GAME ON - GoM 2

17

After Tom left, Claire went to Ollie's to check on him. She got Alex's call on the street. Plain to see—well, hear—that Tom had swung by the bookstore on his way out of town.

"I'm going to Ollie's," the girl said. "I wanna make sure he keeps his rest as Dr. Lorrigan told him to."

"Bet you're more than able to keep'im in bed, huh."

"Al!"

"See you at church, then. I'll be there after closing the store."

"Okay, later, then."

"Later. And remember: no granny zone for me any time soon."

"Al!"

Despite her chiding Alex, Claire chuckled after disconnecting. Ollie was as kind as to spare her from spending the afternoon watching sports, and in exchange she allowed him to get out of bed for a whole hour. About five, she made him promise he wouldn't get up save to go to the bathroom and went back home, planning to take a shower before going to church.

She was coming out of her room when she heard noises at the backyard. She hurried to the kitchen. Surely Tricia's dog had found a new spot to open a gap in the hedge, to crawl through for a new spot to dig a hole as to hide his bones in China.

She was so sure she'd find the stubborn pet in their backyard that she didn't pay any attention to what she sensed until she opened the backdoor screen. Only then the rush of violence got to her and she stepped back, just in time to dodge a machete's blow aiming for her head. She was able to slam the door shut and lock it before the runt stood at the doorstep. She left him trying to break in and ran back to her room, hoping the backdoor would hold at least a couple of minutes.

She grabbed her wakizashi and ran out the front door. But she didn't run away crying out for help: she sneaked around the house toward the backyard. She wouldn't let those bastards loose to attack anybody in their way. So she tiptoed along the side wall, a firm grip on the blades, breathing deep to calm down.

The runt wasn't alone. Claire identified three different cores of hate and violence. Three to one wasn't exactly a fair fight, but there was no time to call for backup. So. She reached the corner of the house at the same time that they finally kicked the backdoor open. She was so going to bill Markus for that. She waited to hear them storm into the house to show at the backyard.

One of the three runts was still there and attacked her. Claire took one last deep breath, moving to let her blades do what they did best. So she ducked and feinted as the wakizashi hissed in the air before slicing and stabbing. She knew her frail looks usually played for her, and this time was no exception. The runt had only a moment to be surprised when she took the offensive. She huffed when the man fell at her feet. Good. One down, two to go. She was going to kick their satanic asses out of her home. And they'd better keep from breaking anything—well, other than the backdoor glass they'd already broken.

And the shattered glass was what gave her away when she stepped on it. One of the men in the kitchen spun around and jumped onto her. Claire staggered backwards. She tried to fight back, but the third runt materialized out of nowhere before her and punched her in the face, throwing her down with her feet in the air, her nose bleeding and funny fireworks exploding before her eyes. She'd hardly hit the ground when one of them grabbed her hair and brutally yanked her up.

Adrenaline came to her rescue through the numbing haze of pain. Before the runts had a chance to realize she wasn't as stunned as she seemed, Claire tightened her grip on her blades, stuck one in the thigh of the runt holding her and ducked the other's blow. No flowing with the motion this time. She stabbed the last minion, yanked the wakizashi free and scampered the hell away from there.

She didn't stop at the sidewalk. She kept running like crazy toward the church. She thought of calling Alex, but she couldn't find her phone—surely it'd dropped from her pocket during the fight. She pressed on, holding both blades in one hand to try to wipe the blood from her nose. She wasn't going back home alone. Not with those scumbags in her backyard.