A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(70)

He drew back his arm to slap her but stopped short when the smaller one said, “There they is, Darryl!” His mouth formed an O as he pointed to us.

“Well, well, well,” said Darryl.

He let Miss Billie go. She scurried off behind the POOL RULES sign. We came into the forecourt and stopped where it met the pool. There were about twenty feet separating us. Emma and Bronwyn stood at the front of our little group, Enoch and I at the back. Millard was silent and, I hoped, sneaking around to flank the highwaymen. I kept Paul behind me.

“Y’all must be new in town,” said Darryl. He cleared his throat loudly. “The road you was on is a toll road. What’s the toll today, Jackson?”

“Gets a sight higher if you try an’ skip out on it.” Jackson joined the other highwayman at their squad car, leaned against the door, and hooked his thumbs into his holster belt. He’d been looking us up and down, and he didn’t seem worried about what he saw. His lips broadened into a greasy smile. “How ’bout their cash and their wheels.” He nodded toward the garage. “Why, I think I seen one of those babies in a magazine.”

I could see the residents of Flamingo Manor peeking out through their blinds, like a scene in an old Western movie.

“You can go to hell,” Emma said.

Now Darryl was smiling, too. “Bless her heart, ain’t she got a mouth.”

“I don’t allow anybody to disrespect me,” said Jackson. “Least of all a woman.”

“Least of all,” Darryl agreed. He snorted again, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed his nose with it. “’Scuse me.” He turned slightly, pressed a finger to one nostril, and with a sharp exhalation fired a little black snot rocket onto the ground, where it proceeded to steam, eating a small hole in the pavement.

I heard Emma gag.

“Wow,” Enoch whispered beside me. He sounded jealous.

“That’s one nasty habit, Darryl,” Jackson said.

“It ain’t a habit. It’s an affliction.”

Emma took a step toward the men. Bronwyn followed her lead.

“So he’s got nuclear phlegm,” said Emma to the short one. “What’s your peculiarity—being the planet’s biggest asshole?”

Darryl burst out laughing. Jackson’s smile vanished. He unleaned himself from the patrol car and unbuttoned his holster.

Emma and Bronwyn took another step toward them.

“I think they wanna dance,” said Darryl. “Which one you want?”

“The littler one,” he said, staring at Emma. “I like her mouth.”

The girls broke into a run toward the two men. Jackson went for his gun, and Emma, who had kept her hot, glowing hands hidden behind her back, whipped them around to her front and grabbed the man’s gun as he raised it.

The gun instantly melted. As did Jackson’s right hand. He fell to the ground, writhing and howling.

Darryl dove behind the squad car. Before he could begin firing, Bronwyn rammed the driver’s-side door with her shoulder. The car skidded sideways, tires squealing, then tipped onto its side and fell over on its roof, pinning the man beneath it.

The whole encounter had lasted about fifteen seconds.

“Holy Mother of Moses!” I heard Adelaide shout, and I turned to see him watching from the doorway of his bungalow.

Potts was cheering and cackling in his wheelchair. A few doors down, a woman peeked out of her room—had to be the baroness, because she was wearing a sparkly dress and long white gloves—and she sang out, “Thank Goooooooooood!” in a quivering vibrato.

“Uh-oh,” Bronwyn said, peeking under the car. “Are they dead?”

“Close enough,” Emma said, giving the short one a nudge with her foot.

Miss Billie emerged from behind the trash cans, trailed by her three shivering poodles. “There was a third one,” she said. “Little skinny fella.”

“Watch ouuuuuuuuut!” sang the baroness.

She was pointing one of her gloved hands toward the loop exit. We heard feet pounding pavement. The third man had jumped from wherever he’d been hiding and was bombing toward the loop exit.

“STOP!” Emma shouted, and started after him.

The guy looked back once, terrified. Then he seemed to make a decision, and he pulled a gun from his waistband and turned to face us.

“Git on the ground!” he shouted at us. “Don’t move a muscle!”

We put up our hands and did as he asked. From the corner of my eye, I saw Miss Billie dig something out of her purse. “Here you go, sweeties!” she said in the high-pitched voice she used with her dogs.

The man spun and pointed his gun at her, but when he saw her poodles, he laughed. “You gonna sic them little things on me? You done lost yer mind, lady. Now, git on the ground over there with the rest of ’em.”

Miss Billie raised her hands and walked toward us. Her poodles yipped and scarfed the treats.

The man came toward us, cautious, his stiff arms shaking with adrenaline. He saw what we’d done to his friends, and he looked ready to do worse to us.

“I’ll have the keys to that there automobile,” he said. “Somebody toss ’em at me.”

Enoch took the keys from his pocket and threw them. They landed on the pavement near the man’s feet.