“So you want me to stay behind with one of the shotguns?” Matt asked, despite his mouth being stuffed full with a bit of cheese and potato perogy.
“You and Kayla,” I said. “Six-hour shifts with the shotgun and the handheld, round the clock, until we get back. If this goes bad, you call Justin for backup.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Sara said. “Kayla’s never even held a gun.”
“I’ve held a gun,” Kayla said. “You don’t even know me.”
“This may be our best chance,” I said.
“You really think we’re in danger?” Fiona asked. “You really think they’d come here?”
“They wouldn’t come here,” Graham said. “We’re too strong.”
“You’re overconfident,” I said. “But you’re probably right. There are way easier pickings out there. For now, at least.”
“What do you mean?” Fiona asked. “You think they’ll go after Natalie and Tabitha again?”
“I doubt it. The Girards have too many people and guns.”
“Now who’s overconfident?” Lisa asked.
“Well either way,” Graham said, “we’re not at risk.”
“But someone is,” Fiona said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Someone is. So we go up to Silver Queen Lake and we take these guys out. And we do it when they least expect it.”
“Tonight,” Lisa said. “Midnight.”
I nodded.
Sara shook her head.
“We’ll be careful,” I said. “We’ll stay safe.”
“You’d better,” she said quietly.
I didn’t really need an excuse to get Sara alone after dinner, since I’d be leaving with Lisa and Graham just after midnight. We went for a walk down to the barn, and I reached out for her hand at great personal risk.
She took it, but she didn’t seem too happy about it.
“I want to talk to you about something,” I said as I caught the first whiff old the horses. “But I don’t want to make it a big deal.”
“What a spineless way to start an intervention,” she said. “Just tell me.”
“What’s the deal with you and Kayla?”
“There’s no deal. I don’t like her.”
“That’s not like you, Sara. You’re known for liking people.”
She shrugged. “I’ve known Kayla longer than you have. I’ve known her long enough to know what she’s about. And I’ve known girls like her for much longer than that.”
“What does that even mean?”
She let go of my hand. “You really don’t get it, Baptiste. No man ever does. Women like Kayla go through life expecting to be treated special because they’re pretty.”
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, Sara, but you’re not ugly.”
“How romantic.”
“You know what I mean. It’s not like you aren’t treated better because you’re attractive.”
“We’re all treated better because we’re attractive. Do you think a newcomer like you could have been voted onto the Protection Committee if you’d looked like crap?”
“I do have some actual experience…”
“But being pretty is not enough. We built this family with hard work and by taking care of each other. Kayla comes along for the ride because she has long, blond hair and big, perky boobs.”
I sighed. I knew what I should say, that Sara was blinded by some kind of prejudice, that the only reason she couldn’t see all the good in Kayla was because she was putting all her energy into ignoring it.
But what could I actually say that would change her mind? What could I come up with that would actually make a difference for Kayla?
“I’ve been pushing Matt away,” I said. “He’s been getting on my nerves and I haven’t been working hard enough to let it go.”
“I’m aware that you’re an asshole,” she said. There was a hint of a smile.
“I need to accept that I’m putting my crap onto him. That whatever faults he has are nothing compared to how I build them up in my mind.”
She shook her head. “This isn’t the same thing, Baptiste. Matt’s a bit of an idiot, but he’s a good kid. Kayla’s not. And now this prepper garbage…”
“I’m going to work on it. I’m going to do my best to go easier on him.” I took her hand and brought it up to kiss. “I’d be really grateful if you’d try to do the same for Kayla.”
“I can’t do that.”
“If we keep pushing them away, they’re going to move closer to Justin.”
“So?”
“So come on, Sara. You don’t see what’s happening here? Justin is becoming a problem. We can’t risk giving him a couple of new allies just because we’re stubborn.”
She nodded slowly. “I know. I’ll try.”
I leaned in and gave her a kiss. “I love you, Sara.”
She smiled.
“What?” I asked.
“You meant it that time.”
“What?”
“Sometimes it sounds like you’re just humouring me, like you feel you should say it because we just had sex or you just said something stupid. But that one was real.”
“Okay…”
“I love you,” she said.
She always meant it.
Today is Thursday, December 20th.
Graham and I hooked up the plow just before midnight without more than a small amount of trouble, and Lisa joined us a few minutes later, carrying the beat-up leather guitar case I’d kept in the basement.
“What the heck is that for?” Graham asked. “Baptiste’s gonna sing these guys to death?”
“Sing them to heaven with some Mumford & Sons,” I said.
“It’s not a guitar,” Lisa said.
“Oh,” Graham said.
She handed the case to me.
I put it in the cab of the gravel truck, behind the bench.
“Well,” Graham said, “what is it?”
“Not here,” I said.
Graham drove us through the first gate and then to the bridge, almost hitting 80 kph in the snow. There’s no way I would have been comfortable taking it that fast.
He stopped at the gate and I opened the door to hop out.
“Hold on,” he said. “What’s in the case?”
“A gun,” I said.
I hopped out and unlocked the gate.
Graham didn’t drive through at first, so I waved at him to get going. He shook his head and drove up past the gate.
I climbed back into the truck.
“What kind of gun?” he asked as he started driving toward Cochrane. “You have a hunting rifle or something?”
“A C12 light machine gun,” I told him. “It’s only semi-auto, but it does the job.”
“What… the heck?” He turned to Lisa. “You knew about this?”
She nodded.
“But… we could have been using this,” he said. “The whole time… the attack at the airport…”
“We didn’t need it,” I said. “It’s for emergencies only.”
“If that wasn’t an emergency―”
“It wasn’t. And now we’re going to use it on those two cunts at Silver Queen Lake.”
I watched Graham cringe at the language. I made a mental note to say ‘cunt’ more often. Alanna used to say it all the time; she said that it was part and parcel of being a post-feminist, whatever the hell that meant.
“I can’t believe you guys kept this from me,” Graham said. “You don’t trust me?”
“It’s not about trust. It’s about needing to know. Lisa and I are both trained to use it―”
“Wait… you showed her how to shoot it?”
“It’s not that hard,” Lisa said. “Just hold on tight and shoot.”
“So I know that if something happens while I’m gone, Lisa’s back at the cottage with the C12. That’s why she and I never scavenge together. Well… that and the sexual tension.”