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Mako was on the ground holding a frighteningly still Liza. She seemed so slight and long, like a skein of silk in his thick arms. Bruce stood over them, looking down, his face a mask of concern. When he saw them come through the door, he rushed over to Hannah, holding her back, taking her into his arms.
“What are you doing here? I told you to wait at the house,” he said. “Oh my god, what happened? Are you bleeding?”
Cricket felt frozen at the door, unable to move in, unable to turn away. She wanted to run, suddenly, away from here, away from this place. But her legs felt rooted. There was nowhere else to go with Joshua and Trina out there somewhere.
“Oh, baby, nononono,” Mako moaned. “Don’t leave me, please.”
He rocked back and forth slowly, head down. The first feeling of which Cricket was aware was jealousy. Mako, who she’d loved all her adult life, had never loved her liked that. God, that was pathetic wasn’t it? At a moment like this. But she felt tears start to flood.
Hannah pushed from Bruce’s arms to Mako and Liza, kneeling to ground. “Is she—?”
She put a hand to her sister-in-law’s ghostly white throat, sighed with relief. “She’s still alive. There’s a pulse.”
“There’s so much blood,” said Mako. He was covered with it; Liza’s clothes were black with it. His eyes were glassy, face slack. Shock.
“What happened to her? Who did this?” asked Hannah, voice high with panic. “Where is the blood coming from?”
“She’s been stabbed I think?” said Mako, more of a question than an answer. “Someone stabbed her? Why? What did she ever do to anyone?”
Hannah had dropped the knife to the floor beside them. She picked it up now and used it to cut open Liza’s top.
“Cricket,” Hannah said. “Help me.”
Cricket was startled into action, moved to help as Hannah tore away the fabric, revealing a big gaping wound in Liza’s abdomen between her navel and her rib cage. It pulsed with her heartbeat, oozing black blood. Cricket fought the urge to vomit, to flee, to get away.Stay solid. Stay strong, she told herself,for Hannah.
Hannah was stoic and grim as she shed her coat, then took off her own shirt to press it against Liza’s wound.
“There’s—no time,” said Hannah, pushing Mako away. “We have to stop this bleeding right now, and get her to a hospital. I need more cloths. Someone find towels in the bathroom.”
“How?” said Mako, looking helpless. “Howdo we stop it?”
“We apply pressure, keep changing out the cloths. And someone has to go move that tree and get an ambulance here. Fast.”
Hannah, always in charge. She gave Bruce the abridged version of everything that had happened, while Cricket tried to leech off some of her power, her energy. She found the small bathroom off the open-plan space, and brought back the basket of hand towels from the teak shelf under the sink. Hannah changed it out right away, her shirt already dark with blood from the wound.
“Who are they really? Joshua and Trina? What do they want?” asked Bruce.
“I haveno idea,” said Hannah.
Cricket couldn’t keep her eyes off Liza, who looked so tiny and unearthly, like she was drifting away. Cricket felt sick with self-loathing and regret. For Libby, for Liza, for all the ways she’d betrayed herself and others for Mickey. They were all so quiet, Hannah working on Liza, Bruce staring at the open door. He kept trying his phone, searching for a signal.
Outside the rain kept pounding. A crack of thunder seemed to break some spell.
“Okay,” said Bruce. “We’re going to take the car and find where the tree is down, get a signal and call the police. Hannah and Cricket, get to the car. Mako and I will carry Liza.”
“It’s a really bad idea to move her,” said Hannah, looking up at her husband.
“We are leaving because we can’t stay here waiting for whoever did that to come back,” said Bruce, level and firm. “Now. Let’s go.”
Hannah nodded at the logic, glanced down at Liza. She changed the towel out again and rose, moved over to Cricket, pulled her toward the door.
They stopped in their tracks as Trina filled the door frame, the gun in her hand glinted in the flashlight beam.
Joshua came up behind her, standing a full head taller. They walked inside and closed the door.
“No one is going anywhere, of course,” said Trina. “Sorry. Not Sorry.”
Bruce came up and stood in front of Hannah and Cricket, while Mako stayed weeping on the floor, still with Liza’s head in his lap. When he looked up and saw her, his whole face went slack with shock.
