Nobody has ever accused Ruby of being nice, least of all me, but now it’s like all those times when we were kids, when my friends would laugh at her Goodwill fashion finds or her latest Miss Clairol disaster—currently spiky maroon. I have an inexplicable urge to defend my older sister.
As if she knows we’re talking about her, another message dings my phone.
He glances at the screen. “She says you better have ordered the damn decorations. What should I tell her, Jade? Did you order the damn decorations?”
The decorations were the source of our latest vicious battle, after I told her to burn the black and gold monstrosities she bought from the dollar store. When the cashier refused to give her a refund, she sent me a Venmo request for twenty-seven dollars. I sent her fifty dollars and three fire emojis, just to piss her off.
My decorations, a dozen classy chalkboard signs and glass bottle garlands I plan to fill with fresh flowers and string with miles of twinkle lights around every tree in Dad’s backyard, are downstairs in the basement we just walked through, in one of those big boxes gathering dust.
“Tell her that she was supposed to order the decorations. Not me.”
One brow disappears behind the mask. “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s going to like that.”
He’s not wrong. When Ruby gets that message, she’s going to lose her mind. But hopefully, once she stops screaming at the phone, once she calms down long enough to think, she’ll realize something’s not right.
“Let me ask you this, what if it was Baxter and Beatrix acting this way? Cussing at each other over text message, egging each other on just for spite? You only get one family, you know. All it takes is for one of you to switch things up and say you’re sorry, to change your behavior. My mama used to always tell me, you can’t change your sister, but you can change the way you respond to her.”
His sudden wisdom takes me by surprise, and though I don’t necessarily disagree, this is no time for a lecture. Not when it’s coming from an armed man in a ski mask, and definitely not when I’m clutching a screwdriver behind my back, silently debating the most vulnerable spot to sink it in.
His neck.
If I’m lucky the metal tip will slice right through his jugular.
I edge closer. “Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that we agreed she would do the decorations, and that I would handle the catering.”
He shakes his head. “You’re awfully stubborn. Has anybody ever told you that?”
I hold my breath. Wait.
The moment turns sharp, measured.
The instant his attention drops to the phone, one word whispers through my brain.
Now.
I body-slam him from the side, sending him stumbling toward the stairs. The phone flies out of his hand and goes spinning down the hall, bouncing off the floorboards like a pinball. His other hand, the one holding the gun, flails for balance.
Look where you’re aiming, Cam is always coaching the Bees. Never close your eyes to the ball. My ball is that spot at the base of his neck, a velvety patch just above his collar where the skin is marshmallow soft. I glue my gaze there, order my hand to strike there.
I bring my arm down hard, shrieking with fear, feral and black and sticky. At the last second he twists away, using the railing for leverage, hoisting himself up and spinning away. The shank misses his neck and slides down his shoulder into his back, slipping right through the fabric and skin and slamming against something hard. Bunched muscle? His shoulder bone? Whatever it is, it’s like hitting a rock wall, a sudden stop that jangles all the way up my shoulder.
“You bitch,” he howls.
He kicks me off him, the screwdriver snagging in his shirt. There’s a loud ripping noise, then air. My fingers come away empty, the plastic handle wrenched from my grip. My weapon clatters to the floor by his feet, and he shoves it away with a shoe. It skids down the hall and into the bedroom—too far for me to lunge for it, especially considering the weapon in his other hand.
The gun, aimed at my chest.
“Shiiiiit.” I think it. I scream it. Maybe both.
Retaliation comes like a cannon shot, a sudden backhand to the face. I didn’t see it coming, didn’t notice the smooth arc of his arm coming at me until it’s too late. The heel of his wrist clocks me in the ear, but it’s the gun that hits me the hardest. It slams my cheek with a wet crunch, whipping my head backward, blasting stars across my vision, hurling my body into the wall.
I slide down it, and then…nothing. The room swims in and out of focus. There’s a strange ringing in my right ear, but no pain. Only a heavy pressure on my cheek, a dull, empty moment where my brain acknowledges the blow, but it doesn’t hurt. Not yet.