Two Girls Down(77)

“We can’t control that,” said Cap. “We can control what we do.”

“Yes,” she said, lips curling up on her teeth. “We can.”

She turned and headed purposefully toward the cabin.

“Vega!” Cap called.

She whipped around and walked a few steps back to him.

“I’m going in there right now. You can come or not come. If the girls are in there, I’m going to get them and bring them out here. You can come or not come.”

He looked at her and really saw the color of her eyes, a mix of green and blue, thin yellow rays spiking out from the pupils—two watercolor suns.

She turned to go again, and this time Cap put his hand on her shoulder with the intention of pulling her back. In a second she grabbed his wrist and flipped it and kept twisting it like a pipe cleaner; the pain shot through the tendons, and he grabbed the collar of her jacket with his free hand and grunted. She shoved her other hand hard against his sternum, the heel sharp right over his heart. Cap knew it was some martial-arts move, something where you use the muscles of your back and midsection to push forward. He wondered if they fought, really fought, who would win. Vega’s reflexes were faster, but he was probably ultimately stronger, just the cruel benefit of being bigger and a man. That said, if he had to put a dollar down on who would get up more quickly after being hit, that would be Vega.

They both froze, barely breathing.

“Here’s the thing, Vega,” he said, barely louder than the chattering birds around them. “I think you made a mistake too, just not the same one as most people.”



She wasn’t moving. Her fingers stayed cold and clamped around his wrist.

Cap kept going: “Except instead of thinking you’re too special to lose someone, you think you’re special because you already have.”

Vega stared at him, eyelashes coming down halfway, not even a full blink.

“I’m very sorry about your mom and your friend—Perry, right? But losing them doesn’t make you special. My grandfather died from Alzheimer’s, and he killed a fucking Nazi with a knife.”

His voice choked high when he mentioned Art. His mother’s father, a small bowlegged man, the human equivalent of a Jack Russell terrier, always busy, building Cap cars and trucks out of thick wooden blocks. When Cap was ten, Art had told him to lose the “Grandpa.” “You’re practically a man, Max, you can call me Art like my friends.” And then the shitty, undignified end—a bed in the vets’ hospital in Bay Ridge, playing with a child’s tower of rainbow rings.

His nose stung, and he swallowed salt. Vega still didn’t move, kept her hand against him, the other on his wrist. Cap let go of her jacket.

“If they’re dead, they’re already dead,” he said. “If they’re alive, they’ll probably be alive in thirty minutes.”

Vega cocked her head a little and started to open her mouth.

“We play the favorites,” said Cap. “Not the long shot.”

She bent her elbow, and the palm on Cap’s chest relaxed. Slowly she let go of his wrist with her other hand. Then she leaned forward and kissed him forcefully on the mouth.

It happened so fast he didn’t have too much time to react. He felt the pressure from her lips (soft, dry) as if she were trying to pass something through them to him, a message or a germ. Their arms were still tangled together, her one hand still resting lightly on his chest, and then she pulled away. Her eyes moved up and down his face, the neck of her black T-shirt shaking. There was no wind; it was from her heartbeat.

He instantly regretted not holding tight to her shoulders and kissing her back, kissing her cheeks and her forehead and her eyelids. He realized he couldn’t think of a thing to say that made sense, so he thought of what Nell would say.



“WTF, Vega?”

The corner of her mouth turned up in a smile she wouldn’t allow to fully occupy her face, so he focused on that tiny movement, a miracle really.

Then the deafening crack of a gunshot split the air around them, and it was over.





14

They broke apart instantly and ran to the right side of the road, each behind a tree. Vega pulled the Springfield from the holster and flipped the safety. She watched Cap do the same with his ancient Sig. They waited for another shot, which didn’t come. But then they heard voices, loud but unintelligible. Fighting. Vega peered through the branches to the cabin but could see no detail, all the windows dark.

“One of them didn’t want the other to take the shot,” she said.

“Are we certain they’re shooting at us and not each other?” said Cap.

Vega strained to hear specific words but couldn’t get anything, just a “goddammit” here or there from McKie and high-pitched screeching from Dena.

“Doesn’t matter. They’re getting itchy in there, and they’re armed,” said Vega. Then she said, as if it were a full sentence, “So.”

Cap squatted, looked over his shoulder and around the tree at the cabin, then back up to Vega. There was a bluish tint to his face, from either the early light or exhaustion.

“So this is the thirty minutes,” he said.

Vega said again, “And they’re armed.”

Cap exhaled through his nose audibly and then barely shook his head, ending a conversation between himself and himself.