Mindy McGinnis - In a Handful of Dust

Ben came forward to stand next to his father. “She was,” he said enthusiastically. “Although if you think sticking her again might make Dad change his mind, go ahead and do it. I haven’t seen a girl dance in a long time.”

“Listen,” Lynn said, her voice barely masking the beginnings of a quaver. “I don’t—”

“LANDER!” Nora’s scream ripped down the hall, her robe flapping behind her making her seem like a white specter in the darkness. She ran awkwardly, limbs still deadened by the jolt Lucy had given her. “She’s got away from me!”

Lynn turned toward this new threat, and Lucy’s legs collapsed without her support. Nora careened to a halt, grabbing the doorway to stop herself and glaring at the huddled form in the darkness of the hall.

Lucy peered up at her, a new kind of electricity surging through her limbs as her body warned her to get up, to get away from Nora, seconds before the older woman fell on her.

“You ungrateful little bitch !” Nora screamed, blood trickling from one nostril as she smacked at Lucy’s face. Lucy fended off her blows, scooting herself up against the wall. From the corner of her eye she saw Lynn barrel into Lander with all her strength, barely knocking him off his feet. The two of them rolled into Ben together, sending him into the wall. The hard click of Ben’s teeth slamming together ricocheted around the room, and the moon came back out for another moment, turning the blood that flowed from his mouth a dark purple and starkly illuminating his own fascination with it as he lifted his stained fingers in front of his face.

Lucy pulled her Taser from her belt and slammed it against Nora’s torso, forcing the other woman away from her before delivering the shock. Nora jerked and was still, a matching stream of blood now flowing from the other nostril.

Lynn screamed as Lander bent her arm behind her back, forcing her face down into the carpet and digging his knee into her spine. Lucy dove for Lynn’s Taser, knocked free during their struggle. Lander let her have it, eyes watching her as she rose.

“I’ve got all kinds of ways I can hurt this one, little girl,” he said, teeth stained with blood from where Lynn had got a good kick in. “You know I will.”

Lucy pressed the button and bright-blue electricity jumped from the prongs. “Get off of my mom.”

Lander bent Lynn’s arm upward. She writhed but refused to cry out, bringing a blood-tinged smile to his face. “She’s not your mom.”

“The hell she isn’t,” Lucy said, grabbing Ben from where he lay and digging both Tasers into either side of his neck. “Now you give her back to me or Ben’s dead, and not missed by many.”

“That’s more true than you know,” Lander said. “Go on then.”

Lucy felt the thunder roll through the room as clearly as the rage that pulsed through Ben as he knelt in front of her, disbelief sagging his shoulders. “Dad?”

“What?” Lander asked. “You really don’t think I can make one better than you?” He reached down and touched Lynn’s hair with fondness, despite the fact that his other hand was still threatening to crack her arm in half. “This woman here and me combined? Now that’s something I want to see.”

Ben sprang so quickly that Lucy lost her grip on the Tasers, one of them nearly sliding from her sweaty palm. Ben hit Lander in a ball of fury, his attack so unexpected it sent his father reeling off Lynn, who dragged herself out of the way as the two struggled. There was a loud crack and a squeal of pain from Ben, and then Lucy was above both of them, jamming the Tasers into Lander’s temples and delivering a jolt that sent electricity flowing from father to son as their entwined limbs danced.

Lucy’s arms couldn’t keep the connection anymore, and she fell to the ground. The smell of singed flesh and burning hair filled the room, tinged with the tweak of ozone, when another flash of lightning ripped through the night air and the building shook with the rumble of the thunder. Lynn dragged herself to Lucy’s side to cradle the girl’s head in her lap.

“You okay?”

Lucy nodded, the tender skin of her cheek rubbing against Lynn’s jeans. “Did I kill them?”

“Well, Lander’s hair is on fire and he’s not doing anything about it, so my guess is yeah, you did.”

Lucy turned her face into the bend of Lynn’s knee, tears dripping onto the denim and the delayed twinges of shock sending her into a rippling mass in Lynn’s lap. Lynn’s hands moved through her hair, gently pulling the short, damp ends from her sticky face.

“I know it’s not easy, little one,” she said. “But this is the world we live in, and if we want to keep doing it, sometimes our hands are forced.”

“Lucy?” Ben’s weak voice floated above the still bodies. Lynn rose to her feet, pulling Lucy with her. Ben’s small hands patted out the fires on either side of his father’s skull, surprising Lucy in their gentleness until she realized some of Ben’s own clothing had begun to smolder, and he’d put those sparks out first.

“Ben?” She hovered over him, leaning down as close as she dared to hear his whisper.

“Lucy, we’ve got to go,” Lynn said as she opened a closet and pulled out her rifle, along with a set of keys. “Others live here too, and the storm will be waking them if that ruckus didn’t.”

Ben’s hand grabbed for hers, and she let him hold it. “I think Dad broke my back.”

“Time to go.” Lynn’s hands were on her shoulders, pulling her back from his weak grip.

“B-Ben,” Lucy stuttered, backing away from his pleading eyes and hands still reaching for her. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

The plea changed to wrath in a second, and his hands went from penitence to fists as he struck the floor around him. “You will take me with you! You can’t leave me broken.”

“Ben,” Lucy said from the doorway, “you were broken long before I got here.”

He screamed at them with all the air left inside him, his wordless anger following them down in the lobby, along with the sound of his upper half dragging his useless legs behind him in a futile effort to catch up.

Lucy followed Lynn on wobbly legs to the parking garage. Ben’s screams had brought others from their rooms, but no one was willing to face Lynn’s gun, and they had the streets to themselves. Lucy slid into the passenger seat with relief, dumping her bag in the back and letting her body go entirely slack.

Lynn drove quickly; Lucy watched her eyes darting back and forth in the rearview mirror, not relaxing until they were well beyond the pale fingers of the dead buildings that reached for the sky. The desert opened up around them again, the emptiness of it all somehow reassuring after the cluttered rot of Las Vegas.

“You know where you’re going?” Lucy asked.

Lynn tapped her temple. “It’s all been up here for the past two states.”

“All right,” Lucy said, her head tilting to one side to rest against the cool window. “I trust you.”

The three small words swelled in magnitude in the confines of the car, and Lynn tightened her grasp on the steering wheel. “I want you to know there’s a lot of things in my life I wish I could take back. If I could only choose one, it’d be Carter.”

“I know it,” Lucy said, eyes still shut. “But it’s done now. It is what it is.”

“Maybe so, but I need you to know he asked me for it. Said he couldn’t stand the guilt of dead children, bodies of the people he knew burning in a pit, and him being what put ’em there. He didn’t want to be alone and… he said he couldn’t help but hope you’d be happy, but he hated that it wasn’t with him.”

Tears that she didn’t bother to brush away poured down Lucy’s face. “But it didn’t have to be that way. He didn’t have to die.”