So Lucky by Nicola Griffith

Author:Nicola Griffith
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

* * *

THE LAST TIME I had been this angry, this afraid, I trained my body to a blade. But now I had MS. I went to a gun show to avoid the waiting period and got a Ruger .38 SP101. A short-barreled revolver with a black rubber grip. I got two boxes of shells, a clip-on belt holster, and another holster to attach the gun to the side of my bed at night. Then I went to the range.

Women and men were created equal, one of my mom’s vintage posters read, and Smith & Wesson makes damn sure it stays that way. But Don’t rely on a weapon, my self-defense instructor had said. Easy for her. She was six feet tall and could punch through cinder block. Crips have fewer choices.

I slid the chubby, slick shells one by one into the cylinder and clicked it shut. Maybe this is how the oldest woman in the world with MS survived. Or maybe she was just crazy. Then I started shooting.

* * *

I WAS PUTTING DOWN RIP’S FOOD when my phone chimed. A text from Anton.

<Hey, Mara. I hope all’s well. It would be great to catch you up on what we’re up to here at GAP.>

I blocked his number. The next time I was at the range, every target was his head.

* * *

SEPTEMBER. Johnston disappeared off the net in Louisville. Two days later it was Carmella in Nashville. Kentucky State Police said they’d get to my inquiry in due course. Tennessee did not bother to hide their impatience. I phoned the FBI again and left another message: They’re coming.

* * *

THEY’RE COMING. They’re coming. It was the drumbeat of my days. I went to the range every afternoon. Every evening I slipped the Ruger into its leather holster and clipped it onto the end of the long flat board that went between the mattress and box spring. Every night I fell asleep with my hand touching the butt. The old woman cackled in my dreams.

* * *

THEY’RE COMING. My eyes flick open. The bedroom is hot and thick and silent. My heart lumps under my sternum, like a huge crank turning. It shouldn’t be hot. Someone has turned off the air-conditioning.

The noise, when it comes, is tiny, like a mouse nosing at a piece of paper. From the dining room. My throat is as dry as a corpse’s eyes.

They’re coming.

My mind is slippery with panic and my muscles are blocks of wood. Think. Think.

Another noise. This time from the small hallway outside the bedroom door. Without taking my eyes off the door, I feel down the side of the bed for the Ruger.

The handle begins to turn. A soft laugh. The door opens. Light glints on something, a ring, a knife, as a hand emerges from the shadow, and I lift the gun, realize from the weight that it’s not loaded, it’s not loaded—

—and I woke up hunched against the headboard of the bed with my knees drawn under my chin and Rip staring at me from the comforter.

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