at her, long and hard.
I am a Thorburn, in one way or another. I know deceit when I see it.
This wasn’t the first lie she’d told me.
“Evan,” I said. “Go upstairs. Unlock and open the door. Talk to the others. So long as Andy’s hurt, Eva’s mostly a non-threat. She won’t leave him so long as I could go after him.”
She scowled at me.
“There’s no bomb on any of them. See how they’re doing. We have only a few minutes to prepare for sundown.”
11.x (Histories)
She watched as her Pa paced.
Then Mam came out of the side room. Pa fidgeted, following Mam to the countertop. Pa was as thin as Mam was fat. He was a skeleton covered in cracked brown leather, beard shorn short, hair tied back into a long ponytail. His head only came up to Mam’s shoulder.
Mam, by contrast, was the size of a bear, fat as she was tall, with clusters of nobby bits and warty bits nearly hidden in the folds of her neck and shoulders. She was pale, her eyes heavily lidded, making her look half asleep, and her hair was greasy. Her mouth sat open and askew almost all the time, lip hanging low enough to reveal the wide-spaced teeth. The only time mam’s mouth closed was when she was thinking, and she sucked on her bottom lip. Her more thinky expression.
She thought even now, busying herself by pushing things around the counter without actually cleaning or using any of it.
“No need to preserve. Cupboards are full. We eat tonight,” Mam finally said. She pushed her hands through piles of dirty dishes, grabbing a knife with bits still caked on it, a fork. These she set to one side.
Pa smiled. His face creased everywhere with the expression, every single one of his bad teeth showing. “Pie?”
“Sausage pie,” Mam conceded.
“Good,” Pa said, smiling. “Good.”
“If you want ‘good’ you go chop some wood,” Mam said.
“There’s wood already,” he said.
“Chop it! I’m not stopping cooking halfway to get your lazy ass out of that chair of yours and into the woods to chop. Chop now!” Mam’s voice got more shrill as she talked.
Pa grimaced, but he headed outdoors. Probably to get out of the house more than out of any desire to help.
“Midge!” Mam said.
Midge cowered a little under her mother’s eye, retreating under the table.
Mam strode forward, pushing the table against the wall with one sweep of her fist, exposing Midge. She grabbed the girl’s ear and hair in one meaty fist, and practically lifted her.