“Maybe,” Vi said. “Twenty-one shots in the stomach.”
His eyes got huge and he looked like he might start crying again.
“But I doubt this little guy’s got rabies,” Vi said, giving the bunny a stroke on the head.
“My lovelies?” Gran called. “Where are you?”
It was no use hiding.
“In the kitchen,” Vi called. “Eric brought home a baby rabbit. It’s hurt, and we’re trying to fix it up.”
There was mumbling—Gran, talking in a low voice.
“We won’t let them take you,” Eric whispered to the rabbit, leaning over it protectively. “Old Mac will have to shoot me first.”
A minute later Gran appeared in the kitchen, dressed in her day-off clothes: a tan cotton pantsuit with a wide belt that made her look like she was going on safari—all that was missing was the pith helmet. She had a green scarf tied jauntily around her neck; Gran loved her scarves. She held a cigarette. Her gray hair, curled and held in place with Aqua Net, made a frizzy halo around her head. Her fuzzy yellow slippers, which she called her house shoes, were on her feet. “All right. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
“Vi saved it!” Eric said. “Old Mac shot it, but Vi brought it back to life! You should have been here, Gran. You should have seen.”
Gran stepped closer, looked at Vi with her eyes narrowed through the haze of cigarette smoke. “Is that so?”
Vi laughed. “Not really. We thought it might be dead at first, but it was just stunned. In shock. I’m more worried about Eric. The rabbit bit him.”
Gran came over and inspected the bite. While she looked at it, Vi threw Eric a warning glance: Don’t say another word. This is our secret: yours, mine, and the bunny’s.
She kicked the battery farther under the table.
“It doesn’t look too bad to me. We’ll get it cleaned up and bandaged,” Gran said. “Give you an antibiotic just in case.”
Then she peered down at the rabbit on the table. With sure hands, she probed at the wound on its haunch. “There’s a gash and a burn from the gunshot. She’ll need a few stitches.”
“It’s a girl?” Eric asked.
“Most definitely,” Gran said.
“Do I get to keep her?” he asked.
Gran gave him a tender smile. “For the time being.”
“If we let her go, Mac will kill her,” Eric said, eyes filling with tears again.
“We won’t let that happen,” Gran promised, giving Eric’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.
Then she looked past Eric, over to the doorway. “You can come closer if you’d like,” she said.
Vi turned and saw a girl standing at the entrance to the kitchen. She looked to be about Vi’s age, maybe a little younger. Hard to tell for sure because of the shape she was in. She had bruises on her face and arms. She was so pale Vi could see the blue veins under her skin. She was wearing light-blue hospital pajamas—drawstring pants and one of those awful smocks that tied in the back. Her brown hair was pulled into a messy ponytail and covered up with a blaze-orange knit cap—something a hunter would wear. She had on a pair of dirty sneakers that were way too big, and Vi was sure she’d seen Old Mac wearing those same sneakers out in the garden.
“My grandchildren found a rabbit,” Gran said. “A doe. Come see.” She held out her arm, beckoning to the girl, who moved toward them slowly, as skittish as the rabbit on the table.
Eric looked from the girl to Vi, his face a question mark: Who is she? What’s going on?