One second, I was just standing there, thinking about Frank as I sipped my cocktail. Thinking about the way his hand felt as it carefully clasped mine. How rough his palm had been, how it hadn’t been the uncalloused, smooth hand of one of the pampered and spoiled boys I’d always dated. And how strong it had been, too. But not in one of those fake I’m-going-to-squeeze-your-hand-as-hard-as-I possibly-can-to-show-you-how-tough-I-am kind of strong.
No, Frank’s hand had the kind of strength that could swing an ax or a hammer, or work on the intricate pieces of his car. Idly, I’d bit my lower lip as I thought of him, my eyes peering up into the trees behind the house.
And, like magic, there he was. My heart leapt as he came running to me, moving like a track and field star athlete as his arms pumped and his legs propelled him forward over the ground like some sort of mythical Greek Olympian.
He shouted something indistinct at me, words I could barely understand over the sweet abandon of my own thoughts and daydreams.
Then, my heart had another reason to flutter. I saw them coming. Saw them running through the trees after Frank, guns in their hands. I gasped and stumbled back a step.
“Frank?” I asked as he flew onto the deck faster than I’d imagined people could travel. For all I could think of, it was like an intense zoom in a film. He was far away and then, suddenly, he was there. “What the–?”
Then my glass was tumbling from my hands as he knocked the wind from me with a full-on body slam, lifting me into his arms like I was nothing more than a small child.
I’d never felt so tiny in my life as he rushed across the wooden patio, his booted feet slamming down like cannons as they pounded on the boards with our combined weight. I’d also never felt so safe as his hand went down to my butt and held me in place against his chest as he went to throw open the door.
Just as he twisted the knob, though, the men behind us chose their time to strike.
I’d heard guns before, but always far off in the distance. Hell, since it was hunting season, I’d been hearing them the whole time I was up here. The crack of a gun, the echo of it as the sound returned to your ears. It was always a little jarring to me, even if the sound was barely louder than a firecracker because of how far away they were being shot.
This, though—this was something else.
The world seemed to ignite with gunfire with deafening explosions and cracks. I screamed as bullets began to rain down around us like a swarm of angry hornets buzzing over and around our heads as we clamored inside, Frank’s large form engulfing mine behind me to cover me. The cabin’s exterior splintered as the projectiles ate into the woods like a hundred hungry, diminutive beavers. The rear windows shattered, the sheets of glass unable to hold their perfect form with so many holes and imperfections forced on them.
Inside, Frank dropped me from his arms and crushed me with his heavy body as he forced me to the ground. He elbowed me hard as he went for his pistol. “You okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah,” I nearly shouted back, my ears ringing from the gunfire outside.
He climbed off me, letting me take a deep breath. “Garage!” he shouted as he drew his gun and spun back to the back door, taking up a crouched, alert position. “Now!”
Garage? We’d left the Audi out front. I glanced to the right and started to get up to head through the living room when another volley of gunfire burst through the rear windows, forcing me back to the ground with a scream as I saw all our hours of hard work get torn apart by random bullets biting into the furniture, knocking books from shelves, and sending shards of glass across the run and hardwood floor.
Squatting down with his back to the door, Frank shouted at me. “Move your ass!”
I scrambled up from my hands and knees, and veered back towards the kitchen.
Frank threw the door open and began shooting back. “Don’t worry about me! I’ll follow!” There was more gunfire, the cabinets flying open with the force of the blows, glasses and ceramic mugs shattering and falling around my head, making me scream.
I made it out of the kitchen, rounded the corner to the mudroom, and headed for the garage. I got my shaking hand up, found the doorknob, then remembered something.
I didn’t have the keys on me. “Frank!”
I couldn’t hear if he said anything from the gunfire flying around.
“Frank!” I yelled again.
“What?” he shouted back, closer now.
“I don’t have the keys!”
“We’ll just have to make a run for it, then!”
“I can’t outrun fucking bullets!”
“It’s either that–” more gunfire, “–or driving a car without keys. Which one do you want?”
I got up into a half-crouch as a bullet shot right through the wall over my head, sending sawdust and sheetrock showering down on me.
My throat feeling like it was about to tear itself apart, I screamed as I pulled the door open and ran through, bent over with my hands over my head like they might actually do something to stop a bullet.
Behind me, I heard a heavy thud against the wall of the mudroom.
I didn’t turn, but just slammed my hand into the garage door opener and ran towards the metal door that began to slowly rise from the concrete.
“Right behind you!” Frank barked as the door to the house slammed shut behind us. “Go, go, go!” Ahead of us, the garage door opened high enough for us to slip through.
I ran, tucked, and rolled underneath, immediately scrambling up at a run, my sneakered feet slipping a little on the concrete driveway. I landed on my knee as I slipped and a shot of pain exploded through me for a split second, but Frank roughly grabbed my elbow and pushed me up and forward, back onto my feet.
“Make for the highway!” he yelled. “We can try to get help there!”
Behind us, the shooting had stopped.
But still, we sprinted down the driveway. We ran as if bullets were still flying right over our heads.
My chest heaved, my throat burning as I gulped air in and breathed it out, chugging like the Little Engine That Could, one of those books Father had read to me all those years ago. With the little train in my mind, I ducked my head lower and slapped the pavement harder and faster as we continued our escape.
“Don’t look back,” Frank yelled beside me. “Don’t even think of looking back!”
Just as we made the second bend in the driveway, though, I stopped in my tracks.
A black SUV was coming up from the highway, racing towards us, bearing down on our unlikely pair. “Get down!” Frank shouted, pulling me into the trees alongside him.
I ran with him as the SUV came to a screeching halt behind us, the smell of burning tires filling the air. A car door opened and slammed shut. “O’Dwyer?” a man’s voice called. “Frank O’Dwyer? That you?”
Frank came to his own screeching halt, grabbing my arm, dirt flying everywhere as he dug his heels in and skidded to a stop. “Wait,” he hissed.
Panic, though, still had a hold of me. “What are you doing? We need to run, Frank!”
He shook his head, shaking little beads of sweat everywhere like a wet dog. “No!” He tugged my arm for me to follow him. “I recognize that voice! It’s okay.”
“O’Dwyer! Come on, man! You need a motherfucking DNA sample or some shit?”
I glanced back in the direction of the black truck, eyes wide as I yanked my arm from Frank’s grip. “Are you sure?”
He took a step towards me and looked down into my eyes. “Do you trust me?” he asked, his breaths still coming as hard and heavy as mine.
I looked at him in fear, my chest heaving as I tried to control my breathing. He’d saved my life back there. I knew it. But something was going on. I didn’t know what, but there was something serious. I knew Frank didn’t have anything to do with it, though. That was one thing I could be sure of, as sure as I could be of up being up and down being down. I glanced away from him.
“Ashley? Do you trust me?” he asked again, drawing my attention back to him.
I heard the crunch of boots as someone came into the woods. “Frank!”
And, no matter what happened, I knew he’d put his life on the line for mine. He’d throw his body down over me like he did earlier, and take a bullet in the back if it meant it would slow it down. I nodded and took a step towards him. “Yes, Frank. I trust you. I don’t what else to trust, but I trust you.”
He gave me a brief smile as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Falkowski?” he shouted back the way we’d come. “Falkowski, that you?”
“Sure is, partner! You coming out?”
Frank looked back at me questioningly.
I nodded.
“Yeah, Simon,” Frank called. “We’re coming out. But we gotta move. There are some bad dudes after us.”
That, I thought, was putting it mildly.