Nicola Griffith - Stay

Remember the child. Oh yes. This is who I am. This is what I do.

I took one sliding step with my right leg, slapped the gun away with my left hand, and hit her neatly under the ear with my right elbow. She folded without a sound. I smiled at Luz, picked up the gun, broke open the cylinder, and tipped out the bullets. Dry-fired it. Just as I thought. Stiff. Cheap. I wiped the gun clean on my sweatshirt and dropped it into Goulay’s coat pocket. The bullets went in mine. Luz stared at me, lips pale.

“She’ll be fine,” I said. “Can you be brave just a bit longer?”

She nodded jerkily.

“Good. I’m going to need your help to tidy up a bit.” I bent and plucked the keys from Goulay’s white hand. “If you open the back door, I’ll put her inside where she’ll be more comfortable until she wakes up.” My knee flared when I bent to pick up Goulay. Pain is just a message, information about an injury. If the structural damage isn’t enough to stop you, the message can be ignored. Goulay was heavier than she looked and it took me a while to make sure all her flopping limbs were safely inside before I could slam the door. “We have to move the rig, too.” I pointed at the trailer and truck.

“Where’s the man?”

Mike. Right. “He’s… You’ll have to help me with him, too. He’s tied up behind the truck, but he’s not unconscious, so we’ll have to bring the car to him to make it easier to get inside. Okay? Come on. You can sit in the front.”

Like all rental cars, the Maxima smelled new and unblemished. The tank was still two-thirds full. I drove the few feet to the rig so that the back door was as close as possible. “Open the door. I’ll go get him.” She slid out and went to the back door. I left the engine running.

Mike’s face was livid. He writhed as much as he was able and grunted explosively as I pulled out his gun.

“Two choices. One, I drag you to the car, face down, which will rip your skin up quite a bit, might even damage your eyes. Two, I untie your feet and you get into the car without a struggle. If you struggle, I shoot you. Dead people are just as easy to move.” Easier. But it would probably upset Luz. “Should I untie you?”

More grunts.

“Should I untie you?” I asked again, patiently.

He nodded.

I loosened the belt so he could free his feet but pulled it back tight on his hands. “Stand—”

Luz’s scream sliced my sentence in half. I whipped around just in time to see Goulay, now in the front seat, one arm around Luz’s neck, her own head craning to see behind her, before the car screeched away in reverse. I lifted the Glock, and that’s when Mike hit me on the back of the neck with his clubbed fists.

How did he do that? I thought stupidly, as the strength drained from my legs and my hands went numb. I staggered, the Glock fell from my fingers, and Mike hurled himself at me. I went down face first, him on top. One of my ribs popped with the long, leisurely sound a cork makes coming out of a particularly anticipated bottle of port. The gravel under my cheek should have felt cold but didn’t, though the metal at the corner of my eye did. Somewhere a child was screaming. Someone grabbed my right wrist and pinned it to the road by my head, so that I pointed after the reversing car, which was only a few yards away and moving terribly slowly. Dust and that scream hung in the air as though someone had stopped the world.

The man on top of me shifted, dropping his whole weight down and forward on his hands to pin me more securely. My cheek tore on gravel as I smiled. Give me a long enough lever and I will move the world.

The child had stopped screaming. I put it from my mind.

For the Chinese, it is the source of chi, for the Japanese, ki, for dancers and gymnasts, it is the center of gravity: the fulcrum around which the body moves. Shift your balance, and everything changes. Balance is also psychological. If your opponent expects you to pull in one direction, he sets his muscles to resist. Mike had put all his weight over my wrist: he was balancing on it; he expected me to pull my hand in instinctively and protect my torso. So I did, but slowly, so he had time to resist, and when he began to push the other way—which pleased me so much I laughed, which startled him, which made it even easier—I thrust both hands up over my head, simple as stretching. His balance followed my wrists, sliding as smoothly as the bubble in a tilting spirit level, and as he fell forward, I pulled both legs under me and bucked. Thigh muscles are enormously powerful. He soared, upturned face comical, and I was scrambling after him on all fours like a strange, bloodied train, Glock in hand—where had that come from?—before he hit the ground. He was lovely and fast, already up on one knee before I pistoned right elbow into his neck, left fist into his solar plexus, and arced the Glock into the back of his skull. He collapsed. I smiled, and stood. Staggered. Pain is just a message.

The Maxima was now forty yards away, veering wildly, jerking, driving again, still in reverse. I wiped the blood from my face, squinted. The child had stopped screaming because she had her teeth buried in the woman’s wrist. I lurched forward. My knee buckled and I almost went down again. Just a message. I ran. In another fifty yards, the Maxima would reach the crossroads where there would be room to turn around. Once it was out of reverse, I’d have no hope of catching it.

The woman slapped the child. The child hung on. The car slowed almost to a stop. I ran. Thirty yards. The woman hit the child again. Twenty-five yards. The child let go. Twenty yards. Now or never. I lifted the Glock, sighted, breathed out, held it, and shot out the left front tire. I moved the gun slightly, sighted on the woman’s chest. Neither of us moved. Slowly, she raised both hands.

I limped as fast as I could to the car. “Out,” I said to the woman. “Now.” Even in rural Arkansas a shot might not go unnoticed. She climbed out warily. There was blood on her right wrist. I could smell her fear. “Turn around. Hands on the roof of the car.” Before she’d even turned around properly I whipped the Glock across the back of her head. I caught her before she fell.

The child had squeezed herself up against the passenger door, as far away from me as she could get. “Open the back door,” I said. She didn’t move. I ignored my knee, ignored the terrible need to hurry, and dredged up her name. “Luz. I need you to open the back door.” She stared at the gun, then my face. The gun, my face. I couldn’t put the gun down without letting go of the woman. Another child… shiny eyes… “Button needs you,” I said. “We have to hurry.” There was no more time. I slung the woman as best I could over my left arm and tucked the Glock back in my waistband out of sight. That’s when I remembered the noise my rib cage had made. I cursed softly, then put that message aside, too. I could just reach the door handle. I got it open and stuffed the woman in. She left a smear of blood on the upholstery. I slammed the door, got in the driver’s seat.

Luz still hadn’t moved or spoken. I picked her up bodily—she was practically catatonic—put her in her seat, and pulled the seat belt round her. The pain was making it hard to breathe.

The tire rim ground on the gravel as I drove the hundred yards back to the rig and the sprawled lump in the road.

Out of the car, open the back door, drag the man to the car, lift and prop, fold and push him on top of the woman. Close rear door. Use remote to lock all four doors. Open door of truck, sigh, walk back to car, open passenger door. “I’m going to move the rig—the truck and trailer—so we can drive past. I’m coming back.” I’m going to pass out. “Stay there.” This time she nodded cautiously.