Four Live Rounds
“But I’m afraid, Dad.”
“I know. We all are, and that’s okay. What matters is how you handle it. That you don’t let it handle you.” They all embraced, held on to one another for nearly a minute.
When they came apart, Will grabbed Rachael’s hands. “I want you to see the little farmhouse we have in Colorado. There are mountains, aspen trees. There’s a river nearby, and sometimes you can hear it from our bedroom. I want to be there with you and Devi and this little guy.” He touched Rachael’s rounded belly. “I’m gonna do everything I can tonight to make that possible. You both know what you have to do?” His girls nodded. “No matter what happens, I love you, Rachael. I love you, Devlin.” Rachael was crying, Devlin’s chin quivering. “All right,” Will said. “I guess it’s time.”
SIXTY-TWO
Ethan’s old room was already stocked with food and water and plenty of blankets, since they couldn’t risk the light or smell of a fire. Will and Kalyn had set the weakest women on the mattress and swaddled them in covers, left Devlin in charge of protecting the women who couldn’t fight.
“This is your room now, Devi,” her father said, “and these women are your responsibility. You kill anyone who comes through that door to hurt you.”
“I will.”
“There’re two more shotguns, fully loaded, and three boxes of shells on the bedside table. I don’t care what you hear out there, stay put.”
“Yes, sir.”
Through the glass, the sky deepened from purple to navy.
“Keep them quiet, away from the windows, and use no light.” Will tapped the walkie-talkie in the pocket of her parka. “Emergencies only. You remember the channel?”
Outside in the corridor, Will closed and locked the door. He looked at Kalyn, said, “Come with me,” and led her down to the supply room, which he unlocked. “Go on, pick out whatever you think you’ll need.”
Kalyn stepped inside, pulled a shotgun from one of the glass cases, then broke open a box of shells. She loaded it and crammed the pockets of her fleece jacket with as many shells of buckshot as they would hold. Then she opened a drawer, took out a Browning 9-mm.
“Will?” she said while loading a magazine with hollow-point rounds.
“What?”
“Thank you for not telling my sister about what I—”
“It’s not the time to deal with that.”
Kalyn lifted the shotgun strap over her head, slammed a magazine into the Browning.
Suzanne and Lucy sat side by side near the end of the south-wing corridor, twenty feet back from the alcove, the shotguns lying across their laps.
It was perfectly silent—just the steady pulse of their heartbeats and the humming of a ceiling lamp above their heads.
Sean and Ken waited twenty feet back in the passage, their shotguns trained on the thick wooden door that led to the veranda.
Their only light was a lantern mounted on the passage wall.
“Dad?” Sean said.
“Yeah.”
“We’re in trouble here.”
Ken glanced at his son in the lantern light. “Your old man’s working on something.”
“What?”
“A way to get us out of this.”
Kalyn sat on the stone of the freestanding hearth. With a quick turn of her head, she could keep an eye on either the front entrance or the library door, now closed and locked. She could also look down the first-floor corridor of both wings, see Suzanne and Lucy camped near the end of the south, Will walking toward the end of the north. She kept replaying the afternoon and evening and all the preparations they’d made, haunted with the fear she’d overlooked something.
Will approached the end of the corridor, spotted Rachael twenty feet back from the north-wing alcove, out of sight from the east- and west-facing windows. He eased down beside her, set the shotgun on the floor. She glanced over, tried to smile.
“It’s just not fair,” she whispered, “to get you and Devi back, only to have to go through this.”
“I know, but we haven’t experienced much fairness in the last five years, have we?”
She shook her head. “How do you think Devi’s handling this?”
“She’s scared but dealing. Our daughter is an amazing human being, Rachael.”
“She is, isn’t she? Felt so good just to be able to give her therapy this morning.”
They were quiet for a while, sat there holding the shotguns, listening.
On his way to Rachael and their post, Will had stopped in one of the rooms to look out the window. He’d seen a starry, windless night, the lake serene, a model of absolute stillness.
Nearby, wood creaked. Rachael looked at Will, but he shook his head, whispered, “An old place like this makes all kinds of noise. Probably just wood settling.”
“I’m glad we have these gloves. It’s freezing in here.”
They waited, evening assenting tonight.
An hour slipped by, then two.
“My legs are cramping,” Rachael whispered. “I’m gonna stretch them, just to the lobby and back.”
As his wife walked away, Will took out his radio, asked for everyone to check in.
When Kalyn’s voice came over the channel, she said, “You probably just heard the front doors close.”
“No, I didn’t actually. What’s going on?”
“I stepped outside with Ethan’s whistle, called in the wolves. Figured maybe if they find our bad guys, we’ll hear them, get a sense of where they are.”
“Good deal.”
The radio went quiet.
Rachael returned. She leaned against Will and closed her eyes for a little while, then let him do the same.
Two minutes shy of midnight, Will glanced over his shoulder, saw Kalyn right where she’d been all night, sitting on the base of the freestanding hearth.
“I’m gonna go talk to her,” Will said.
“Why?”
“Something’s not right. I mean, why haven’t they come yet?”
“I don’t know.”
Will sighed. “You’ll be all right on your own for a minute?”
“I’ll be fine.”
He struggled up, legs sore, feet numb from two hours of sitting in one spot, immobile. “If you see anything, hear anything strange, radio me immediately.”
Will started down the corridor toward the lobby, and it had just crossed his mind that maybe Javier and his men weren’t coming tonight after all, that maybe they’d decided to let them sit it out until morning, until everyone was nerve-frayed and psychotic with exhaustion. Just then, the lodge rumbled and all the lights winked out.