With an effort, Ava smoothed her brow. “Am I now?”
“No.” Maggie chuckled. Then sighed. “I hate it for you, sweetheart, I do, but I think–”
The vase shattered; that was their first indication that something was wrong. There was a pretty glass vase – squat, with octagonal cuts that scattered the light – full of fresh daylilies sitting in the middle of their small round table. The heavy yellow blooms bowed their heads toward the tabletop, the breeze stirring them. And then the glass was exploding in all directions; water sprayed across their faces; the blooms erupted into yellow showers of confetti.
The window of the café came down in a rippling sheet, raining onto the 14x14 tiles in brilliant droplets of glass.
Someone screamed.
Maggie was out of her seat and pulling Ava beneath the table with her before Ava registered the crack-crack of the gunfire. She wasn’t a sheltered child. She’d been in attendance the afternoon Ghost had taken Aidan up to the old Teague cattle property and showed him how to handle a gun. Ghost had put Ava in front of him and held his own hands around hers for a round or two, letting her get the feeling of the weapon’s powerful kick.
It was gunfire she heard now. She recognized it. Amid the shattering of glass, the toppling of chairs, the breaking of dishes, the screaming of patrons, the swearing of her mother, and the awful pounding of her own pulse in her ears.
Ava was pushed down to the tiles and Maggie covered her with her body, her hands holding Ava’s head tight against her knees. Ava felt the smooth warm bands of metal that were Maggie’s rings against the skin of her cheek. Under the table, where they hunkered, Ava could see broken dishes, crisp white hunks of jagged porcelain against the orange of the tile. The raspberries had landed with wet red splatters, almost like blood. The cream spread in wide arcs; lumps of sausage, nuggets of potato gathered in the grout lines. There was a column of tiny sugar ants making slow progress from a flower pot toward the spilled food, right beneath her nose. Her eyes latched onto them. Under the din of the shouting, the shattering, the endless automatic gunfire, Ava withdrew to a deep, safe place inside her head and concentrated on the ants: their fragile legs, the tendrils of their antennae, the orderly way they cared nothing for the chaos, only the food.
They were cute, if ants could be such a thing. Cute little black baby ants, all ready to lap up the cream and berries…
There was an awful squealing sound, and then Maggie was pulling her from beneath the table, out into the sunshine. Ava watched her mother’s boot cut a path of devastation through the ants, and wanted to cry out in horror. Instead, she lifted her head, scrambled to her feet in Maggie’s wake, and stood up amid the wreckage.
The patio tables were overturned, the white tablecloths unfurling in the breeze like flags of surrender. The entire bank of windows in the café had been destroyed, and through the yawning chasm, Ava glimpsed cowering patrons, the bakery counter shattered, the tables upended, white blossoms of damage on the honeyed, frescoed walls. Bullet holes. Outside, the tiles were littered with spilled food, daylily carnage, dropped bags. A blue sweater that caught Ava’s shell-shocked eyes.
The elderly couple who’d given them curious glances was on the ground. The man lay on his back, staring sightless at the sun, his wife bent over him, screaming in a high, thin, frail voice. A tide of blood crept outward from under the man’s shoulders.
So much blood. So much red, shiny blood.
“God,” Maggie said. “Oh, Jesus.” She pulled Ava into her side. “Don’t look, baby.”
But it was far too late for that.
Julian staggered out onto the patio, bleeding from a wound in his arm, his always-happy face twisted in anguish. He moved toward the elderly couple, praying aloud. Sirens screamed down the street. People were sobbing.
“Mama…” Ava said.
Maggie had her cell phone pressed to her ear. “A drive-by,” she said into it. “A goddamn drive-by.”
“That’s an automatic weapon,” Ava said.
Beside her, Mercy glanced her direction. “What?”
“The gun they used in the drive-by. An AK-47. That’s an automatic weapon,” she repeated the phrases because she’d heard them before, not because they held any meaning for her. She turned to the tall man beside her for confirmation. “Isn’t it?”
Mercy’s face worked through a hilarious sequence of confused and baffled expressions. Then he settled on a serious one, black brows knitted together. Ava wondered, for a pregnant moment, if he would pat her on the head and tell her not to worry about something like that. “Leave this to the adults,” like James would say.
But Mercy said, “It has that capability, sure. But you can fire a single shot at a time if you want. It’s versatile.”
Ava nodded. “But it was automatic today, at the drive-by, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” His tone was low and deep and gentle. She wanted to dive into it, like the black-surfaced pond up at the cattle property. “It was. They…um…they wanted to really scare folks, and they were in a hurry.”
She took a deep breath. “They were shooting at us, weren’t they?”
Mercy’s eyes, liquid black, softened, drank her in like he didn’t want to have to answer her, and wanted his gaze to do the talking. But again, he was honest with her. “It’s looking that way.”
They were in the clubhouse, the common room, on one of the black leather sofas with chrome legs. Ava’s sneakers dangled in the air above the floorboards, swaying forward and back as she flexed her toes. Her white shoelaces were stained with bursts of red and blue from the spilled berries at the café. Ghost and Maggie were talking in restless, red-tinged voices over in front of the bar. Maggie had tears glittering in her eyes, but not a one had fallen. Her denim jacket was splashed with cream. There were little chunks of potatoes on the toes of her boots. “…do something…” she was saying, her chest heaving as she breathed and talked and fumed. Her hands trembled.
Ghost curled a thick lock of her blonde hair around his hand. “I know, baby, I know.” His voice was soothing, but Ava saw the tension in her father, the fine tremors under his skin. He was so furious, and so composed.
Beside her on the sofa, Mercy sat with feet braced apart on the floor, elbows resting on his knees, large hands hanging between his thighs.
